Grass

This, if you would believe it, is an unfertilized, unseeded, unweeded, unaerated, largely untended lawn. This is a lawn which has never suffered any care except weekly mowing from March to November. We do not spray, weed, water, nourish, or otherwise pamper our lawn. It simply IS.

We are lucky to live in a region where a lawn like this can spring up out of nothing, of its own accord. That's not entirely fair, actually: the previous owners probably planted this lawn, sometime around 1986, or at least worked somehow to encourage the growth they wanted at the expense of the growth they didn't. When we came into ownership, it was deep and weedy and untended. It shaped right up.

We own a gas mower and a push mower, and my husband and I both feel better about using the latter. It doesn't leave quite so finely manicured a finish, but I'll take ragged grass over dirty air any day.

We've been gradually mulching and replanting areas of lawn: some, to the east of the house, with vegetable beds and others, to the south and west, with bulbs and shrubs and native dogwood. Less mowing suits us, and there's a limit to how much lawn a family needs. Even here, where grass grows easily.

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