Good Grass

I like my lawn.  There, I've admitted it!  The large swaths of green are bright and cheerful,  good for playing tag with Sol, and even excellent habitat for many of the  birds, reptiles and mammals who live in and visit my yard.  

There has been a 'green' outcry against lawns the last few years. They use lots of precious water, are treated with chemicals and fertilizers that damage the ecosystyem,  burn fossil fuel when cut,  and could be planted with vegetables instead...  all true in many cases, but not in regard to my lawn. 

I don't live in Arizona, Texas, or another area where the climate is all wrong for growing the typical lawn grass species.  Lawns in temperate climates like mine don't need a lot of water as long as the property owner understands the life cycle, and is ok with  some brown grass in August.  In twenty years I have never watered my lawn!  I have also never fertilized, and never spread herbicides or pesticides, yet my lawn look green and verdant most of the time.  

So how do I keep my lawn this way?  First, I don't worry about some plants considered lawn weeds.  One whole section of lawn on the shady side is really Ajuga, or  bugleweed. It mows just fine, and outcompetes the dandelions. Also, it is a beautiful carpet of blue flowers for a month in late spring. I also welcome sorrel and  clover, which are both  bright green, cut well, and have flowers that bees enjoy.  I will hand dig big dandelions and plantains, but nor obsessively. 

I cut the grass high, and leave some of the clippings in place to fertilize.  When I've let it go too long and the cuttings are thick, I rake them and use them as mulch and fertilizer in the vegetable and flower beds.  I cut my grass with a reel mower most of the time. It's so quiet that I can listen to a book on tape while mowing.  About four times a season the weather or my schedule keeps me from mowing, and I call a family friend who comes in with his commercial mower for a modest fee plus an assortment of garden produce. The clippings from these cuts provide so much mulch I don't have to buy any in-- thus meaning no truck burning gas to deliver.

I like my lawn, but I know that as I get older it will be harder for me to keep cutting it with the reel mower.  So I have a strategy; working in from the edges I make the lawn smaller each year.  Here's a picture of the big bed of  ornamental grasses I planted ten years ago just after planting:

 Here's the same bed today:
It requires some weeding, but because I mulch it with the cuttings from the previous year's grass each spring, the weeds are manageable.

 I dug and planted this bed two years ago. It's starting to fill in.

 This shady bed is about five years old. I built the gravel path at the same time.

 The bed in the picture below  surrounds the stump of an apple tree I cut down ten years ago. It's been getting a foot wider every year, and is planted with perennials in the center, and rhubarb and vegetables farther out.  Note the dead patch on the lawn-- I've been monitoring it for a month, trying to decide if I should rake and seed it with grass.  But it is half the size it was originally, so I think I'll leave it to it's own devices for now.

All lawns are not evil, and here in Southeastern Massachusetts  untreated lawns like mine are important wildlife habitat, especially when they border on hayfields like the one beyond my fence. Many species of meadow birds are in decline locally because of the reforestation of the East Coast, and fields and lawns can help them survive.  Did I mention  fireflies? The grasslands are key to their survival too.

Eventually,  I plan to have a manageable section of lawn on view from the slider, surrounded by flowers, shrubs and vegetables; small enough to cut in a day, big enough to host a crowd of fireflies on a warm July evening.