How to Get Your Lawn off Grass: A North American Guide to Turning Off the Water Tap and Going Native [Paperback]

Carole Rubin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2002

On any list of the world's most pressing problems, water scarcity and water quality inevitably rank high. These issues and their related concerns often emerge in the major topics of the day, including Walkerton, free trade and globalization debates and drought. Despite all the pessimism surrounding the future of the world's drinking water, many predicaments can be remedied with simple conservation methods. Home-based water conservation starts with How to Get Your Lawn Off Grass, the only North America-wide guide on how to convert your yard from a water-sucking source of pollution runoff to a flourishing, productive showcase of natural vegetation. While 1.3 billion people on the planet don't have access to safe drinking water, 60% of ours goes into conventional turf-grass lawns and ornamental, exotic gardens. Runoff from chemical treatment of lawns and gardens has seriously compromised groundwater supplies everywhere in the United States and Canada. We have put garden cosmetics ahead of our health. How to Get Your Lawn Off Grass teaches how to conserve water and prevent the pollution of groundwater. It covers how to cut, roll up and compost turf-grass lawn (and water-sucking, ornamental "exotic" garden plants) and how to replace them with gorgeous native ground covers: flowers, shrubs, trees and grasses that will need no fertilizers, no chemical controls for pests, no mowing and, after the first year, no watering. This is a vital publication for all North Americans who are concerned about water scarcity and water quality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a North American guide to turning off the water tap and going native."
-Jan Degrass, Coast Reporter (Coast Reporter )

"There's a lot to learn but if you take it on a step-by-step basis, both the workload and budget can be manageable."
-Randy Burton, The StarPhoenix (The StarPhoenix )

"Rubin not only advocates an end to traditional green lawns across North America, but also urges gardeners to select plants prudently."
-Sarah Jackson, The Olympian (The Olympian )

"Carole Rubin's book is a real education for any gardener." ---The Globe and Mail (The Globe and Mail )

About the Author

Carole Rubin's 1989 book How to Get Your Lawn and Garden Off Drugs sold over 20,000 copies and remains available through Harbour Publishing. Her work has appeared in Harrowsmith, Canadian Living and Lawn Care for Dummies, as well as a newspaper series on responsible living.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Harbour; 1 edition (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155017259X
• ISBN-13: 978-1550172591
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,714,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars promising title, December 23, 2002

By 

Miguette Chapin (NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Get Your Lawn off Grass: A North American Guide to Turning Off the Water Tap and Going Native (Paperback)

Upon seeing the title of this book, I automatically picked it up and bought it. Being a chemical free gardener in the midst of a drought, I ran home elated at my good fortune in finding the very book I was hoping for. I have to say that my heart sank when I realized this was not a book exclusively about lawns(that space in the landscape used for family play,visual respite and contrast, and in design, for "negative space"), and how to manage them through use of different grasses and ground covers, and xeriscaping etc. This book has some good information in it and I would recommend it to the homeowner wanting some good tips for their garden. I myself learned a new thing or maybe two. It is in no way the comprehensive treatise on the subject its enticing title suggests. I would recommend any of the Rodale books out there first, but feel that there can never be too many books dedicated to the promotion of Gardening in an environmentally responsible fashion, And this a fine addition to someone building their collection . Finally it has to be said that the gardens featured in this book are not beautifully designed master pieces, a pity really.