Weeding My Lawn

Weeding my lawn, or should I say grasses?

I have been thinking a lot about lawns these past two weeks. I decided not to include anything about lawns in the “Tools and Tips” document I recently prepared for new subscribers and am also making available to previous subscribers (see link below). The subject deserves a manual of its own. But wrestling with the question of whether or not to include anything about lawns in my guide got me focused on the subject.

Perhaps that is why I decided that Kevin and I should spend our time together last Friday weeding the lawn. I have weeded the lawn sporadically over the years, removing as I mow or walk a piece of crabgrass or nut grass or a dandelion or purslane or some bittersweet vine or buckthorn. Friday we systematically weeded the front, the side, and the back yard, leaving for later only a little patch that needed some special attention.

It didn’t take long, considering the size of the lawn, a couple of hours, and we had fun, talking and yanking and imagining what the neighbors would think. Some folks, taking their daily walk, looked at us quizzically and some even asked what we were doing.  I wanted to answer, “Modelling the right relationship of person to plant,” but that sounded awfully pretentious so I just said we were getting rid of some things that absolutely should not be in one’s lawn.

But here’s the question that our morning’s work raised for me: Why don’t we weed our lawns? Why has it taken me so long to put it on my to-do list? Why would my neighbors be inclined to think me crazy for doing this? Why would Jim, my wonderful handyman, coming along later in the day, exclaim, “But Judy, nobody weeds their lawn.”

Perhaps it is time we did. The alternative, as most of us know, is not a good one.  More herbicides and pesticides are used on suburban lawns than in agriculture. These chemical plant killers create several major environmental problems. Ironically, they are not even good for the grass they are supposed to be helping. The secret of a healthy lawn lies in grass roots and the secret of good roots lies in the soil. The chemicals we put on our lawns negatively affect the soil, destroying organisms we want in our dirt and making it harder for our soil to absorb the organic matter needed to support a strong grass roots system.

Most of us want a healthy lawn but we tend to turn over to someone else the work of getting the lawn we want.  We hire companies with names like TruGreen or Bloomin’ Green or Tender Lovin’ Lawn Care. The practices of these so-called lawn care companies, however, tend to produce only a greater need for their services.

The mantra of lawn care is actually fairly simple. For starters, follow these instructions: Mow high (4 to 4.5 “).  Mow only as needed and when the lawn is dry. Mulch the clippings.

Once, during a difficult time in my life, I hired a lawn-care service.  Mr. B was an independent operator who clearly cared about lawns. He assured me that he cut high, on demand, and could mulch if that was what I wanted.  Other neighbors had hired him.  I hired him.  I never saw him again.

Instead, I watched as every Monday morning at 10 a.m. a surly unshaven youth, for whom the term “horticulture’ no doubt conjured up a world far removed from grass and grow, showed up in a truck.  He backed an enormous mower down a ramp, put on his ear protectors, revved the engine to roar and set off across my lawn.  It mattered not how short the grass nor how wet the ground.  He scalped, he bagged, and he took out anything in his way. After two months, I fired the service.  I could see that over time this approach would kill my lawn.

I understand Mr.B’s dilemma. He might actually about grass, but he is not doing the mowing. Besides, there is no way he could “cut on demand” and stay in business.  For him to survive, lawns must be cut every week, on the day of their schedule, no matter the cost to the grass.  And since most people want their grass cut short, the mowers are set to 3” or lower.  No one actually doing the mowing will take the time to change the setting of the machine for someone who wants their lawn cut high. Their livelihood depends upon speed and volume, certainly not on grass health.

A scalped lawn, however, quickly burns out when the weather turns hot and dry. This gives dandelions, crabgrass, creeping Charlie the conditions they need to flourish. Responding to the homeowner’s frantic calls, the lawn-care companies apply herbicides to kill the weeds they have allowed to grow by cutting the grass so short. This compromises the soil which supports the grass and leads to erosion of root strength. Observing puny grass, the homeowner makes another frantic call which results in the application of fertilizer. This provides a quick green flourish that comforts the homeowner but does nothing to nurture the roots. The result of this so-called care is grass in trouble.

Of late, I have had the great good fortune to know  Justin, a lawn-care person who actually mows the lawns he cares for himself. Justin sets the mower to 4” or 4.5”, depending on the current conditions. He mows when the lawn needs mowing and he mulches the clippings.

I am duly appreciative of this blessing. But were Justin to decide to move on, I would mow the lawn myself. My first job was mowing lawns. It can be a contemplative process if done in the late afternoon, and mindfully.  I am not sure why more people don’t enjoy it.  I am not sure why more people don’t mow their own lawns. I am not sure why more people don’t weed their lawns. I do think there is a problem with our wanting a lawn but not wanting to do the work of caring for it.

There is, of course, a movement these days, sometimes called the “Lose the Lawn” movement, to get rid of lawns altogether and replace them with meadows or low-maintenance perennial gardens or vegetables. There is much to be said for this movement and I applaud it.

But here’s the problem for me. I love grass. And I don’t just mean that I love the ornamental grasses, the Miscanthus, Pennisetums,  Panicums, so popular of late because of their lower-maintenance and winter interest properties. Many can imagine loving the purple-feathered ‘Little Bunny’ but few are saying they love the common ordinary grasses that make up a lawn in our part of the world. But these are the grasses I love, separately and collectively. I love the carpet made up of these grasses, that green “thing” we see every day, and mostly take for granted. We assume its presence, like a fish must assume the presence of water. Of course grass covers the ground around our houses. What else would?  We cannot imagine our world without grass and so we rarely pay attention to it.

But what would happen if we began to appreciate the miracle that grass really is? If properly cared for, my lawn comes back year after year. It gives me green, beautiful living green, for seven months of the year. It covers with this green every part of my property that is not house or garden. My grass lets me walk on it, play croquet on it, lie down in it, run and jump on it, all without much complaining. It frames and sets off my gardens, giving me an experience of calm to balance the exuberance of the gardens. an oasis of openness to balance the business of plantings. No other ground cover does so much work so widely and so well and with such beauty. Why shouldn’t I love my lawn? Why shouldn’t I care for my grass?

Perhaps if we began to think of grass as a plant like our roses or hydrangeas or our echinaceas or delphiniums it might change the way we think about our lawns and so perhaps our behavior as well. In Leaves of Grass, his poem of 1855, Walt Whitman writes, “I lean and loaf at my ease/Observing a spear of summer grass.”  Kevin and I did just that last week as we weeded and rested and weeded and rested.  We could see that the green carpet which constitutes my lawn actually consists of hundreds of individual plants with wonderful names like tall fescue and fine-leaf fescue, perennial rye and Kentucky blue grass, possibly some creeping red fescue. Realizing that grass is a plant could be, I think, a game-changer, one as big as the “lose the lawn” movement but with the opposite goal.

Maybe the way to accomplish this change of perspective would be to begin referring to our green gift not collectively but individually, not as grass but as grasses. I think I will try it out. I think I will ask Justin when he next plans to mow the grasses.  I think I will say to Kevin next week, “Shall we spend some time this morning weeding the grasses?”

Here’s the last of the good lawn care mantra.  Water infrequently but deeply. Spread a thin layer of compost over the lawn in spring and fall. Overseed in the fall. Fertilize for root strength in the fall. Aerate every three years if needed.

As some of you may know, I hired a consultant this spring to help me develop my writing “platform.”  You can read more about this adventure in a piece just published in Trolley, the on-line journal of the Writers’ Institute of New York. See this summer 2020 edition of Trolley. I called it “Travelling to Instagram.”

Dan is one of the most generous writers I have had the good fortune to encounter. Under his guidance I prepared the Tools and Tips for Garden Design document that goes to each new subscriber and that you can access via the following link: (http://www.perennialwisdom.net/tips-and-tools-for-designing-your-garden/).  If you enjoy it, let a friend or neighbor know about the newsletter.  If they subscribe, they will have access to this document.  And do let me know if you have questions or comments or want clarification or elaboration on any of the ideas contained in the document.