There is only one way to be a good (green) neighbor in the suburbs especially in a place where I live, which seems to be frozen in time:
Keep a nice lawn.
Colin and I went away for two weeks in July this past summer, and we had hot temps while we were gone. The result was a scorched lawn in front of our house. We weren’t too bothered — it’s just dirt and some plants after all, a temporary thing. But we were suddenly the talk of the Hilltop.
“Looks like fertilizer burn to me.”
“You could use a little water, I bet.”
“Got a few bear patches huh? Guess you don’t need to mow so often now, haha.”
Time to Plant the Seed
OH-kay. We got more comments on our pathetic lawn than we did comment our LED Christmas lights. (No one sent us the Hilltop memo that we were supposed to have electric candles in the window! How was I to know???)
Well, fortunately autumn and the perfect grass growing season is here. The air is cool and the time is ripe for overseeding. By the way, we did consider planting our veggie garden in the front yard, but feared we would never be spoken to again and forever be named the weird couple down the road growing pumpkins in the gutter.
I have to be shamefaced and admit that Colin and I were lured into the using a lawn service for the last year. Maybe we wanted to fit in, but I think it was the neighbor, Todd (oh the shame of suburban peer-pressure!) He had gorgeous grass and we attriubuted it to Lawn Doctor. After we discovered our neighbor was some kind of alien turf grower, obsessed with the perfect lawn, we decided that we needed to go back to our better — less herbicidal — instincts and try to care for the lawn ourselves.
My dad, with the help of good seed and fertilizer, has always been able to keep a gorgeous lawn. Since I don’t have him in residence, I am using the guidelines I’ve found on HGTV’s Organic Gardening website. I love this site, FYI. The videos are very informative and useful.
I also can’t wait to try out skim milk on my roses to prevent black spot. Skim milk is weird.
I’d like to bring your attention to an exciting seminar for homeowners that will be taking place next Saturday, Nov. 1, at Connecticut College, sponsored by the Connecticut College Arboretum, from 9 to 3:30 p.m.
It’s a full-day workshop on naturalistic landscaping - creating natural lawns and landscaping with native plantings: “Naturally Beautiful - Beauty in Biodiversity.”
It’s called a “SALT” seminar because that is the acronym for “smaller American lawns today,” a movement initiated by Professor William Niering of Connecticut College many years ago, who also started the college’s “human ecology” major - now environmental studies.
The details are here:
http://arboretum.conncoll.edu/
http://arboretum.conncoll.edu/images/Arboretum-SALT-Fall2008.pdf
Please contact Kathy Dame, public outreach director at the Arboretum, if you need more info.
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