Hamish's Lawn

[gilmore]

Man, that really sucks, Ham! I know how proud of your yard & garden you are.
We're seriously thinking of ripping up all the lawn in our yard and replacing it with other forms of landscaping. It's too much trouble trying to keep the grass looking good here. Hopefully we'll be able to do most of the work in the next couple of years.

I wish I could do that with mine. In addition to the trouble and expense of keeping up a monoculture of hybrid grass, lawns are ecological disasters. The herbicides disrupt the ecosystem, resulting in the displacement and local extinction of all sorts of indigenous plants and animals. And the rainwater runoff carries the fertilizers downstream to lakes where they cause algae pollution in lakes and streams, often choking them.

There are all sorts of aesthetically pleasing things that can be done with low maintenance native plants as alternatives.

[auld argonian]

I just remembered a guy that lives around here that the kids and I refer to as "The Rockman". This guys whole lot is covered with different colored fields of stone...there's a piece of driftwood here and there and an occaisional plant but the whole thing is rocks. This is in the middle of those "putting green" lawns and perfectly coifed bushes...he must drive his neighbors nuts. I seriously thought about contacting Apple computers when they were doing their "Think Different" campaign and telling them about this guy...imagine them laying out the Apple logo in stones on his front "Lawn" and then doing an aerial shot.

We nearly freaked last year when we saw that the house had been sold and the new owner was having the rocks scooped up and was putting in grass.

Fortunately...it seems that the fella just downsized to a smaller house a couple of blocks away...soon we drove past his new house and when we saw the vast expanses of red and white stone we realized that the Rockman had returned. And there was much rejoicing!

Best

AA

[bubba]

Many of the native grasses and plants around here are classified as noxious weeds and you have to keep em down. The obsession with the golf course lawn drives me nuts because it doesn't belong in the area. Native grasses and plants are the best way to go but local ordinances usually forbid it.

[Yaish]

Someone, I dont remember who, wrote a story just about lawn care. The story was told from the perspective of a youngster who was totally new to human tendencies seeing a human mow their lawn for the first time.

It went something like this;

"Why are they cutting that green stuff?"

"That's grass, and people spend a lot of time mowing it down to just the right height."

"Oh. Then they must really appreciate it when the summer drought comes along, and all that grass dies."

"No, in fact then they go to extremes to make sure it stays watered, and they will use fertilizer to make it grow faster."

"Doesnt that mean they have to cut it more?"

"Yes, it does."

[Southern Breeze]

Someone, I dont remember who, wrote a story just about lawn care. The story was told from the perspective of a youngster who was totally new to human tendencies seeing a human mow their lawn for the first time.

It went something like this;

"Why are they cutting that green stuff?"

"That's grass, and people spend a lot of time mowing it down to just the right height."

"Oh. Then they must really appreciate it when the summer drought comes along, and all that grass dies."

"No, in fact then they go to extremes to make sure it stays watered, and they will use fertilizer to make it grow faster."

"Doesnt that mean they have to cut it more?"

"Yes, it does."

And then there's this view of lawns:
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=18955