Crunchy, brown and thirsty: Is it time to give up the traditional grass lawn?

As abnormally dry weather sweeps across much of the country this summer, you may have found yourself staring despondently at the brown, crispy patch of fried earth you once called your front lawn, felt your fingers twitch in the direction of the hose and wondered: Should I? Am I even allowed ?

But environmental and horticultural experts, as well as proponents of the no-lawn movement , say the question is actually whether it's responsible to have a full grass lawn at all anymore .

The David Suzuki Foundation has previously estimated there are about 6.2 million lawns across Canada, and calculated that anywhere from 8.2 to 22.7 per cent of several large Canadian municipalities are turf grass. In 2021, two-thirds of Canadian households reported they had a lawn, according to St