#nolawns

frick them cars, kids and lawns. I love urban planning and riding my bike. If you are a carbrain, or a breeder don’t interact. Okay now that I have like all the buzzwords :-) Hello my name’s Luke, I’m currently 21 years old and go by he/they pronouns, I moved to tumblr since twitter is falling apart and I have to scramble to find my place on social media platforms again.

I love board- and video games, Magic the Gathering, DnD or Pathfinder (only 2e though) and cartoons like The Owl House, She-Ra and Infinity Train. Currently really into punk-rock and indie rock music, but I have been known to also be a soft hoe and listen to very dreamy indie sounds.

That said, I might be half decent at recognizing native plants, but I don't know a thing about the more obscure and less well known types. Like, edible fruits people don't eat? What are they called? What do they taste like? What wild and wacky flowers do I not know exist? What about rare plants, or ones that look similar to what we know but are completely different? What about stange animals?

Anyways, if/when you're in the mood to ramble I would love to hear about all the different plants.

Well, native plants will of course be unique to where you live, so I can only speak to my own area...but where I live, there is a little known fruit called a Pawpaw (not to be confused with Papaya, which is a different thing).

I think lots of people know about pawpaw, but despite a great deal of interest in commercializing it, this fruit is never found in stores due to being very fragile and spoiling soon after ripening.

You have to eat the pawpaw right after it falls from the tree and not a minute too late. It has a wonderfully soft, smooth texture and tastes like a mixture of banana and mango. The flesh literally melts in your mouth. I came upon a windfall of perfectly ripe pawpaws in the woods one day last fall, and it was a transcendent experience; I'm still haunted by how delicious they were. God's perfect food.

The thing is, when you go driving around in my area, you will see wild pawpaw trees everywhere there are streams and low-lying areas. You'd have to watch them closely because the possums love pawpaw, but I wonder how many people know to...

Flowers! I'd love to talk about flowers. You see, the plants that end up on lists of native wildflowers for butterfly gardens are a small selection that have been bred and cultivated by nurseries...but there are so many more.

For example, look at the Redwhisker Clammyweed:

Delightful. And I didn't even know it was a thing. 

I'll add some of my own photos now. Here is a flower that popped up on its own in my back yard:

Purple passion flower! Its fruit is also edible.

Here is a native Ruellia I found in the pavement:

Spring Blue-Eyed Mary at a nature preserve

Wingstem:

Citronella Horse Balm:

An Ironweed that popped up randomly at the base of a tree in my back yard. Amazing things happen when you strategically identify areas to not mow.

This past summer I kept a big horseshoe-shaped patch of the back yard (where we used to have a garden patch) from being mowed, and by the time it was fall, this goldenrod and Frost Aster came all on its own! Literal clouds of butterflies and bees constantly hovered around it.

We call that spot the Meadow now. My mom complained for most of the summer about the "weeds," until one day I came home from work and she and my sister were in the meadow on a picnic blanket, staring at the butterflies and bees. "There are tiny bees!" my mom said, indicating a Melissodes longhorn bee. "I didn't know there were bees like that!"

It's partially because people have this idea that outside is supposed to look "tidy" in the same way that inside looks tidy, and that things in your yard are just outdoor equivalents of indoor fixtures. Grass is just carpet, trees and plants are decorations

It's also about avoiding the look of poverty—people around here are skittish about lawn alternatives for fear of looking like a "redneck"

I don't know how it is in other places, but American homeowners make up "yard work" tasks for themselves that do nothing (raking leaves, burning sticks and twigs...) because a "nice-looking" yard is one that's had a bunch of "maintenance" done to it, to make it look "tidy" and empty. it doesn't matter what the maintenance is or whether it looks good or has a positive effect, you just have to look like you've Done Stuff in your yard or you will look like a poor person