View Full Version : My Neighbor's Yard
It would be hard to overstate the perfection of my neighbor's yard. The grass is a perfectly smooth carpet of green perfectly edged and trimmed. No leaf or blade of grass sullies the porch, walk, or driveway. The flowers are promptly removed and replaced as soon as the blooms fade. And this vision of perfection exists not only after yard work has been accomplished, it is all the time. The neighborhood association may as well cement the Yard of the Month sign in place because no one else even comes close. But I call the place the Dead Zone because you'll never see anything living there. It's kind of like a horticultural Stepford Wives. It looks perfect but it's not really alive. The green of the grass is chemically induced. Pesticides keep any creepy crawly thing from making an appearance which means there are no bees on the sterile flowers, no butterflies, no dragonflies, and I doubt if a mosquito stands much of a chance either. All undergrowth has been removed out of fear of snakes. This means there are no birds, raccoons, possums, snakes, lizards, toads, or armadillos. I honestly can't think why someone would buy acreage in the country and then proceed to make it uninhabitable for any living thing.
Well said Florence. Its a totally sterile yard. They are probably sooo proud of it. Unfortunate.
Ick, that is the sort of thing that gives me the creeps.
Here is my beach-side "lawn" - all native vegetation, not watered, not fertilized, just cleaned up now and then:
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My neighbor on one side you can see here on the leftish side of the photo, with his putting-green-like lawn at the clear border of mine :-) He waters, even in the winter, fertilizes and pesticides, and all that good stuff.
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(and another of dead-lawn)
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And the pity is, right off that beach is an incredible expanse of eel-grass, which is the base of the food chain here that leads to the salmon and the whales, and which has been vanishing throughout Puget Sound because of....thoughtlessness. We get our oysters and clams on this beach, harvest our crabs and prawns and fish right there, and this fellow dumps hundreds of pounds of poison a year right into our food supply. Because he likes his lawn.
I've got one of those across the street. We are in a rural area, way in the woods, but this guy insists on a suburban looking lawn. He waters the grass starting in March. In New England. In freezing weather. One year he was so determined, he mowed the half of his lawn that was not still snow covered. He waters two or three times a week so that he can mow twice a week. Yet by mid summer, his grass is a pale green and mine is holding up, even though I don't fertilize much.
I never notice that there are any birds in his yard. Likely no other living things either.
This is the family that started the petition to pave our street. They want the rest of us to look as sterile.
I’ll trade you neighbors. One of our neighbors (¾ mile away but closest to us) has 20+ junk trailers strewn about his back yard; trash abounds around the house while 3, new, good sized waste service provided trash containers lay on their sided, tops torn off already, near the road; numerous grills, grill parts, bikes, baby strollers, barrels; broken windows and doors; several broken down lawn tractors and many, many more unidentifiable objects lying about. No problem with critter habitation off all sorts including chickens, dogs and cattle that roam out into the road. No need to mow the lawn as there is no place for lawn to grow because of the trash and waist high weeds. There is an blight ordinance in our township but it is obviously not enforced. On the upside, that is the only residence of that sort between us and town which is 8 miles away. Yup, I’ll trade neighbors.
Too bad there has to be such extremes. I've never understood why some people need to be such slobs. Its not that hard to occasionally clean up. And at the other end of the continuum, don't the sterile people appreciate the interruption of life they cause in their yards? I think we're a happy medium here..........no junk in the yard, but PLENTY of weeds. haha
I do have to remind DH that our yard isn't supposed to be a golf course. He was raised to think it was a really good thing to have the perfect looking lawn. Many times I'm screaming "It's not a golf course!!!" Some people see weeds as eyesores. I see them has food and habitat for creatures that far-outnumber our species.......and don't make as much trouble for the planet!
We lived next door to one serial mower and across the street from another for a while. The lawns would have been the envy of any golf course, but the owners were both very strange. These people (just him on one side, both of them across the street) NEVER took a day off from tending to their yard. They both had every lawn gadget ever created and used at least a couple of them every single day. Neither couple had pets to soil the grass or kids that might matt it down. We lived in that house for over a year and the only time either of these neighbors even had company was when one of the lady's mother passed away. These were beautiful homes in an area where people tended to show off, but I think they simply tried to one up the other and be done with any social interaction beyond that. The really funny part was when a family from India bought the house on the other side of us. Let's just say that lawn maintenance is apparently not a high priority in Indian life. The lady across the street would stand on her driveway and just glare at their lawn (which in any other setting would have just been a normal yard). DW and I were both totally creeped out and could not move out of there fast enough. Now we're debating if we even want to have grass in our new yard...
While I wouldn't want neighbors like godensmoms, at least they aren't dumping pounds of poisons into to air, land, and water every week or so.
Bae, what a spectacular backyard!! Ours is lovely in a different way with moss covered hundred year old live oaks and wildflowers. This is the season for the gulf frittalary butterflies and as my husband and I were out this morning, we saw probably 30 gorgeous orange fritillaries. The caterpillars feed on the native passion flower vines which we wouldn't think of mowing over because we want the butterflies. We also have a pair of bluebirds nesting; they are insect eaters and I'll gladly have the insects so we can have the bluebirds. Over in the Dead Zone, it is perfectly groomed an perfectly silent.
Well, when our yard was vetted for the Urban Sustainability Tour there was an inquiry which I recognized as gentle rebuke about our lawn and I had to 'splain myself. We've got a strip of bluegrass lawn that I like because it sets off the flower beds. Judgement comes in all shapes and sizes.
Today I am giving all of our plumbing a workout by watering all flower beds to keep my precious non-prairie non-sustainable never-will-be-permaculture rarified lilies alive and thriving in this 100 degree heat and you all can go suck an egg! haha. The iris here will get some splashes of water, but I'm not worried about them, they are desert plants.
I've noticed that around here, its the noxious invasives that are still doing so well! They could probably thrive forever without water. GGGrrrrrrr.
Seems like my life these days is comprised of watering things and then recovering from it. Some things I'm just going to have to let go. But the lawn...........who cares about it!
What green spots we have in it now are from the weeds that won't die.
If the drought gets worse, I'll probably give up on everything except the garden and the pine trees we planted last year.
Thought we had a chance of rain tonight, but now its looking like it will go south of here. :(
Iris Lily........looks like St. Louis might be the hottest spot around today.
I don't understand this paradigm of "carpet grass and ball bushes" or why it continues to exist other than that is how things were done once when water was plentiful and the weather was less brutal than it has become. We have the perfect lawns on either side of us too - both owned by elderly women who have weekly "lawn men" with tweezers it would seem and sprinkler systems that run way too often. Roundup, fertilizer - blech! We can literally watch the birds and wildlife congregate in our yard as they skip right over the dead zones around us. I purposefully left up an old dying cottonwood so the raptors and owls would have a snag to hang out in when passing through. I am in the process of planning some more native landscaping in the fall and those old ladies ain't gonna like it. Thankfully though, we all co-exist despite our beliefs.
I used to have a Lawn Looney next door and the worst part of it was her having Lawn Doctor come regularly every summer. The sprays they use made my house smell like it had been sprayed for roaches unless I managed to quickly slam all the windows shut before Lawn Doctor got started. (This is an over-55 development with very small lots.) I let her know, but she was a very cold person who didn't care much about the neighbors and certainly not the bunnies and squirrels in the 'hood. Interestingly, twelve years later she's dying a slow, painful death from lung cancer. I don't feel very sorry for her. She was an R.N. and should have known that inhaling toxic chemicals for three or four months every year isn't a good idea.
When I see houses/lawns like that, I start singing to myself "Little boxes, little boxes, and they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same".
I, too, wonder where the "perfect kept lawn" notion came from. Maybe its the human's seemingly constant need to dominate over things??
I must admit, when I drive by some of homes with those beautiful lawns - I AM envious. :0!
Partly because my lawn looks like crap. :( It seems like I can never quite get caught up on the Pacific Northwest moss issue, that small red clover that has the little yellow flowers that bloom only for part of the day -- mocking me. Dry patches and a hodge podge of 10 different varieties of grass growing. *sigh*
Every year I think -- okay, this year -- and I have to say it is not looking too bad this year. Not anal good, but better!
Partly because my lawn looks like crap. :( It seems like I can never quite get caught up on the Pacific Northwest moss issue, that small red clover that has the little yellow flowers that bloom only for part of the day -- mocking me. Dry patches and a hodge podge of 10 different varieties of grass growing. *sigh*
Go meadow!
I have to admit, there IS something soothing to the eye in a "well-maintained" lawn. But if you're...well, enlightened to what that means, then you see it as sterile.
ToomuchStuff
7-9-12, 4:36am
My area is quite mixed. From the "well maintained" lawns to the one that I don't prefer, the vacant house lawn that is close to six feet tall.
My lot is pretty much natural (ferns, ground cover, some ivy...), which makes me the bane of the neighborhood. One of these days I'll hire someone to come and spiff it up, but i won't have grass and I'll keep it as close to laissez-faire as possible. My neighbor to the north, who fancies himself the arbiter of How Yards Should Look, uses chemicals liberally to squelch any hint of a "weed." I hate that as much as he hates my dandelions, but I'm on God's side. ;)
I'm in a typical subdivision where people treasure their pristine lawns. Interesting, though. I have one neighbor across the street whose raison d'être is to maintain a perfect lawn. He mows twice a week, and the greenness of the lawn is sharp contrast to the white-washed steps and painted rocks in the garden. Everything is PERFECT.
Next to him is our Chinese neighbors who have a different approach to lawn care. Every few days in the spring, Mr. Chang is out there sitting on a bucket, hand-extracting dandelions. He obviously doesn't put much stock in Weed 'n Feed. His yard isn't pristine, but it's very pleasant.
I just came in from my daily chore of pulling up dandelions and native grasses near my fence. I leave them growing closer to the house. I tell myself if I just tidy a little bit every day, I'll soon have a pretty little ecosystem. I am delusional.
Gardenarian
7-9-12, 3:01pm
Jane - I share in your delusion. Just keep encouraging the good stuff and eventually it will all be splendid!
I turned my little patch of lawn into a meadow this year, and right now it's not looking so great. The spring flowers held on for a long time and got really straggly; now they are turning brown and the later flowers are coming up in odd patches. Oh, well! In a couple of years it will be gorgeous. Really.
Even meadows are alot of work and need burned off every once in awhile........which usually requires the fire department to be there.
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