Returning After a Long While with Eco Lawn

It's been a month, at least.

It's been a month of no postings with computer problems, a trip to Montreal to visit ailing family, the family home for Thanksgiving weekend and yes, poor time management. It's been a month of days swishing by like the leaves in an Autumn wind, full of busyness, noise and colour. Have you ever noticed how the dawn of each new season brings with it all sorts of change in schedules, family and friend commitments and a whole new list of must-dos?

I have missed our Virtual Community and posting the Whole Earth Care Blog these past four weeks and feel happy to be back at it.

a song with no end

when Whitman wrote, "I sing the body electric"

I know what he
meant
I know what he
wanted:

to be completely alive every moment
in spite of the inevitable.

we can't cheat death but we can make it
work so hard
that when it does take
us

it will have known a victory just as
perfect as
ours.
Charles Bukowski
(The Night Torn With Mad Footsteps)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/a_song_with_no_end.html

Last spring, I had a lawn that was the bane of my neighbourhood.

I had moved into my present home three years ago, with the lawn already laid out in neat rows of sod. The lawn needed care as it sat upon a solid table of clay with no augmentation of top soil. Truth be told, I am not big on lawns. Cutting, watering, fertilizing and weeding a lawn feels like a waste of my time and money and none of these activities are good for our environment, either.

I considered several ways to rid myself of this lawn, but most ideas either were too costly or would cause an uprising of indignant neighbours, as lawns are a great source of pride in this particular neighbourhood. I finally settled upon a plan to try one of the new eco lawns.

Eco lawns claim to be low maintenance, drought resistent and well suited for both sunny and shaded areas. The eco grass grows slower than the usual bluegrass, requires water only while it is getting established, needs mowing only 1 to 3 times during the summer to resemble a traditional lawn, or can be left uncut for a more gentle look. It may be fertilized once a year with corn gluten. It all seemed too good to be true, but worth a try.

Unable to pull the sod away from the dried clay, i put down 3 layers of newspaper. The newspaper blocks out the sun thus killing whatever grass or weeds are under it. Newspaper is cheap, biodegradable and the inks are vegatable based. On top of the newspaper, I threw 3 inches of good top soil which I ordered by the truck at a considerable discount from purchasing the same at a local nursery.

Three wonderfully kind neighbours helped me by watering down the newspaper to prevent the wind from blowing it down the street and picking up shovels to assist me with the top soil. It was a lot of heavy work. Then, I raked over the soil breaking up any large clumps and leveled the area.

One of my neighbours down the street, who was not at all keen on my work, asked me if I had not mistakenly put my new sod in upside down. :-)

Next came the seeding, followed by watering, and more watering, and yet more watering. At this point, I began questioning the whole "eco" part of eco lawns, but it seems the secret is to keep the soil moist until the grass seed sprouts. I was in luck - this was one of the most rainy summers in years. Within two weeks, there was a greenish hue over the soil and then, actual tiny blades of grass began to show.

By now, I had a number of (mostly male) neighbours giving me daily commentaries on the foolishness of my endeavour. I was told that seed is always a bad idea compared to sod, that the newspaper would create only a bumper crop of mushrooms and that weeds would, in the end, kill off any grass that might survive the first blush of lawn.


Within a month, I was overseeding my delicate green lawn with more eco lawn seed. All through the summer, my new lawn grew and I overseeded. Only one small mushroom managed to shove itself up through the dense growth of grass. Weeds did appear, but they were easily rid of by spending 5 minutes a day pulling them out by the roots. By mid-August, the front of my house was graced with a soft green lawn of slim blades that bent over gently at 4 inches.

The commentaries were now sounding more like complements. That same neighbour who first wondered about my upside-down lawn came up to me and said, "Well, it certainly is bushy!"

As October sets in with a chill to remind us that winter will not be far off, I can say with pride that I have one of the greenest, thickest and least weedy lawn in the neighbourhood and it requires next to no care.

Ah, but all is not bliss in this little suburb. The bag of eco lawn seed did not come with a booklet for a neighbour whose need for the traditional fertilized, watered and well manicured lawn surpasses my wildest imagings, nor did it supply me with a video on neighbour relations and negotiations. Despite my attempts to tell him about eco lawns and my requests to let the grass grow, my neighbour has cut my lawn several times over the summer and fall.

I have a question - do I have a lush lawn because of my neighbour's interventions or are eco lawns as wonderful as advertized?

Methinks, it is the eco lawn. And with that belief, I am overseeding my backyard this fall with eco seed. It seems my backyard will be a true eco lawn in 4 years if I overseed it every spring and fall, as the eco grass will gradually choke out the existing lawn with all its weeds.

To find out more about eco lawns, Google Eco Grass, Eco Turf and Eco Lawn.

BE DARING AND GO FOR IT. Be the first in your neighbourhood with a eco lawn. I am totally convinced that by next year my neighbours will be overseeding their traditional lawns with eco grass seed. My new eco lawn speaks for itself.

Did you know that The Whole Earth Care Blog is now a year old?

On Friday, September 25th, The Whole Earth Care Blog held its first Annual Awards Event.

It was a lovely crisp, sunny afternoon when Carole, from Greece, received the first annual award for her untiring devotion to our Virtual Community, commenting on blog postings, offering insights, ideas, and personal reports on her efforts to support our Earth Community. Over the last year, she has sent lovely photos, informative websites and e-zine addresses, helpful and fun videos and short articles. Besides all this, Carole has been very generous supporting me with her encouraging words and check-ins. Thank you so much, Carole.

The award is a Raku pin of a Polar Bear, designed by Barb Sachs. For more information on Barb Sachs' work, go to: http://wwwcirclearts.com/artisans/sachs.shtml

Katie, The Answer Lady is back next week with answers to some of your questions.

So, click into The Whole Earth Care Blog next week.

If you have questions for Katie about the environment, care for our Earth or products that claim to be environmentally healthy, email to: moczero@sympatico.ca

Earth Family First,

maureen

Photos by Google and from personal album