I replied to this comment before I read that. I'm glad you understand the basics of keeping a healthy landscape. You still haven't replied to my other comments, so I think you are just talking out of your ass and don't understand that grasses are a living natural part of most landscapes. I work in conservation and lawns are a huge issue in many parts of the county. Check out the issues in the Chesapeake bay for example. But poorly managed garden (most honestly, and this includes farms) are not that great for the landscape. If you go into a forest, grassland, or wetland, are there tomato plants just gushing out of the ground? No, because agriculture is 99% of the time not natural for the landscape (unless you specifically only work with native vegies, which most gardeners don't). This is tough in a world where we need to feed billions of people. But my point is that a garden is not usually better than a lawn other than the fact it is a fun hobby and provides food. Also I see people put huge amounts of fertilizers and pesticides into their gardens as well, and if you don't you will be mining the soil eventually. I saw you said you use compost. That is great... so what if everyone had to grow gardens with compost? Is there enough compost? Is that sustainable? Are we just going to extract from other landscapes now so people can put compost in their gardens? The best thing really is using any native planting (usually grasses, forbs, and shrubs) for controlling erosion and nutrient runoff, and it helps provide habitat for wildlife (plus pollinators) and conserve water (a garden usually doesn't do these things). Now you can incorporate a garden, an orchard, or a lawn into this, but chances are people never have the time for this (see permaculture or other techniques). A lot of the land owners I work with barely have time for their work and family, so it is hard for me to imagine people taking more time for gardening when food isn't an issue and a lawn or native landscape requires almost no maintenance. We need a real change in cultural values to see the landscape in a different way then how we have designed our infrastructure. Working in conservation I have become really cynical in this matter. I see lot of "sustainable" efforts that are really just green washing. You should check out the book "How to Grow More Vegetables." It has become my bible for truly sustainable farming. You know what is crazy about it? Only 10% of your garden (not even landscape) should potentially be used for vegetables. The rest would be compost crops and special roots crops. This is because vegetables mine the soil and there is no truly sustainable way of replacing those nutrients. Just something you should think about. People see garden and suddenly think that is "green." Most gardens require water, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides as well, so this is far from the truth. You may be one of those ecological mindset gardeners, but that is a very small amount of the population I work with.