Frederick Law Olmsted is also to blame for the misery. The famous landscape architect from Connecticut in the mid-19th century lawn declared the measure of all things in urban planning, the decorative lawn in front of the house. Olmsted wanted to give American residential buildings the impression of being in an endless park landscape. His style characterizes the suburbs to this day, many communities even prescribe the decorative lawn. Too bad that the summers have gotten hotter since Olmsted, the water is scarcer – and the endless green in the endless suburbs is turning brown.
But not everywhere. In some places the grass appears crisp green, even in California, where irrigation water is being rationed again. There, the garden owners didn’t secretly water or lay plastic lawn (which is state-subsidized) – they simply sprayed the brown grass green. The lawn painter’s job has long existed, restoring the green order with a spray nozzle and a paint tank on his back. Lasts two or three months, is waterproof and grows out like hair coloration. It costs an average of 200 to 300 dollars to have a lawn planted, and the companies assure us that this not only increases the value of the property, but also the envy of the neighbors.
If we don’t like nature, we simply paint it to suit ourselves. Are you crazy? On the other hand: The partial steppe in the garden is actually not pretty.
The US manufacturer of the “Green Lawn Paint” delivers quickly, the sender is a virtual office in Offenbach. With increasing hot summers, the German market is also becoming interesting, and several US companies are currently trying to cast their anchor. There are enough test areas: the sun has grilled the lawn in patches, a paddling pool has produced brown circles.
The color comes in the mail, and the brown patches on the lawn are now adorned with a bright, garish green
The grass is dry, there is no wind – good conditions for the color of the lawn. The first hurdle: the grass should be mowed beforehand. How is that supposed to work when it’s lying dried out on the ground? So trim, mow, and spray the ready-to-use paint onto the brown spots.
First impression: The treated grass is much lighter than the surrounding intact turf. A second dose follows after an hour, but according to the package leaflet this is not necessary. The result: still too light. So another dose the next day. The liter bottle should actually be enough for 20 to 50 square meters, the test area is two square meters, a quarter is still left after the third campaign. The grass may be a lot darker than the day before, but it still looks like too light a nuance of the bright green wood shavings from discount store Easter baskets. Covering up the wounds of the hot summer won’t do anything. Since then, some of the ants that rushed through the test field have been wearing a green shell.
The manufacturer of the “Green Lawn Paint” says that you can influence the color intensity yourself. If you spray from higher up and don’t stay in one spot for too long, it would get lighter. Conversely, it would be darker. Time for the fourth dose. Close. Full speed ahead. Oh well. It doesn’t get any greener. Maybe the lawn is too badly damaged, maybe the Californian green doesn’t go with the European grass, maybe it’s just a matter of taste.
What’s in the spray? “A trade secret,” explains Carl Kaufmann, who introduces himself as the company’s representative in Germany. The ingredients do not have to be declared, the color is neither medicine, nor food, nor cosmetics. “But it is harmless to people, animals and nature,” says Kaufmann, who reports that the number of customers in Germany is increasing every year. climate change and such. In addition, the spray should keep ticks away, fertilizer is also in it, when sprayed it smells of nitrogen. Other companies mix in citrus oils to repel dogs (who produce new brown patches when they squirm), French manufacturer Eden Color reveals that algae are the basis for the green hue.
What’s in the lawn spray? Trade secret, let the manufacturers know
In Endingen am Kaiserstuhl, the paint company Rilit also produces vegetable paints, “Green Grass Water” is the name of their lawn spray. Sales Manager Thomas Urbanczyk is typically secretive about the recipe, water, pigments, a small amount of resin as a binder, that has to be enough. The business field has a promising future due to climate change, so nobody wants to reveal too much. However, the product is biodegradable, which has been checked by the Hygiene Institute of the Ruhr area in Gelsenkirchen. “Plants can be painted and composted with this paint without hesitation.”
The recipe comes from France. There, colored plants have been known for years, especially heather is tinted. In nearby Alsace, Rilit dyes three million heather plants for autumn sales, also in pink, white and turquoise. The grass color has a similar base to the heather color and it can also be used on hedges that have turned brown. Typically they consist of thujas. In fact, the color is used in cemeteries, for example in Rheinhausen im Breisgau. The hedges look green in photos, but they are still dead.
Harald Nonn is chairman of the German Lawn Society, in which practitioners and scientists look after lawns as a cultural asset. How useful is the lawn color? “Dried lawn does not bind any CO₂, does not produce any oxygen, does not cool the ambient air and does not offer an attractive recreation and play area,” the agricultural engineer clarifies. The actual function of the lawn does not restore the color, it is an “optical illusion”. There are different seasons with more or less growth and therefore different shades of green in the lawn. Sometimes they’re more brown.
The German Lawn Society doesn’t think much of the spray. Better wait for rain
What does the professional advise in hot summers like these? “Temperatures of more than 30 degrees are not a problem for our lawns as long as the water supply is guaranteed.” For Harald Nonn, however, this does not mean that the sprinkler is started every day. “If there is no rain, it should be irrigated relatively rarely, but then extensively.” Since the main root mass in the lawn grass is limited to a depth of around 15 to 20 centimetres, around 20 to 25 liters per square meter are required to fill up the water supply. “In high daytime temperatures, this supply lasts for up to a week.” Raising the cutting height by one to two centimeters also contributes to a greener lawn and to saving water thanks to the shading effect. Most of the deficiencies caused by drought will grow out again with the next rain anyway.
“The garden should be as tidy as a living room,” says Silvia Teich from the German Nature Conservation Union (Nabu), criticizing the idea of simply spraying brown lawns green. “Anything that you add to nature doesn’t belong there and is harmful, so you should avoid it.” The Nabu advises creating a more robust wildflower meadow and planting shade providers such as shrubs and trees. “This creates a different microclimate and the lawn is not as exposed to the sun.”
The zeitgeist is gnawing at the ornamental lawn anyway. Even the Royal Horticultural Society, which has always been the grail keeper of fine English turf, is changing its mind. At the Chelsea Flower Show in London, which she organized, the definitive show for garden trends, there was hardly any lawn to be seen at the end of May. The award-winning gardens had wildflower meadows or completely dispensed with larger open spaces. Instead, a potpourri of drought-resistant plants was on display. Nobody needed spray for brown spots here.