Early fall lawn grooming tips

Ah, the smell of freshly mowed creeping Charlie in the morning; nothing quite like it. Although the Phactors have extensive gardens, so big is our city estate that enough lawn remains to more than equal the amount of lawn on 3 or 4 or 5 standard-sized city lots which around here are 50 x 150. Now this would be an onerous task except that much of our lawn is in light to heavy shade so it doesn't require mowing very often. In these circumstances nothing beats creeping Charlie or blue violets, except maybe a shade-loving sedge. Lawn purists will wrinkle their noses and not a month goes by but when some chemical lawn care company leaves its toxic brochures tucked in our front door. Creeping Charlie and blue violets only grow so tall, and today's mowing was the first mowing of the shadiest area in 2 months. Apply chemical lawn killers to this area and nothing would be left but bare ground, and while this might be turned into forest understory, it really only looks good in the spring. This is because some of our other lawn "weeds" (trillium, wild ginger, blue bells, Solomon's seal) are not apparent because they are spring ephemerals. So tip number one is do not mow too often certainly no more than once a month. Tip number two is do not obsess about grass even if it is a minor component of lawn. Tip number three: buy a lawn mower capable to dealing with bits of bark, twigs as big as your fingers, and a smattering of leaves. This is part of having an ecological lawn. You know you're dealing with an obsessive when they speak of mowing the "grass" as if in some suburban universe a monoculture of grass is a desirable thing. As this blog is being written a neat, undulating sward of green spreads before the perennial gardens beyond. At this distance no one can identify the plants composing the green: neat, green, aesthetically pleasing, so what more is needed? Ah, just one thing, affirmation from an expert! And now you have it!

Leaf fairies!

Yesterday morning a huge leaf cleanup task filled the Phactors' lawns.  TPP use to rent a beast of a machine, the Billy Goat, to vacuum and chop leaves, but at times you could only clean an eight or ten foot long swath before the 8 cubic foot bag was full.  The problem was that each time you stopped the beast to empty the bag, no small task itself, you had to restart the monster and after a couple of hours my arm and shoulder felt like they would fall off.  The whole job would take the better part of two days and the beast rented for $80 a day!  Then Mrs. Phactor made a deal with some garden fairies that in return for  leaf cleanup, she'd do their tax returns.  So much to my total delight, TPP arrives home yesterday and the lawns are free of leaves!  This was magical and my right shoulder has stopped its anticipatory aching!  You should understand that TPP knowing quite well which side of the bread is buttered always, always gets Mrs. Phactor a compensatory gift just this side of extravagant for relieving her doltish husband of any tax return responsibilities.  This coming year her deal with the leaf fairies will have to be taken into account as well. 

Fall Lawn Care Advice

As many readers of the Phytophactor know, he is an expert on ecological lawn care (see here and here to review his perspective), so imagine the delight when a newly discovered blog begins with these statements. If you were on a quest to rid the world of excess turf grass, the front lawn would be a good place to start. Front lawns dominated by grass are, for the most part, wasted space.
How very true, although it they had been following my advice, it would be lawn not turf grass, a dead giveaway term of a hort education, so even this guy has something to learn. Front lawns, especially front lawns of grass, are such a waste! The idea of expanses of lawn in front of the family manse wasn't such a bad idea when a flock of sheep was employed to keep it manicured, but that's hardly practical when the local berg won't even allow chickens or rabbits. Now it's hard to know which is sillier, those little tiny patches of grass slightly larger than a door mat you find in inner city neighborhoods or the acres of sense numbing, diagonally-mowed grass of the 'burbs. At present lawn occupies about 30% of the area of the Phactor's front garden. Our quest to minimize lawn is aided and abetted by large trees that make a grassy lawn nearly impossible, but even in old established urban neighborhoods such as ours too many people attempt the impossible either out of laziness, based on the grass is easier myth, or ignorance of alternatives, or both (remember my mention of an Ediot neighbor who ripped out all of the landscaping and planted grass? An update on him will be forthcoming.).
So my advice for lawn care this fall is simple: dig it up, this is an excellent time to plant something new. Violate those stupid ordinances that prevent you from gardening your land in view of others! Make your act of civil disobedience create a visual and actual oasis of greenery. The image provided is of the 4th house west of the Phactors, the smallest lot in the entire neighborhood, and not a blade of grass to be seen anywhere. Please be kind because at this time of year their garden lawn is rather over grown, suffering from the heat and drought, and health has prevented them from maintaining control. But the concept that lawn/grass is not at all necessary is exactly the point illustrated. Stop wasting space on lawn!