I began my undergraduate studies in 1995. I completed them in 1999 and moved into a shared apartment overlooking the San Francisco Bay surrounded by a mix of native plants and xeriscaping. Since then, I have lived in South Africa, Santa Cruz, Mexico City, DC, and even spent a year on the road.
Never in all that time have I had to mow a lawn.
There are many things that you do not know you missed until you come back to them. The smell of star jasmine in the summer. A fresh winter rain in the redwoods. The song of a cardinal in spring. English bracken in the fall. It’s like seeing an old friend you haven’t thought about in years.
Lawn mowing is not one of these things. Lawn mowing is the opposite of these things. It’s that thing that you never realized you hated until you had to do it again. It’s like seeing that prick you knew in high school 20 years later and realizing that he’s still a prick.
Now that I have moved from the hemisphere’s largest city to a small suburban community outside Baltimore, I have had to mow my first lawn since Clinton was in office. The last time I fired up a mower, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was still running.
Every morning, as I sit, drinking my tea and listening to birds sing, I look out with disdain at the lawn that I never wanted. Every morning, it’s a little taller than the day before. I can practically hear it growing. God, I hate it.
Initially, we hired a neighborhood kid to cut the grass but it turns out that living expenses in the US are higher than Mexico and so I have taken over the responsibility myself. My partner in this is a dilapidated push mower from the early 1700’s that only works on Tuesdays and Fridays. Recently, after a long heart-to-heart we both decided to stop kidding ourselves and admit that it was broken.
It’s just as well. A recent “comprehensive analysis” of lawnmower accidents in America from nearby Johns Hopkins showed that these evil machines injure 6,400 people per year. That’s more than all Halloween-related injuries, though admittedly less than toilet-related ones. The data suggests that mower injuries are overwhelmingly inflicted upon men and my own research suggests they overwhelmingly didn’t want to be mowing the lawn when they were hurt.
The most common injuries were to the hands, presumably while trying to remove material from the vicious machines. But the data did not capture the wounds inflicted upon the soul. The hours of time lost that could otherwise have been spent watching Netflix or playing with my Rubix cube. The promises made to myself that I would never mow another lawn. And then broken.
I do not ask for your pity. I ask only that the next time you fire up your own mower that you take a minute to ask yourself, what is the point of it all? The damn stuff just grows back in two weeks. And if you live next me, I ask that you please stop telling me to mow my lawn. I live there, I know it’s long.
Also, your pity. I know what I said before, but I changed my mind. I would like your pity.
Now the days are getting shorter and the leaves are turning from green to crimson and amber. And my lawn is growing more slowly, storing up its energy so that it can just maliciously start all over again in spring. Soon enough, the birds will leave my street and the leaves will fall to litter the ground.
And yes, then I’ll have to deal with all that s%#* too.
What you want is a robot lawnmower, there everywhere in Sweden, and quite cute. Plus the blade is tiny and made of plastic, so much less chance of damaging yourself with it. https://www.husqvarna.com/uk/products/robotic-lawn-mowers/
I guess I’m one of those weirdos who actually enjoys doing lawn. I like that it takes almost no brain cells to do but still requires a measure of neatness and care. I put on my headphones, start up my audiobook, and go to it. Then, when it’s done, I get that tiny sense of satisfaction that comes from ticking that item off my to-do list and it wasn’t even that hard!
Dr D, you seem like a perfectly nice person and I respect your right to your own opinions. That said, this one is simply wrong. It just … it just … it just … is.
This book by Paul Robbins (UWisconsin-Madison) might be of interest to you:
Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are
https://www.amazon.com/Lawn-People-Grasses-Weeds-Chemicals/dp/159213579X
Seems like the question is—do we control the lawn, or does the lawn control us? Working on getting non-lawn groundcover planted in my own yard, because I don’t want to be subject to the tyranny of the lawn!
In the Pacific Northwest, you can pave, you can use herbicides or you can mow grass. The alternative is ratty weeds and prickly brush and then, if you wait long enough, a forest. Unless you have solid pavement, something is going to grow, usually some kind of blackberry or horsetail. We gave up, planted grass seeds and hired a guy to mow.
I would recommend visiting a nursery that sells native plants to your region and asking for alternatives to lawn. I live (as a landscape architect) in Central Texas so I can’t make recommendations but am 99.99% sure there is an easy groundcover or low growing shrub you can get instead of lawn that needs zero hours of mowing.
I lived on 6 acres of mostly woods and I mowed the trails as well as the lawn. I kind of enjoyed it. I’m outside and getting some exercise. Afterwards I’d sit on a bench and enjoy the clean yard. Now I’m on a smaller lot with no lawn and just pine needles to rake up. Not so much fun, but I still enjoy a cold one while looking at my yard.