Homesteading Middles: The Tyranny of Lawns
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I did not grow up mowing grass. Our front yard (“garden”) according to my mother was flagstones and North Tisbury azaleas.*
Our back garden was much the same.
No grass. In Michigan we had scant grass. 10 minutes to mow grass with small mower.
Not anymore.
It takes over two hours to do a thorough job on the riding mower. Fill up with gasoline, pull out the choke, adjust the deck height, and off we go. I don’t mind the act of mowing itself. It can be very calming to be in the sun and having a machine do all the heavy lifting. It is more the principal of the thing.
Using liquified ancient trees (gasoline) to keep my lawn short in order to discourage mouse activity so that we don’t get too many tick bites seems absolutely insane.**
I take umbrage at the constant need to babysit a lawn whether in time or energy (mental or electric). Yes, it is a joy when freshly mown, but at what cost?
Usually the lawn dies back in the winter and then reemerges verdant and strong in the spring, but not this year. This spring significant portions of our lawn met May bald and dusty. The drought from last year was too much for the fragile leaves and bare soil resulted.
Assuming that weather weirding will continue - I want to find alternatives to grass. So far, ajuga is spreading from garden beds into the grassy areas - which is wonderful. So is the clover that we left to bloom and hopefully spread more seeds.
I think the next step is to explore creeping thyme.
Meanwhile, the rain finally came this week and we will see what happens.
* Love the internet that just took me to this article on Virginia Tech’s library page entitled THE NORTH TISBURY AZALEAS. It was written by my grandmother, Polly Hill, in late 1978 or 1979, probably 1979. The article itself is not dated, but I know it was written in ‘79 because of this. “In 1965, Dr. Rokujo sent me a packet of seed of " R. kaempferi var. leucanthum ". "Some pink may be expected", he added. About 30 of the resulting plants were finally moved from the nursery to various spots around the farm, or shared with others…I have registered two, 'Libby' and 'Corinna Borden'.…An off-white, palest pink, cloud of flowers tumbles over the branches of 'Corinna Borden' (#65-041-02) and stops every visitor walking by the border where it grows. The delicate color attracts both men and women. Both of these Kaempferis are perfectly hardy with me and should survive further north. The human Corinna is only 2, so there are no distributions yet from her plant, but that will come in years ahead.”
Thank you Winkie for this gift.
**We have less lawn than we did originally because we fenced off a significant portion of it about 8 years ago to have Fiddlehead Farm graze their sheep, alpacas, and goats. The animals are a joy to be with during their time with us and it is wonderful to mow that area once a year.
