A Desert Lawn

by John Comer

Desert lawn. An oxymoron if ever there was one. “Desert” means desert. Hot. Dry. Rocks. “Lawn” means the opposite, and includes such descriptive terms as “cool,” “green,” “inviting,” and comes furnished with shade trees.

Here in the Phoenix area, with just a tad over seven inches of moisture in an average year and summer temperatures where anything under 110 degrees is considered warm, not hot, having a lush, green lawn is something to be treasured. “Treasure” is the operative word here. A lawn requires a large supply of water, which is always a valuable commodity on the desert. It takes a big stack of greenbacks to keep a lawn green.

So I’m considering going for a xeriscape. That’s a nice word that sounds cooler, prettier, and gentler than desert lawn, but is actually the same thing. Many desert cities are encouraging citizens to consider xeriscape.

I read recently that the U.S. has 50 million lawns (of the green kind) which total an area larger than the State of Virginia. If I put mine into desert, that wouldn’t make a blip on those statistics. The water saved if my front lawn were crushed granite instead of grass would not even be measurable in relation to all the water used in Phoenix.

So why bother? Simple. Just follow the money trail. Not really to save water, nor the planet. Not to cooperate with city planners nor to practice good ecology. Just to save money. What I’m really saying is, “What’s in it for me?” When you get to the bottom line, isn’t the bottom line what motivates most of us much of the time?

What kind of thinking could ever convince a sane person that a gravel lawn would be nice? Maybe Jesus explained the principle when he said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” which may be a way of saying, if you want to save your water bill money badly enough, in your mind you’ll manage to justify trading soft, cool grass for hard, hot rocks. This trade-off is innocent enough. It doesn’t involve spiritual values. But it does partly illustrate Jesus’ point. If we love money (or whatever treasure) strongly enough, in our minds we can foolishly rationalize exchanging whatever it takes, including our sense of decency and integrity, to get it. If we do this, we will have created an ethical desert, and will have drawn a crooked bottom line to our lives.