Believe it or not, I actually went to Scotts school. You know, Scotts the fertilizer and lawn care chemical people. They actually have a school in Ohio to teach garden center salespeople how to promote their products to the public so the public can have perfect lawns. Their products work so well they can grow sod on concrete. And they do, just to prove it.
Were I incredibly ambitious, I too could have their definition of the perfect lawn. If I didn't care about chemical run-off or pesticide residues, I could have the perfect lawn. If I believed in the concept of grass-only lawns, I could have one.
But none of the above hold. I do, however, have the perfect lawn for my soil conditions, my climate, my level of ambition, and my ethical standards for lawn chemicals. It's called, whatever will grow there and tolerate our mowing and raking patterns, known mostly by their absence, is welcome to grow there. Sure, there's grass, mostly fescues and rye, with some buffalo grass my son put in a bare spot once just to try it. There might possibly also be a blade or two of Kentucky bluegrass. There's also a heck of a lot of dandelions, some creeping charlie and moss in a low wet corner, sedges, plantains, field clover, and something I once heard called butter-and-eggs. These are all volunteers, either new or survivors from the field of 6 foot tall vegetation that greeted us when we built the house back in '91.
Then there's the spot of wild daisies in the front yard. They started as a patch about two feet across. I had to ask Paul not to mow them until after they finished blooming. In the intervening years, they've grown and spread, so successfully that I now have to ask Paul to mow them back down to a small patch while they're blooming.
We did actually try to grow grass, once the dirt was leveled, and got enough to help hold it in place. We also tried to add white clover to help fix nitrogen to feed the grass, and while it lasted a few years, it's pretty hard to find these days. Well, except in the flowerbeds. There it's pretty stubborn, even Round-Up-resistant. Other things went in deliberately: scillas, violets, crocus. They pop right up in the spring, quickly greening and adding color for a bit. Persistent drought spells and mowing take their toll in various ways on those, but in good years they are spectacular.
My neighbors hate my yard. I'm not the only one whose dandelions spread their yellow joy through the neighborhood, just one of the very few who make no pretense at eliminating them. We also mow at a higher height than the neighbors, and wait to mow until later. It's legal until stuff reaches a foot high, and we've never gotten a letter of complaint from the city. My next door neighbor has already mown twice this spring! I have better ways to spend Paul's time. He is, after all, the one who does the mowing. Last time I tried, before my knees went south, I finished the front yard, but the vibrations from the mower had my hands so swollen up they ached for days.
Dermatographism is a bitch. I am literally allergic to work.
We used to be plagued on the back side by the neighbor's boyfriend. Paul nicknamed him "The Lawn Nazi." He's the guy who mowed every weekend, on alternate diagonals for that extra bit of perfection. She had a beautiful pair of medium tall blue spruce in her back yard but they disrupted his mowing pattern so he took them out. He hated our dogs as well, since they greeted him with barking when he was out. We'd put up a chain link fence for them when we moved in, ending where hers started across the back. He deliberately took a chunk of that out one day and let them loose, so they had to go out only on leashes for a few days until we could put in another chain link fence 6" from hers. The no-man's land between can't be mowed now, and is filling with tall grasses and trees. (Aw shucks!) Before this, however, we had noticed a couple places where the dogs had been digging, blocked the area with rocks, and used big "U" staples to hold the chain link down. He tore those out and threw them all over our yard, either in an effort to kill our mower or us as the mower blades threw them. We never did find as many as were originally holding down the fence. But then, he's just the kind of guy to hold a couple back, playing mind games to keep us insecure.
Luckily for us she finally threw him out. Probably, lucky for her as well.
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