When I started this blog I did it so I could keep track of my reading for my Notable Committee. When a few people started reading it I felt quite a bit of pressure "to produce" and so started commenting on my life more so the few year was a mixture of book reviews, dating woe stories and rants about dead animals and mowing. Eventually I decided that since people at work read this blog I would move my dating stories and other assorted rants to my myspace page so that people who wanted to read about books wouldn't have that inflicted on them, not to mention the fact that the people at work don't really need to know that much about my dating life...or lack thereof.
But, because it is tradition, I will comment a bit on lawns. Men seem quite enamoured of them and I have learned since purchasing a home that some neighbors care a great deal about them as well. BUT, I don't get it. In a few minutes, I will go to the store and buy a weed and feed fertilizer in order to get my grass to grow...and then I will spend the rest of the summer either watering it to keep it growing or cutting it to keep it from growing too much. Does this make sense to anyone else? Why exactly are we doing this again? There are other plants, many of which are currently scattered throughout my lawn. They are green. Some have pretty flowers. Most don't seem to need any water or food. Why are these bad again?
In other homeowner news, the Roeland Park sustainability committee is having an Earth Day Open House today from 3 -5 pm at Roeland Park City Hall (4600 W 51st St, Roeland Park, KS). There will be information on Rain Gardens (which I have planned on doing for the past few years but can't seem to work up the energy to actually do), recycling and composting. All very good things in my personal opinion. Hope to see you there.
7 comments:
I always thought that it's a conspiracy by lawn-industry to dupe people into growing weeds and spend money doing that.
Ugh, I put up with the lawn, but can't say I am a fanatic. I don't want it to look like total ass tho. I am afraid this year I will loose the battle to keep both of my neighbors dandelions out of my yard, because I am too cheap to fight them off.
But, while I am here, I wanna say that I understand your segregating your content, but an occasional rant wouldn't hurt your readership any more than a boob cake story.
I want to hear about the rain garden stuff!!!!
if you want to be more environmentally friendly, consider living with the weeds. it's much worse to put the fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn. that stuff eventually ends up in streamways, affecting not just your lawn.
I know. Eventually I want to replace it with native grass or do some kind of zeroscaping but am at a bit of a loss on how to achieve it. I have been taking out small sections of the backyard (and not doing weed-n-feed back there) but I am not yet brave enough to face down the neighbors over the front yard.
Good for you for finding out more about a water garden and looking for ways to minimize having to put additives on your lawn.
Water gardens are very cool, but can be initially labor-intensive! We'd love to do that, too, but for now we've settled for having a rain barrel and using almost all native plants that we won't have to water much over the summer. Also, look for ways to reduce the actually plot of grass you have and there's that much less mowing to do. I bet you could turn half of your front lawn into a native flower garden! :)
The first year I made huge inroads into the grass. Last year, not so much:) I say we do a weekend garden center trip and load up. After next weekend I will actually have time to plant it all.
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