Makenna Sowards— Free response 4, Reflection on Lawn Culture

For my term paper, I wrote about how the view on lawns as beauty of nature has affected the human psyche and perception of what nature is and how it should be viewed. Although I explore this in my essay, I wanted to discuss it here as well because it's an interesting topic that is relevant to a lot of our class discussion on love, beauty, and the use of the environment for our own benefit. We've discussed before that the current, general, human view of the environment is examining how it benefits us the most, and preserving it how we must in order for it to keep benefitting us. I feel like this is greatly reflected in the lawn culture most often seen in suburban America, the perfectly cut, bright green grass, neat mulch beds, and trimmed hedges all manipulated to appear exactly as the homeowner wants. The complete control of human hands over the environment around us is what most neighbors consider beautiful. No wild growth or long branches, or wild flowers that are now considered weeds can enter the yard without being looked down upon. The true natural beauty of nature, one that doesn't rely on the manipulation of humans, no longer seems to have a place in our living area. We only see our gardens as beautiful when we exact complete control over how it looks, but who are we to decide how nature is supposed to look? Who are we to claim we know which plants are beautiful and which are not?