Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban_logic
Ripping out grass I hope 
People around here plant too much grass in the most wasteful spaces (strips between driveways, sidewalks, etc). I bet we could cut our water consumption by a good 15-20% just by getting rid of un-used grass. I mean, i understand why people want a patch to play on, but why not cut out all the grass you don't use? You'll save money on water, you won't have to mow as much, etc. Fast food and retail centers could also get rid of grass. |
For the most part, I agree with you on that. I think industrial areas, shopping centers, churches, parking lots, etc., should use less grass and more natural shrub and rock. Particularly industrial areas, where having thick green grass doesn't make their property look
any better, and is just a waste of money (or it's poorly maintained, in which case it looks worse anyway). The fact is, grass only has a purpose for a few months in Utah, the rest of the year it's either covered by snow, leaves, needles, it's brown/dead/yellow, and it's all compressed. In the summer it's nice, especially compared to the common grass in some other states like Florida or So. California, but so much work goes into making it look good for 3 months and then it just looks awful for the rest of the year. I think the worse looking parts of town would do good to just replace their grass with lava rock or something like that. It'd look so much better. The church on Murray-Holladay Rd. around 1300E just did a minor xeriscape recently where they took out a bit of grass along the sidewalk and replaced it with rocks and shrubs; they still have grass but not nearly as much, and it looks a ton better now.
However, neighborhoods.. I'm not too sure about. I would never xeriscape my yard as it is now because I don't want to have the ugliest yard in the neighborhood. It's not that all xeriscaping necessarily looks bad (I've seen some that really look good, but they usually belong to professional gardeners anyway), I just don't want my house to stick out like a sore thumb. We have a sidewalk all around our street and a consistent, well maintained grass strip between everyone's sidewalk and road. If it were a neighborhood better planned for that type of landscaping, I definitely would. Overall I think that's the direction new neighborhoods should be going. It just bothers me when someone in the avenues or sugarhouse decides to rip out their grass, right up to the property line, and replace it with red bark. It makes the entire neighborhood look crappy (and with bark, the house alone will only look good for a couple weeks).
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YAY Market Street's still happening! 
Even if it is in SOUTH SLC
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