Must have grass

One of the unfortunate aspects of living in a suburban type neighborhood is that people are very concerned about everybody else’s business. Say...yards...for example. The little messages come through sort of obliquely at first—in the form of innocent questions, like, “Oh, what a shame. Our grass fried, too. Wasn’t it awful? We had to reseed our entire lawn.” And then, gradually, it’s, “So, are ya going to reseed it?” or “I can give you number of the people who did ours. They did a great job.”

Just for the effect, I’d like to say, “Nah. It’s not worth the trouble. If I wait long enough the weeds will move in. They’re green, right?” That would earn me the most obstinate neighbor of the year award, I’m afraid.

I certainly can appreciate that my front side yard does not look good right now. And I’m sure that my neighbors don’t like looking at it. I surely don’t. But, sometimes the best way to approach a problem is with some thought and some planning and it all doesn’t necessarily happen in the first couple of weeks of spring. Ideally, anyway.

Whatever.

I bit the darned bullet this morning and raked the entire front side area until the sand was practically glistening. Then I headed off to the nursery and explained my situation. They recommended ryegrass and fescue. Not beautiful specimens, but they’re supposed to grow in sand. If I get them off to a solid start, those little grass plants will even withstand drought and frying sand. (I am way skeptical considering the number of lawns that have been reseeded and reseeded again since I’ve lived in this neighborhood, but...) They also provided me with the appropriate seed starter fertilizer.

Well, it’s all done. The seed is supposed to sprout in 5-8 days. I pray that is so because I’m wasting a heck of a lot of water on it. Five times a day. Or more as needed. It makes me weep to see all that water disappearing into the ground.

So, I guess the plan is this: I first get the grass to grow. THEN, I plot out ways to reduce the amount of grass growing with rock gardens or flower beds. That’s ass backwards, but neighborhood protocol demands grass. Now. Which is why I’d like to live out in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors. Of course, in that case, my grass would probably grow like gangbusters without lifting a finger. And I could live with that. I need to move.