I am ready to take a pass on grass. Or, to put it another way, I am gone on the lawn.
When spring finally waltzed into town a few days late this year, I put on my earmuffs and fired up one of my five grass-cutting machines. As I stood there in a cloud of blue smoke, I wondered how we had ever let grass get the upper hand.
The question is: why grass? How did it ever get to be so important? How did it ever get to be a mighty industry? So mighty that it steals four or five hours from homeowners every week as we stand out on our lawns, cutting, chopping, edging, seeding, fertilizing. Slaves to grass.
Why could our lawns not be made of ground cover? Periwinkle for example, an evergreen that is only too happy to spread and comes with a bluish flower. When did you ever hear anyone say that they had to go out and cut the periwinkle?
Or what about weeds? Weeds and wildflowers instead of grass. No mowing. No fertilizing. Just nature at work. Although this option can be difficult: every year, there are stories in the media about some bold city resident who lets his lawn revert to nature. Frightening headlines abound: “Creeping Charlie flourishes!”; “Dog-strangling vine runs rampant!” Maybe the yard sports some goutweed — and surely a golden crop of pissenlit.
Such homeowners defend this splendid display as a nature preserve, but the vigilantes fire up their power mowers and take a whetstone to their scythes. Better yet, they call in the bylaw-enforcement officer and, once more, grass wins.
But why? How many of us, if given a choice of a mountain meadow or a forest glade or a field of wild daisies, would actually say: “No, give me a crewcut square of the short, green stuff”?
Grass is sickly. It won’t grow well in the shade of a tree. It resents being trampled on. And if it gets into the flower bed, it is beaten to death. Grass requires frequent seeding and eats bags of chemicals spewed from spreaders. (In my garage, I have a large bag of what I think is fertilizer. I was about to spread it on parts of my lawn a few years ago; then, I read the label and found that if I did, the dogs wouldn’t be able to walk on the lawn in their bare feet for days. I resealed the bag, and I’m still trying to figure out what to do with it.)
When you choose weeds and wildflowers instead of grass, your life immediately improves. Weeds are hardy; they need no coddling. And they’re free. You have to buy grass in sods or seeds, but weeds come in plentiful supply and they thrive. True, the specialized weed gardener might have a hard time searching out his most wanted weeds. Perhaps deadly nightshade or henbane of tufted bitter vetch. Did you ever ask to buy a bag of weed seed? Take it from me, it’s a no-hoper.
We are trapped by a social convention that forces us to cut the grass and eradicate the weeds. Notably singled out for eradication is the dandelion, which made a mis-step in its youth and became a weed when in fact it is an attractive yellow flower.
I have been in thrall to grass all my life, laying sod, weeding, seeding, feeding, trimming, edging, sprinkling. Even replacing divots. I have pushed many mowers and fired up many more. At this very moment, I have an electric mower, a gas mower, two of those gas-powered brush choppers, a battery-powered trimmer and a long, toothy, handheld cutting machine that does either hedges or haircuts. Or both. (Although it hasn’t done anything for several years, ever since it fell on its electric cord like a wolf on the fold.)
And, yes, I have one of those lawn tractors/riding mowers. And in two minutes, I am going to snug down my earmuffs, put on my John Deere hat, my goggles, my bandana and my gloves, and ride out to do battle with the grass.
When I’d rather just sit and watch the weeds grow. IE
Pass on grass
We are slaves to our grass — the short, green kind — yet it has very few advantages. Weeds are free, colourful and don’t require maintenance. Bring on the henbane of tufted bitter vetch
- By: Paul Rush
- May 30, 2011 October 29, 2019
- 12:55
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