Fly over Phoenix, AZ, and look out the window. Pay attention to the colors below. The highlands around the city, like Camelback Mtn., are dark brown, reddish brown, and, at their bases, a bit green. The flat landscape below, dotted with white, grey, and light brown roofs, is mostly a light brown. You might expect as much in a region that gets only eight inches of precipitation per year. Live in Phoenix, and your annual chance of seeing a rainy day is only one in ten.
The green at the bases of the mountains is easily explainable: Water follows gravity’s pull, so what falls on top ends up below and in the erosional grooves cut into the slopes. Plants find refugia from the dry heat. But out there in the suburbs, you will see some other green, vast flat square stretches of it. Sod farms. Big business. Gotta give the owners credit for seizing a sunshiney opportunity. Plants like sun as much as they like water.
Problem is, of course, there isn’t much water. So, drawing on regional water supplies is a necessity. That’s good for the grass and the business, but it conflicts with a burgeoning population’s needs for the liquid that supports all life.
Grass in the desert! We’re not talking Bromus carinatus (California brome) or Erioneuron pulchellum (fluffgrass), or any other endemic species. No, the sod farms grow hybrid grasses with varying tolerances to arid, semiarid, and humid climates: Midiron, Santa Ana, Tifgreen, and Tifway (variations of Bermuda grass, Cynodon dactylon).
Sod farms in Phoenix reveal something about our use of place. We believe we can change any environment into an environment of choice. So, people from humid areas have migrated to semiarid ones and carried their image of “home” with them—and then done what they could to impose on a place that which requires constant artificial support. In other words, we spend energy and resources to alter as we wish, even though what we wish we must maintain with constant attention.
Of course, there’s the other side of the argument, the one that says we do because we can. But non-native grass in a desert is truly a luxury item and superfluous. What drew 1.5 million people to Phoenix? Were they seeking grasslands? Or was it the dry climate with more than 300 days of sunshine each year? Did they pack their lawn mowers when they migrated to a desert? Did they have a desire to buy gasoline to run those machines where, had they not planted sod, such machines would be unnecessary?
Now look around. You might live in a humid zone where grasses are unstoppable in their bid to cover the world. You have to deal with them. Otherwise, tall grasses hide snakes and make picnics, yard games, and sports activities very difficult. And otherwise, your HOA or neighborhood compliance officer will fine you for not caring for your property. And otherwise, you will be stigmatized as careless or indolent.
So, the people of Phoenix, who could spare themselves the costs associated with lawn care in a desert actually choose to change a place to add an inconvenience, simply to fulfill an image of what they once had in a different place.
We are at once both part of Nature and separate from it. We are at once both part of place and separate from it. What separates us is that we do as we can, regardless of the consequences to ourselves, from small inconveniences like watering and cutting grass, to large inconveniences like redistributing natural resources like water.
We’re not the first to change place to our own detriment. About over 4,400 years ago in Mesopotamia, the people of Mashkan-shapir near the Tigris River built a system of canals. Smart move. Right? They irrigated. Grew stuff. Life was good until it wasn’t. Evaporating water in a dry climate led to the chemical deposition of salts in the soil. Worsening soil. Smaller crops. Collapse.
Growing grass in Phoenix won’t probably lead to a collapse analogous to that of Mashkan-shapir. But as desirable as it is and as good as it looks in neighborhoods and on sports fields, inedible grass is ultimately an inconvenience that tells us something about how we see ourselves with respect to where we find ourselves.
The green at the bases of the mountains is easily explainable: Water follows gravity’s pull, so what falls on top ends up below and in the erosional grooves cut into the slopes. Plants find refugia from the dry heat. But out there in the suburbs, you will see some other green, vast flat square stretches of it. Sod farms. Big business. Gotta give the owners credit for seizing a sunshiney opportunity. Plants like sun as much as they like water.
Problem is, of course, there isn’t much water. So, drawing on regional water supplies is a necessity. That’s good for the grass and the business, but it conflicts with a burgeoning population’s needs for the liquid that supports all life.
Grass in the desert! We’re not talking Bromus carinatus (California brome) or Erioneuron pulchellum (fluffgrass), or any other endemic species. No, the sod farms grow hybrid grasses with varying tolerances to arid, semiarid, and humid climates: Midiron, Santa Ana, Tifgreen, and Tifway (variations of Bermuda grass, Cynodon dactylon).
Sod farms in Phoenix reveal something about our use of place. We believe we can change any environment into an environment of choice. So, people from humid areas have migrated to semiarid ones and carried their image of “home” with them—and then done what they could to impose on a place that which requires constant artificial support. In other words, we spend energy and resources to alter as we wish, even though what we wish we must maintain with constant attention.
Of course, there’s the other side of the argument, the one that says we do because we can. But non-native grass in a desert is truly a luxury item and superfluous. What drew 1.5 million people to Phoenix? Were they seeking grasslands? Or was it the dry climate with more than 300 days of sunshine each year? Did they pack their lawn mowers when they migrated to a desert? Did they have a desire to buy gasoline to run those machines where, had they not planted sod, such machines would be unnecessary?
Now look around. You might live in a humid zone where grasses are unstoppable in their bid to cover the world. You have to deal with them. Otherwise, tall grasses hide snakes and make picnics, yard games, and sports activities very difficult. And otherwise, your HOA or neighborhood compliance officer will fine you for not caring for your property. And otherwise, you will be stigmatized as careless or indolent.
So, the people of Phoenix, who could spare themselves the costs associated with lawn care in a desert actually choose to change a place to add an inconvenience, simply to fulfill an image of what they once had in a different place.
We are at once both part of Nature and separate from it. We are at once both part of place and separate from it. What separates us is that we do as we can, regardless of the consequences to ourselves, from small inconveniences like watering and cutting grass, to large inconveniences like redistributing natural resources like water.
We’re not the first to change place to our own detriment. About over 4,400 years ago in Mesopotamia, the people of Mashkan-shapir near the Tigris River built a system of canals. Smart move. Right? They irrigated. Grew stuff. Life was good until it wasn’t. Evaporating water in a dry climate led to the chemical deposition of salts in the soil. Worsening soil. Smaller crops. Collapse.
Growing grass in Phoenix won’t probably lead to a collapse analogous to that of Mashkan-shapir. But as desirable as it is and as good as it looks in neighborhoods and on sports fields, inedible grass is ultimately an inconvenience that tells us something about how we see ourselves with respect to where we find ourselves.
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