Interesting thread. I used to live on acreage that had approximately 3/4 acre of lawn. That lawn was used by children and dogs for play. I mowed it weekly & the clippings were used as a component to create compost for the vegetable garden, orchard & landscaping. I had the space to do this & preferred my hands in the making as opposed to purchase & delivery of what was commercially available. Organic fertilizer applied annually, & watering was only required during August as my location is the Pacific Northwest - lots of rain.
Like Deb, I had patches of clover & other weeds common to lawn. However, those spots were regularly visited by our native bees. So for me, it was a win-win situation.
After reflecting on the commentary here, I would encourage folks to commit to practices that work well for their particular location & needs. I do agree that it is most considerate to keep the edges as weed free as possible, but the wind does not respect property lines. So, do the very best with what you have, all in the pursuit of excellent stewardship.

Hi Kate - nice to meet you !
I have family in Redmond WA. Beautiful state.
I love the word you used - 'stewardship'. It implies we care about what we do and the long-term effects.

stone said:

Lawns add to the run off problem...
As turf tends to often be planted on compacted soils, all the chems wash off into the streams and such.... the lawn simply isn't as permeable as people like to believe.

Sadly, getting a return to the natural plant populations gets more and more difficult with invasive turf grasses planted everywhere, and the soils that often come with the turf which contain seeds that don't belong... and... all the invasive exotic shrubs and vines and ground covers that new gardeners often plant.

Unless you never walk on your lawn, all lawns are compacted to some degree.
It is more permeable than you wish to believe.
You are correct about difficulty returning natural populations, Dandelions and crabgrass make sure of that.
I have to admit though that I did not know till a few years ago, there are many varieties of crab grass and some are sold for pasture use.
I have put in Buffalo Grass and Blue Stem, it takes a LOT of time and expenditure , in non-natural methods to get them going.
If you do not do the expenditures, you have wasted time and money and weeds will flourish.
I found that out a long time ago.
The Buffalo Grass did not show up till I had eradicated most weeds and had a fairly estabilished lawn, although there was as much Quack Grass as lawn grass.
Still stumped how it could just sit there for ten years or more and suddenly show up.
I think throwing old Rose Garden dirt and ashes from outside burner may have been part of it, as there are worms on a hill that is still mostly sand and rocks.
Having said that Quack Grass can make a fairly decent lawn although it will spread and is not as pretty as normal lawn grass.
If all one cares about is a green grass lawn, as I said earlier, some pasture mixes work pretty darn good.

This really is an interesting discussion. I'd like to support what Kate said above about committing to practices that work well for a particular location. The workability, viability, practicality and eco-friendliness of a lawn is completely different for different climates.

Down here in Florida, *where grass grows year 'round and needs weekly mowing at least 9 months of the year*, the County Extension services have been encouraging people for 15 years (that I know of, maybe more) to get rid of as much lawn as they can, because it requires SO much expensive chemical warfare, plus all the mowing, edging, fertilizing and watering here. Sarasota County has had once-weekly watering restrictions in place for at least that long, as well, which in itself limits the growing of lawns. There is no comparison, in Florida, with using other lower maintenance groundcovers, mulch, perennial natives, shrubs etc. over turf grass. "Mow what grows, if you must have lawn" is the mantra of all Florida Master Gardeners when asked about lawns here.

We have ocean and gulf water all around us, plus a porous limestone aquifer underneath our porous sandy soil here. We also have unthinkably heavy rain, measured in inches per hour, for at least 4 months of the year. Oh, and hurricanes once in a while also - over a foot of rain in 5 hours from Irma here and we really didn't get the worst of it. So every bit of chemical that is put down on the soil leaches into the drinking water source (aquifer) or runs into the rivers and sea water.

A little different than Minnesota, huh @RpR ? Everywhere is different. We all need to understand and practice stewardship (thanks again for the good word, Kate) for our particular areas. Also, teach our kids and the children of others to be custodians of the land as well. Our survival, and certainly theirs may depend upon it.

I have creeping charlie. I have said if I did Weed and Feed to kill the weeds and quackgrass I would have no lawn/yard. So, I just "live and let live" as far as what's in the yard. I mow what grows. We do spot-spray the thistles tho.

I'm surprised that thistles come up in your lawn, Anna. When we moved in, our entire front field was inundated with thistles. After several years of brush-hogging the field (and pasturing cows and horses), we finally got a handle on them. We still get them on the edges, but not nearly as bad. I don't think I've ever seen one in the lawn itself. You may have a different variety than me, mine are Canada thistle. Prickly buggers.

This was in dirt he brought into the yard where we had the garage and furnace house. It was pasture dirt.