The Suburb That Traded Lawnmowers for Lizards

The manicured Swiss lawn has long served as a silent monument to civic order, suburban quiet, and aggressive weekend mowing. Yet in Küsnacht, an affluent community along Lake Zurich, a group of apartment tenants decided to let things fall apart—strictly for ecological and financial profit. Underneath a seemingly messy heap of dried branches, soil, and garden refuse, a green lizard occasionally peers out. Whether it is a common wall lizard or a rarer sand lizard remains a matter of hope for the residents, but the real revelation lies in what this pile represents: a shift in urban landscaping where untidiness doubles as efficiency.

The initiative was launched by resident Peter Schiffhauer and supported by Annekäthi Frei, a veterinarian who co-runs the Zurich Hedgehog Center. What began as a informal proposal quickly gained the consensus of every tenant in the building. The financial model was equally pragmatic. The local municipality granted a financial contribution, the property owner picked up the remaining bill, and the tenants supplied the manual labor, sourcing materials and acquiring the necessary ecological know-how themselves.

The result is a multi-layered sanctuary: stone heaps, sand pits for reptile eggs, a wildflower strip, and a modest pond requiring bi-weekly refills to keep invasive tiger mosquitoes at bay. Even a dead tree trunk was left to rot in peace. Yet, this conversion is not merely a hobby for suburban nature lovers. Daniel Baur, a professor of landscape architecture and urban planning at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, points out that connected residential spaces around multi-family buildings hold vast untapped ecological potential. More compellingly for corporate property managers, his research alongside real estate firms revealed that shifting away from traditional landscaping—primarily eliminating relentless lawn mowing—could save companies approximately 4.3 million francs in reduced upkeep costs.

Naturally, the transition requires cultural adjustment. Neighbors accustomed to trimmed hedges initially struggled with the sight of decaying garden waste sitting directly beside an ornamental cherry laurel—an invasive plant whose sale is now prohibited in Switzerland. Ecological value, it turns out, rarely aligns with conventional Swiss suburbia's visual standards.

Purity, however, has its limits. To ensure everyone remained on speaking terms, the Küsnacht garden retained a seating area with a grill, a modest strip of rolled turf, and even an exotic olive tree requested by one neighbor. Achieving ninety percent ecological naturalness while keeping the peace reflects a thoroughly Swiss compromise: idealist in intention, financially sensible in practice, and carefully calculated even in its wildness.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com