Keep Off The Grass
Read the following list and see how many names you can tick off the list as knowing. Sir Walter, Tall Fescue, Conquest Couch, Kikuyu and Grand Prix. If you answered yes to even one of these then you are part of the problem instead of the solution. If you don’t recognise any of the names on the list there is a good chance you are guilty by way of ignorance. Now before you get out your Dictionary or start Googling Sir Walter I will help you out. They are all types of your new enemy. Lawn, yes common every day, dare I say it, garden variety, lawn.
So why do we have lawns in the first place? Just what purpose does it serve? You create a patchwork quilt with your lawn and then leave your car parked out on the street so the local kids have something to graffiti on. You don’t need a lawn for the kids to play on either as all the kids these days never go outside due to the fact that they need to be surgically removed from their Playstations and Xbox’s or are poking the living daylights out of each other on Facebook.
People who have a lawn crafted to perfection never let you on it anyway. The type of people who would lay red carpet over their lawn so they don’t have to replace any divots.
So what you need to do is destroy your lawn. Not just cut it back but a total slash and burn. If you have dogs then let them loose as they will turn it into a dustbowl race track and eliminate that pesky grass for you. Whatever you do the grass must go.
Now before the “Save the Planet” sloganeering, bicycle riding, sandal wearing, green menaces start protesting on the land where my lawn use to be and lodging lawsuits against me for the alleged murder of Mother Nature. I am not a total Eco-terrorist and you bastards are trespassing anyway!
So now your backyard looks like an open cut mine it is time to ensure you never have lawn again.
Growing food is a lot more beneficial and productive than having the equivalent of the 18th hole at St Andrews at your back door. Plant spinach instead of Conquest Couch and you have something that looks nice, has larger green surface area to create greater photosynthesis and also good to eat. Unless your family bloodlines include Bovine then you might argue the point that grass is better. But if that is the case you probably have Mad Cow Disease and aren’t thinking straight anyway. Planting a whole vegetable garden has benefits too. Sure is takes some work to maintain but what would you rather do on your day off? Get out in your garden and admire your fresh food growing brilliance or go to the Supermarket to fight for a carpark, push a trolley with crooked wheels, have the urge to yell at other people’s children and queue up for hours only to find half your food isn’t fresh by the time you get home.
It also it eliminates the need to spend your day off mowing. People don’t get to work on a Monday morning and announce they can’t wait for Sunday to come round again so they can get out the ride on mower that now costs more than a Hummer to run and create crop circles in their yard to impress the neighbours who really couldn’t care less.
To finish up what we need less of is all these garden rescue and renovation shows on television. This only encourages people into attempting to achieve the ridiculous. They do not serve any purpose other than making you max out your credit card at the local hardware and nursery. You come home with enough wood to build Noah’s Ark in the hope of a creating a rear decking that the Rolling Stones could hold a concert on in the space where the lemon tree use to be. They convince you a pergola the size of the Colosseum is just what your yard needs as well. Then to top it off they want to decorate it better than any room in your entire house.
I know I have never look at my backyard and thought “Hmmm that’s it !, I need more cushions!”
Read the following list and see how many names you can tick off the list as knowing. Sir Walter, Tall Fescue, Conquest Couch, Kikuyu and Grand Prix. If you answered yes to even one of these then you are part of the problem instead of the solution. If you don’t recognise any of the names on the list there is a good chance you are guilty by way of ignorance. Now before you get out your Dictionary or start Googling Sir Walter I will help you out. They are all types of your new enemy. Lawn, yes common every day, dare I say it, garden variety, lawn.
So why do we have lawns in the first place? Just what purpose does it serve? You create a patchwork quilt with your lawn and then leave your car parked out on the street so the local kids have something to graffiti on. You don’t need a lawn for the kids to play on either as all the kids these days never go outside due to the fact that they need to be surgically removed from their Playstations and Xbox’s or are poking the living daylights out of each other on Facebook.
People who have a lawn crafted to perfection never let you on it anyway. The type of people who would lay red carpet over their lawn so they don’t have to replace any divots.
So what you need to do is destroy your lawn. Not just cut it back but a total slash and burn. If you have dogs then let them loose as they will turn it into a dustbowl race track and eliminate that pesky grass for you. Whatever you do the grass must go.
Now before the “Save the Planet” sloganeering, bicycle riding, sandal wearing, green menaces start protesting on the land where my lawn use to be and lodging lawsuits against me for the alleged murder of Mother Nature. I am not a total Eco-terrorist and you bastards are trespassing anyway!
So now your backyard looks like an open cut mine it is time to ensure you never have lawn again.
Growing food is a lot more beneficial and productive than having the equivalent of the 18th hole at St Andrews at your back door. Plant spinach instead of Conquest Couch and you have something that looks nice, has larger green surface area to create greater photosynthesis and also good to eat. Unless your family bloodlines include Bovine then you might argue the point that grass is better. But if that is the case you probably have Mad Cow Disease and aren’t thinking straight anyway. Planting a whole vegetable garden has benefits too. Sure is takes some work to maintain but what would you rather do on your day off? Get out in your garden and admire your fresh food growing brilliance or go to the Supermarket to fight for a carpark, push a trolley with crooked wheels, have the urge to yell at other people’s children and queue up for hours only to find half your food isn’t fresh by the time you get home.
It also it eliminates the need to spend your day off mowing. People don’t get to work on a Monday morning and announce they can’t wait for Sunday to come round again so they can get out the ride on mower that now costs more than a Hummer to run and create crop circles in their yard to impress the neighbours who really couldn’t care less.
To finish up what we need less of is all these garden rescue and renovation shows on television. This only encourages people into attempting to achieve the ridiculous. They do not serve any purpose other than making you max out your credit card at the local hardware and nursery. You come home with enough wood to build Noah’s Ark in the hope of a creating a rear decking that the Rolling Stones could hold a concert on in the space where the lemon tree use to be. They convince you a pergola the size of the Colosseum is just what your yard needs as well. Then to top it off they want to decorate it better than any room in your entire house.
I know I have never look at my backyard and thought “Hmmm that’s it !, I need more cushions!”
2 comments:
I love it Mick!
especially as I am a hater of lawn mowing and used to have neighbours on my back who watered everyday and were narky if we just barely kept ours alive to save mowing.
I plead guilty your honour to knowing two of the grass varieties -- I'll just put that down to my rural background and general awareness of things horticultural :-)
However, you do raise several valid points and I have to admit that sinking your teeth into some freshly grown home produce is pretty nice and tasty -- except where your prized potatoes or carrots have been grown in soil contaminated with heavy metals, or your tomatoes are regularly peed upon by the neighbourhood mongrels and you are a little lax on hygiene.
Other than that, any regular viewer of Gardening Australia will take you that any Greek worth his salt can grow just about anything in his backyard, and usually does, so there's no reason why most of the rest of us can't either. I suppose there is reasonable grounds for exemption if you live on the 33rd story of some high-rise but for the ground dwelling fraternity -- get down and dirty, it's good for you!
Another insightful commentary Mick, keep up the good work. I can't wait until you do one on councils and/or bureaucracies :-)
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