My Grass Is Never Greener

First published August 12, 2005

Ok, I’d just like to know who made it a law that a perfect lawn of rich green grass is good, while all the crap that actually wants to grow in your yard is bad.

First, a little background: I bought my house from a retired gentleman whose sole mission in life was to make sure that no blade of grass in the lawn was longer or shorter than any other. He was a compulsive grass guy. As a result, on the day we moved in I had the most beautiful yard anybody had ever seen.

By the next afternoon feral cats stalked their prey in my crabgrass Serengeti. By the lake, waves of golden dandelions swayed gently in the breeze. A large section of the front yard looked a more like the Baja peninsula than anything I’ve ever seen in Michigan – my son claimed he spotted a vulture sitting on a cactus over by the porch.

So how did this happen? How did the word get out to all the weeds and varmints that the old sheriff was gone and the new one didn’t know his Weed ‘N Feed from his 2-4-D?

All I can figure is that there is some sort of botanical underworld organization for chickweed, plantain, and all the other plants deemed “outlaws” by the Code of the Suburbs. And, like good gangsters everywhere, they moved in and took over the minute the territory opened up.

For a while I tried to be a kind of lawn-care Eliot Ness, slinging my spot-weed-eradicator bottle like a Tommy gun, ruthlessly hunting down and blasting everything that wasn’t good old law-abiding Kentucky Blue Grass. While this was pretty satisfying in a Dirty Harry kind of way, it wasn’t all that effective – for every offender I’d “rub out,” two more would spring up in its place.

So maybe it’s time for us to work on repealing this botanical version of the Volstead Act. I once saw a house in Las Vegas, where watering can present a problem, in which the occupant had paved the yard with concrete and painted it a more or less grass-like green color. This individual was clearly capable of thinking outside the box. Why shouldn’t the rest of us?

First, why can’t I have a lawn consisting entirely of creeping charlie? It’s green, and you never have to mow the stuff. Plus, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing short of a nuclear blast that will kill it. The only down side I can think of is that creeping charlie smells like mint, so it might be kind of like living on a giant Tic Tac. Could be worse.

And who says you shouldn’t cultivate a prize-winning dandelion patch? You could go to dandelion shows and have dandelion home tours, where people go around and gawk at the very best dandelion gardens in town. You’d have little bouquets of dandelions on the table, in stunning arrangements garnished with sprigs of thistle and ragweed.

You could even get out of trouble with your wife by sending her a dozen long-stemmed dandelions – as long as you also sent her a diamond bracelet.

Ok, maybe all that is not such a great idea after all. I wonder what Astroturf costs these days?

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball