...the ice we skate/ is gettin' pretty thin/ the water's gettin' warm so we might as well swim...
let me tell you of our recent adventures in home-ownership!
namely: our lawn is dead.
well, i take that back: portions of the lawn are dead, and portions are doing pretty well for themselves. when we bought the house all the grass was green (except for one weird patch over the utility easement in the back yard, which was a bit yellowish and sad-looking at the time) and everything was mowed and edged nicely. that was back at the beginning of may.
when we moved in, we pretty much let the lawn go to seed. the weather was nice, the grass stayed green, and we had metric ass-tons of other stuff to take care of, so we didn't worry about it. but then, about a month later, our neighbors on both sides had mowed their lawns and ours started to look reeeeally scraggly and shameful by comparison. (also, i am deeply wary of Those People From the HOA, the ones who come around with a ruler to measure the length of your grass and then fine you.) so we* bought a lawn mower - and an edger - and jim mowed the lawn, front and back.
and then it died.
i don't know if that was a result of the weather getting hotter and drier with coincidentally bad timing, or if (as has always been my belief) grass has not evolved to be short, and cutting it kills it unless you intervene with copious amounts of water.
(seriously, i have a whole rant on that subject, the gist of which is: grass is grass. it almost never dies when it's out in a field minding its own business and not getting chopped up all the time. if you let it grow long, then the tops shade and cool the bottom, keep the moisture in for the times when there's rain, protect the roots... all the nice things grass has evolved to do on its own. mowing lawns is a terrible waste of money: first you spend money (and time) to cut up and rake away all the long grass, then you spend money (and time) to water the grass so that it doesn't die. and repeat. whereas if you left it alone, it would go merrily on living.)
(i have a similar rant about raking leaves / mulching trees. don't mess with nature, you're just making more work for yourself. jeez.)
so anyway, we left the now-mowed lawn for a few days, during which it went totally brown and sad. our neighbors started to very politely ask us if we needed any help with our lawn or any recommendations for a lawn service, so we took the hint and bought a garden hose and sprinkler**. ever since then, about every other night we've put the sprinkler out somewhere in the lawn for half an hour or so to give it some water. (omg, waste of water, waste of money, why the hell is this so iebnievsvldie!!!!) after a couple weeks of that, things started to look alive again, and now most of the lawn is back to its previous jungle-like state. although jim did edge the front lawn last week, so that it wouldn't look too sorry.
i'm getting the feeling we're going to have to mow at least the front lawn again soon. i want to hold off on the back lawn and let it grow some more, if possible. (i know all the arguments about bugs and disease and etc that are used in favor of regularly mowing grass - to which i say, nyaaar!!) much of the grass in both the front and the back is nicely long and green again, and parts of it are putting up their super-long-stem seed pods. but, weirdly enough, we still have a few swathes of dead grass here and there: one big one in the front yard, and two in the back yard - one of which is the same sad yellow patch that existed in nascent form when we bought the house. (i suspect this is something to do with the underground utilities back there. jim says it's the plutonium.) there are also some areas of green grass that are actually a bit patchy as well, with long green bits interspersed with short dead bits, like a sad, half-living quilt.
closer observation has revealed that these dead areas are actually a different species of grass. (note: i don't know the first thing about classifying genus and species and whatever, it's not my area, so bear with me if i abuse the terminology.) growing up, our whole lawn (every enormous portion of it) was of the st. augustine variety - and the green portions in our lawn now look to be either that or a similar breed. meanwhile, the dead portions are clearly a very different species of grass - thinner blade, different root system, etc. there are a few teensy isolated patches of this second unidentified kind of grass that are growing, since we've been watering the lawn, but on the whole, the dead areas are exclusively this second, clearly inferior type, while nearly everything that's green and growing is the first kind.
i'm not sure what to do about this. we've been watering the dead areas almost exclusively this past week, and all that's resulted from it is that a few patches of the thriving type-a grass have cropped up in the middle of the brown dead swatches of type-b grass. i don't really want to lay down sod or mulch it or anything like that.... i'm fairly inclined just to mow (or lightly whack down) the tallest areas and hope that the useful good grass will grow to fill in the gaps.
they're some pretty big gaps, though.
any thoughts, gentle readers?
---
* i say "we", but actually jim bought the lawn mower (and the edger) without any input or involvement from me, on the condition that i will never ever ever have to mow/edge the lawn myself. i have opinions about lawn mowers, you see. this comes of being an oldest child, and therefore being responsible for mowing the ginormous yard we had at my parents' house growing up.
** it is frankly amazing the amount of shit you don't have to worry about when you rent an apartment, and then you buy a house and you realise that yes, actually, you need that garage, and that attic, and maybe even that shed, for all the shit you have to buy to maintain your new house. the amount of money we've spent, my god, i cannot even contemplate it.
namely: our lawn is dead.
well, i take that back: portions of the lawn are dead, and portions are doing pretty well for themselves. when we bought the house all the grass was green (except for one weird patch over the utility easement in the back yard, which was a bit yellowish and sad-looking at the time) and everything was mowed and edged nicely. that was back at the beginning of may.
when we moved in, we pretty much let the lawn go to seed. the weather was nice, the grass stayed green, and we had metric ass-tons of other stuff to take care of, so we didn't worry about it. but then, about a month later, our neighbors on both sides had mowed their lawns and ours started to look reeeeally scraggly and shameful by comparison. (also, i am deeply wary of Those People From the HOA, the ones who come around with a ruler to measure the length of your grass and then fine you.) so we* bought a lawn mower - and an edger - and jim mowed the lawn, front and back.
and then it died.
i don't know if that was a result of the weather getting hotter and drier with coincidentally bad timing, or if (as has always been my belief) grass has not evolved to be short, and cutting it kills it unless you intervene with copious amounts of water.
(seriously, i have a whole rant on that subject, the gist of which is: grass is grass. it almost never dies when it's out in a field minding its own business and not getting chopped up all the time. if you let it grow long, then the tops shade and cool the bottom, keep the moisture in for the times when there's rain, protect the roots... all the nice things grass has evolved to do on its own. mowing lawns is a terrible waste of money: first you spend money (and time) to cut up and rake away all the long grass, then you spend money (and time) to water the grass so that it doesn't die. and repeat. whereas if you left it alone, it would go merrily on living.)
(i have a similar rant about raking leaves / mulching trees. don't mess with nature, you're just making more work for yourself. jeez.)
so anyway, we left the now-mowed lawn for a few days, during which it went totally brown and sad. our neighbors started to very politely ask us if we needed any help with our lawn or any recommendations for a lawn service, so we took the hint and bought a garden hose and sprinkler**. ever since then, about every other night we've put the sprinkler out somewhere in the lawn for half an hour or so to give it some water. (omg, waste of water, waste of money, why the hell is this so iebnievsvldie!!!!) after a couple weeks of that, things started to look alive again, and now most of the lawn is back to its previous jungle-like state. although jim did edge the front lawn last week, so that it wouldn't look too sorry.
i'm getting the feeling we're going to have to mow at least the front lawn again soon. i want to hold off on the back lawn and let it grow some more, if possible. (i know all the arguments about bugs and disease and etc that are used in favor of regularly mowing grass - to which i say, nyaaar!!) much of the grass in both the front and the back is nicely long and green again, and parts of it are putting up their super-long-stem seed pods. but, weirdly enough, we still have a few swathes of dead grass here and there: one big one in the front yard, and two in the back yard - one of which is the same sad yellow patch that existed in nascent form when we bought the house. (i suspect this is something to do with the underground utilities back there. jim says it's the plutonium.) there are also some areas of green grass that are actually a bit patchy as well, with long green bits interspersed with short dead bits, like a sad, half-living quilt.
closer observation has revealed that these dead areas are actually a different species of grass. (note: i don't know the first thing about classifying genus and species and whatever, it's not my area, so bear with me if i abuse the terminology.) growing up, our whole lawn (every enormous portion of it) was of the st. augustine variety - and the green portions in our lawn now look to be either that or a similar breed. meanwhile, the dead portions are clearly a very different species of grass - thinner blade, different root system, etc. there are a few teensy isolated patches of this second unidentified kind of grass that are growing, since we've been watering the lawn, but on the whole, the dead areas are exclusively this second, clearly inferior type, while nearly everything that's green and growing is the first kind.
i'm not sure what to do about this. we've been watering the dead areas almost exclusively this past week, and all that's resulted from it is that a few patches of the thriving type-a grass have cropped up in the middle of the brown dead swatches of type-b grass. i don't really want to lay down sod or mulch it or anything like that.... i'm fairly inclined just to mow (or lightly whack down) the tallest areas and hope that the useful good grass will grow to fill in the gaps.
they're some pretty big gaps, though.
any thoughts, gentle readers?
---
* i say "we", but actually jim bought the lawn mower (and the edger) without any input or involvement from me, on the condition that i will never ever ever have to mow/edge the lawn myself. i have opinions about lawn mowers, you see. this comes of being an oldest child, and therefore being responsible for mowing the ginormous yard we had at my parents' house growing up.
** it is frankly amazing the amount of shit you don't have to worry about when you rent an apartment, and then you buy a house and you realise that yes, actually, you need that garage, and that attic, and maybe even that shed, for all the shit you have to buy to maintain your new house. the amount of money we've spent, my god, i cannot even contemplate it.