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The perfect American lawn
WWYD?
I live in suburbian in a 'hood known for how beautiful it looks. There is an overabundance of floraculture and almost everyone has windowboxes full of flowers, etc.
DH and I are having a debate.
Our lawn is probably in the bottom 20% of lawns. It is green but it does have weeds in it, especially clover. Our next door neighbors have a lush green lawn without a single weed. They also have chem-lawn (or its equivalent) come spray every month. Almost everyone seems to spray with Chem lawn.
DH wants to do so too, because he thinks our yard looks bad.
I refuse because our kids play in the grass.
I hand weed our yard as best I can, but I'm more successful pulling crabgrass than clover. (Clover has a special place as honey bees really like it).
What would you do?
Re: The perfect American lawn
Neither. I would contract with a company (there are a lot of local ones around me) that use non-toxic stuff and also by hand weed.
That way, you get rid of weeds and don't have the kids play on chemicals.
I know this misses the bee part... but I am scared of bees (as I am midly allergic) so this is not something that I personally would consider/want in my yard.
I'd either use something I was comfortable with the kids playing on, or continue to hand weed and mow down the tall weeds.
To get rid of weeds and moss in our front yard, we had to till it all up, rake it out, and seed.
Our yard is finally almost average for the neighborhood. It has a long way to go, but at least the grass (most of our lot is wooded) is finally coming in. We don't have restrictive covenants, so no one can make us do anything about the yard, but we do have uptight neighbors. Someone posted to the listserv today and yesterday about a homeless guy wandering the 'hood.
Turns out it's a retired guy that has lived here for 30+ years. He walks a lot and someone didn't recognize him, thought b/c he was dressed really casually that he was homeless, and flipped out.
that's where I'm at.
I used some natural fertilizers and aerate and overseed every year, it just isn't perfect and to be honest the strip in the middle of my driveway is down right attrocious, but that's because I can't drive and I keep tearing it up.
Above Us Only Sky
+1000
This. If it's remotely green and kept at a decent length I think it's fine. Actually, it doesn't even have to be green, but I don't think it should look dead. For example, flowers in the lawn are fine.
I have an irrational hatred of people who need perfect lawns, though, so I am biased.
I feel the same. If I had to have a lawn, I would put in astro turf. I think they make some now that looks pretty natural.
This.
I won't use chemicals on my lawn, and its not perfect, which is fine with me. By keeping it mowed, it looks pretty good to me.
My long-term goal is to do away with the front lawn completely and have it be low-maintenance local plants like heather, lavendar, etc. My neighbor at our hold house had an English cottage-style garden like this, with stepping stone paths, etc, and it was gorgeous.
I'd be trying to kill all the bees, though. We don't get along.
Although, in Denver, we had a grape vine in the house we rented, and the bees were insane over it at the beginning of fall. I just didn't go in the backyard and made my roommate take out the trash.
I've done my bit for the bees! And now they can gladly not be in my yard every again.
I would definitely try to save the honeybees.
My yard has sad patches of dirt that we are having difficulties with. I definitely have the 2nd worst yard in the neighborhood. After the house that was foreclosed and empty for a long time. I'm sure they'll eventually beat me too--they just haven't gotten there yet.