People. What’s up with calling our gardens ‘yards’?   Why? Can we aim a bit higher? Honestly. Every time I hear the word ‘yard’ I think of train depots or industrial sites and conspiratorial guys saying, “yeah, we’ve got that; it’s back in the yard.” Maybe it’s an American thing but I don’t see why we can’t call a garden a garden. Is it too much of a commitment?  For god’s sake, is it that much of a challenge to treat your ‘green-space’ as a garden?  Let’s try it out: ” oh yeah, the kids have  a jungle gym, it’s out in the ….garden? yard?”, or this, “Oh, I can’t wait to plant a hedge of peonies in my ‘yard’…” garden?.

I know what suburban (or even urban) folks mean by ‘yard’. It’s defines the green space, usually quite limited, that comes along with the house. I get it.  But why not call a spade a spade and refer to the green space as it ought to be referred to: the “Garden”,. Go ahead, call me a snob, but I feel that any , even a tiny bit of land, can be treated with a sensitivity towards aesthetics and that that patch of lawn could become any of several things; a perennial garden, a vegetable garden, a shrubbery, a rock garden?

Lawn isn’t the best thing since sliced bread. There are many more, environmentally responsible, things that we can do with our ‘yards’ and I encourage you to explore all of the options.