Lawns are an American obsession. Since the mass proliferation of suburbs in the 1950s and ’60s, these pristine carpets of green turf have been meticulously maintained by suburbanites, with grass length and other aesthetic considerations enforced with bylaws and by homeowner associations.
When did green lawns become popular?
In the 18th-century, the use of green, expansive spaces began to appear in landscape design in France and England. At the palace of Versailles, a small lawn—a tapis vert (i.e., a green carpet)—was installed. And in England, the trend inclined toward more open landscapes with fewer fences and hedges.
What era was the first grass?
The grasses first appeared sometime right around the end of the Cretaceous, between 70 and 55 Ma. At that point they were a small group of weird plants that lived in the shade on the edge of forests. Their ecology would have been similar to modern bamboo.