your yard looks like mine. im sure my neighbor across the street and downwind of me looks at my yard in disdain yet he has never said anything. he fertilizes and puts down broadleaf herbicides all summer on his lawn. its what alot of people consider a perfect yard. not to me and all the creatures that call my yard home. my wife used to think that way until i converted her. 
my dogs love the national geographic channel!
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Agreed, thatās my point. If Iām trying to grow painstakingly selected varieties, and in such a way to bring specific remarkable fruit to harvest year after year, that is not an endeavor of balance with nature.
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The guy behind me does the same thing. He lost some grass that could have been repaired with seed easily. Instead he ripped it all out and put all new sod in. Wow, whatās wrong with these people? I like to have some grass for the dogs, they like it. I do keep it as nice as possible, but it does have a few weeds and bare spots. His is perfect no weeds, no bare spots, uniform in appearance.
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Lawns are one of those weird things that are both a social signaling tool, and an outlet for bored menās meticulous attentions.
Squeaky clean, impractically kitted-out, and over-sized āworkā trucks fit the bill too.
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Hey folks, this is proving to be a fascinating thread; and just wanted to share some books that speak to these questions that I have found to be particularly helpfulā¦
First, Invasive Plant Medicine by Timothy Lee Scott is a wonderful foray into the question of what it means for an ecosystem to be in balance, and the scientific evidence amassed will seriously cause you to question assumptions about the concept of an ecosystem in a semi-static balance (with a defined set of ānativesā). He makes a strong case that āinvasive plantsā are benefiting our ecosystems and our soil. (The book is also an interesting resource for making plant-based remedies, but thatās tangential to our topics here.)
Second, the Jeff Lowenfels series on soil (including Teaming with Nutrients), while riddled with minor errors when it comes to the hard science, does do a good job of introducing an understanding of how most (including non-nitrogen-fixing) plants also serve to build soil nutrients in various ways.
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I drive a van. I wonder what hat says about me? Iām on my third van in 28 years. The latest is a 2019 model I inherited. I wasnāt going to buy a third, The price was right. 
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Nice looking green. As long as the trees are happy and you are happy thatās what count. The dog can take the back seat. Thatās ten year of love and labor.
I grow my trees in stages and a few at 10 years, but most are around 6-7 years. I do left a strip of dirt in the back yard for the plastic swimming pool and walk way. Beside the fruit trees, I grow the special trees called the Giant Sequoias and Incense Cedar. In 3 years part of my backyard will look like your. So now Iām planting some trees in the front yard.
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I have three plum trees in the front. I keep trees at no higher than 8 feet. Some are only 6 feet. I also have a driveway full of pots too. I love it!
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Agreed, mass agriculture was an Anunnaki alien-introduced practice (in contrast to augmented food forests) and the beginning of the ecological end for this planetā¦
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I very much doubt that. Been hearing that for 50 years now. If it does, it will be from a super volcano or some other event Mother Nature has planned. Mother Nature has no heart at all. Nothing we do will change much of anything. We are so arrogant though, we think we matter Ha!
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I very much doubt it too. Different explanation though, the Good Book says after the Second Coming the face of the earth is going to get renewedāonly better than before. Bears eat grass, children can play with snakes safely, and a little lamb is going to be safe near a lion. (Isaiah).
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Not at all. Species come and go but the planet and its ecology will probably continue for another few billion years.
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Or an asteroid as big as mercury comes within a million miles and pulls the atmosphere away from the earth. One never knows. It doesnāt even have to hit us. Or maybe our core cools off, becomes solid like what happened to Mars and the cosmic rays radiate us to death. This world is so fragile and unstable. Itās amazing we exist at all. Almost like someoneās protecting us.
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Will there be more, or fewer rabbits?
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I wouldnāt want to badmouth lawns too much- they have their purpose- basically, keep the weeds low. It make it difficult for mice and other pests to escape the notice of predators. I also donāt like to walk through tall grass and weeds- more likely to trip on something, get bit by a snake, etc.
But, they donāt need to be weed free. I donāt care if my lawn is some mix of grass, clover, and other weeds, as long as they stay cut short. The tougher situation is if an area isnāt mowable.
Bare patches can be annoying if they get muddy, but donāt bother me too much. They donāt generally stay bare for long, as some weed will grow thereā¦
Agreed- even an all out nuclear war will probably leave something alive, even if it isnāt us.
Wouldnāt that just take part of the atmosphere? Even if we lost the entire atmosphere, Iām not sure it would kill all life. Similar to a gamma ray burst, I bet a lot would be gone, but there would be enough left to start over. Again, not humans though.
There are always more rabbits 
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You should petition your city for preferential tax rate for creating a neighborhood green space.
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The lower the mow the less the competition and the less habitat for certain tree pests, like tarnished plant bugs, at least in lawns with some broadleaf weeds. Also if you put poison on your fruit in the spring the only pollinator tended flowers you have to worry about in a severely mowed lawn is dandelions. The trick to reduce that problem is to let the grass grow for about 3 weeks and then whack it to the nub prior to first spray where you know spray will fall. Unless you use chemical weed killers to produce uniform grass.
My idea in my own orchard with established trees is to keep the grass mowed low in spring and let it grow in summer. Here in the humid region I want my fruiting trees competing for water in the weeks leading up to ripeness. Iām hoping this will lead to higher brix.
Here we are very prosperous when it comes to having water compared to much of the country. I even suspect climate change is bringing us more rain, as the continents interior heats up, but that is climate speculation based on recent weather patterns, but long ago I had a conversation with a climatologist who suggested such a trend was likely. Also that winter night temps would be raised more than day temps in areas near oceans or great lakes as denser cool moist air over water rushes towards the hotter air inland.
Anyway, being prosperous as far as having plenty of water is not a fruit grower perfect scenario. Iām a victim of it.
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Most of what Iāve seen in IPCC reports confirms this. While certain areas are protected to get less precipitation (iirc California was a stand out), and many areas are projected to more rapid drying due to high temperatures, the overall trend is more more precipitation.
Which makes sense. Warmer surface temperatures means more evaporationāthe oceans included, and warmer air means more atmospheric water capacity. More water going into the air, and more water being carried around in the air, suggests more water coming out of the air.
Not arguing thatās a good (or bad) thing, just that it is what the projections are, and that intuitively it makes sense.
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I would agree with all you say as a general condition of the world humans have altered. Many of the worst threats are ones we ourselves have set in motion. Where I am, in an isolated opening in forest but surrounded by dairy farms, I find that most fruit pests and diseases have never been present, or only in very limited ways (no Plum curculio or bacterial spot). Most of my problems have come in with plants I have purchased from nurseries, and now I know to quarantine all such plants so I can deal with these threats before they get loose and established. Part of this is using preventive treatments on such plants from day 1. Still, I now have āsnakeā worms, a newer, aggressive species of earthworm from Asia which are a terrible threat to forest ecology and agriculture in general. I only spray my established trees with the sort of supplements that Michael Philips advocated. My main threats are rodents, and I encourage predators to hunt my property. I even put up strategic hunting roosts for the owls (better to have the real thing than the plastic ones. The plastic ones, usually modeled after Great Horned owls, actually can scare off the Barred Owls in my woods.)
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