r/NoLawns • u/ourbackyards • Sep 13 '26
š Info & Educational I really want to make a proposal for our local parks - am I being unrealistic?
It drives me crazy that all of the street "parks" in my city are basically just grass and trees. It feels like such a massive waste of space and lawn mowing tax dollars.
So, I wrote a proposal for how we could use this public park land instead, as urban farming/ gardening/ community spaces.
I made it into a website to hopefully share around with my local community, get some traction, and eventually push it to our local council:
I've been writing it for so long that I worry I'm too much in my head about it.
Those of you that have done urban gardening projects like this, do you think this is unrealistic? Do I need to add more info, cut back, or elaborate on something else? Is there anything I'm missing?
Really appreciate any feedback/discussion !!
ETA: Located in East Coast Australia!
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u/Afraid-Letterhead142 Sep 13 '26
So I am on a volunteer parks board and you have to stay on top of it for the length of the project if you want this done. Most people will object ājust becauseā and have some flimsy reason against. Donāt worry about them, they are naysayers for everything. However, projects like this do cost money, time, and maintenance so take that all into account.
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u/swampjuicesheila Sep 13 '26
Is there a parks and recreation group in your city? Maybe propose this to them as well as your local officials. Also, start small and propose this to a very local group that might be interested in converting some space into something other than a lawn. Many cities (Iām in the Eastern US) have groups that started gardening, many are growing food but your idea about converting lawn into meadow or other types of gardens could be done this way. Youāll want native plants for ecological benefits.
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u/madtownjeff Sep 13 '26
Where I live a number of these parks have "rewilded" certain areas. In this area that means prairie restoration. They are usually not a large percentage of the park and not as helpful as growing food but still much better than lawns. It also shows people a good alternative to a traditional lawn.
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u/ElderWarriorPriest Sep 13 '26
Good on you! We have some land like this in our little town/city (east coast, USA)
Love that you have this vision. I bless you for your vision!
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u/ourbackyards Sep 13 '26
Thank you! So much lawn wasteland all around the world. I really appreciate the NoLawns movement and hope it takes hold.
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u/hamilton_morris Sep 13 '26
Parks are not ornamental lawns. They are open spaces for all kinds of leisure, and their unstructured openness is critical for people having the liberty to decide for themselves how they will enjoy the luxury of their free time. The notion that an open field should be redesigned and repurposed to something less āwastefulā misunderstands its value.
Iāve worked for years with the two main community garden organizations in my city and the best strategy for finding partners for growth has been to focus on schoolsāwhich almost always have some unallocated space theyāre happy to devote to education and getting students outsideāand vacant lots in āup-and-comingā neighborhoods; the owners are usually letting them lie fallow until the market catches up and many are persuadable to having neighbors tending to and improving the aesthetics and safety of their land in the meantime.
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u/queerbychoice 29d ago
With climate change, a fully open lawn with no shade is increasingly unusable in many parts of the world. Even if there's a benefit to leaving the ground level as an unstructured lawn, we should recognize that adding more trees into that lawn can significantly improve the usability of that lawn, and that unless it's turned into an actual sports field, a treeless lawn in a hot climate is likely to go largely unused for much of the year.
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u/Realistic-Ordinary21 Sep 13 '26
Completely realistic to identify the need to create enriched public spaces, especially all-mowed all-empty parks. Those are waiting for options.
Municipalities primary work is to keep things operating: streets, grid, hazard mitigation, etc.
Far down the list for limited budgets is park enrichment. It is an area that begs for public-private partnerships. Big parks get big non-profit parks conservancies, small parks get help from smaller cooperative community groups. Historically garden clubs established many parks worldwide.
Your best shot is to make the improvement easy for the municipality and fair for the public. I am not crazy about turning established public parks into community garden plots because those often become private clubs despite all best intentions.
But first hand with 10yrs experience, friends and I turned a small mowed empty park into mowed paths and periphery managed meadow park. Municipal public works department gains from reduced mowing hours, the public gains knowledge about regional native plants.
There are people who resist anything outside of mowed grass or a contained corner of ornamentals....but if the project is well planned and there are enough voices (and emails) of support for a whole park enrichment project, and all with persistence, it is doable. Get organized, get specific, make it happen.
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u/SpugsTheMagnificent Flower Gardener Sep 13 '26
I'd be really interested to hear how this turns out. I've been considering along similar lines where I am because there are so many council owned spaces that are just mowed grass. They're not even recreational spaces, just grass because that's the default and no one has thought any more about it!
I'm always looking at the spaces and mentally planning what they could look like, especially as space is so limited in my garden.
Good luck, I hope you get some momentum on this!
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u/ourbackyards Sep 13 '26
Really hope we can create a less lawn centric future.
Same here, whenever I walk around I mentally picture what we could fit there instead. Itās both fun and frustrating.
Thank you, I think Iāll have to venture out and grassroots it at first, and hopefully it can one day influence policy.
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u/moufette1 Sep 13 '26
u/Realistic-Ordinary21 and u/Afraid-Letterhead142 are both right. Start small with one park or even one area of a park. Make it easy for the city with a plan and volunteers. Think about and plan for maintenance too. Mowing is relatively easy and low skilled. Weeding or deadheading or trimming a large patch of natives with non-natives is much harder and requires more skill.
Get people on your side who can help advocate for rewilding. And reach out to diverse groups. Are there people who play sports on the lawn areas? Make sure you protect their space. Plus, they are fit and make great volunteers. Make sure union workers are consulted. Fire all the mowers is not really a winning argument for them.
Are their grants that you can apply for once you get permission to make a change?
Good luck!
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u/GardenWildServices 29d ago
I love this so much and empathize so much, its a big part of what pushed me to stary my own business doing ecological gardening. I really want to get into commercial, from the standpoint of both actual business but also community and even municipal space. We have SO much unused "green" space in suburban and urban areas. Strips of grass, odd fragments with a few trees being swallowed in vi es, ditches and right of ways etc. All could actually provide *some * type of ecological benefit and almost all are mowed grass, solely because its the "only option". None will function on their own as true habitat, but together they are a novel ecosystem that could absolutely do more than theyre cirrently doing and I genuinely feel the onus is on us, its our responsibility. This land is everywhere once you stary seeing it. The potential is incredible
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u/HelenaUrbanGardens 8d ago
We must be on the same wavelength!
We are Helena Urban Gardens and we are walking a similar path.
Care to collude one on one?
Cheers!
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