Green lawns dubbed as harmful for planet as gas-guzzling vehicles

London, Aug 12 (ANI): Maintaining a lush green lawn is as bad for the environment as "driving a gas-guzzling vehicle," one of Britain's leading organic gardeners has claimed.

Bob Flowerdew, 58, urged homeowners to tear up their lawns and replace them with perennial plants - or concrete.

"I think it's time to get rid of our lawns. Dig up your lawn, I say. Turn the area into something else," the Daily Mail quoted him as writing in Amateur Gardening magazine.

But other experts - including the editor of the magazine - have dismissed the claims.

In his column, Flowerdew explains: "With the prediction of drier summers ahead and the increasing frequency of hosepipe bans, browned-out turf all summer is going to become more and more likely.

"Indeed, having a green lawn may even become seen as heinous a sin as driving a gas-guzzling vehicle.

"So why do we not admit that the time and effort needed to maintain a lawn is now too much?" he added.

He suggests replacing turf with drought-tolerant perennial plants, stepping stones or solid concrete, which will never "need watering, feeding, aerating, scarifying or mowing."

"Suddenly we would do away with the irritation of one after another of our neighbours mowing around us," he said.

But Paul Dawson, managing director of turf grower Ro lawn, said: "Lawns have significant environmental benefits, producing oxygen, filtering water back into aquifers and reducing flooding." (ANI)