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Written by KERRY BROPHY LLOYD, Writers on the Range
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Tuesday, 05 August 2008 |
I hate to say it, but it’s true: I’m in love with my lawn. My love affair began
romantically in the promising early days of spring, as regular rain showers
turned my backyard in Wyoming into something very Southampton-like. My lawn was
worthy of a respectable English cricket game: A cushy playground for bare feet.
Weed-free perfection.
But what began so blissfully was followed shortly by bitter disappointment and
regret. My joyful celebration of what the rain, and (I confess) a dose of
chemical fertilizer, had created, was doomed.
My affair with the field of
turf in my backyard became dysfunctional when nature’s sprinkler completely
turned off in mid-June. The blazing sun mocked me, unrelenting, unforgiving. So
I took matters into my own hands. Off to the shed I went, dragging out garden
hoses, sprinklers of every size and specialty, and an assortment of adaptors,
attachments, soaker devices, clamps and gadgets.
I traipsed back and
forth across the lawn, adjusting, attaching, unkinking, untwisting. In a moment
of triumph, I finally turned the spigot and felt water pulsing into the system,
then the tss sk-tssk-tssk of sprinklers gearing up and sputtering out of winter
slumber. The water meter spun, informing the local utility company of my
official entrance into summer.
Not long after, maintaining my perfect lawn
went from a tedious task to a terrible experience.
Snags and crimps
developed in the hoses. Too much water pressure caused the soaker hoses I had so
delicately lined along my flower beds to rupture. Leaks spouted water in all the
wrong directions. Attempting to tighten two connecting hoses, I lost my grip and
was thrown off balance by a powerful jet of water that left me soaked from my
straw hat to my sandals. Defeated, I traipsed into the house to change into dry
clothes and try again. No relationship should be this much work.
After
several trips to the local hardware store – not to mention a blood blister from
a misplaced hammer stroke -- I began to wonder. Is it all worth it? I mean,
maybe this love affair was hopeless from the beginning. After all, I live in an
arid region characterized as a high desert. Sagebrush is at home here, not my
non-native turf.
I’m beginning to think it’s time to break up with my
lawn. Maybe start over and plant a hardier variety of grass that’s more tolerant
of this region’s dry climate. If my grass is designed to grow in the tropics,
maybe it doesn’t belong in my backyard in Wyoming.
After all, Wyoming is
the fifth-driest state, just behind New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Nevada. The
average annual precipitation here is only 12 inches. When you really stop and
think about it, growing a lawn in this part of the world just doesn’t make
sense. It’s not like I have livestock to feed — the only real benefactor is my
dog, who sometimes likes to graze on blades of grass.
In addition to the
heavy toll my yard takes on the municipal water supply, it’s become a haven for
weeds. Thanks to people like me, many backyards in the West are home to a
cocktail of weeds toxic to native vegetation: knapweed, mustard, bindweed, crab
grass, Russian olives, cheatgrass, and thistles. Uprooting all the bindweed that
has now taken root in the south end of my lawn may become my new full-time
job.
I’m not one to give up easily, but now that it’s early August, my
patience has dried up along with the grass. Now I have to wear shoes when I
venture into my lawn because the grass is so dry in places it crunches
underfoot. And the thistles don’t exactly make for blissful
frolicking.
But letting go isn’t easy. Especially with expectations of a
Victorian-style lawn still lingering in my American genes. I want it all --
ornamental green grass and all.
In the end, I decided to settle with
imperfection. I’m not perfect, so why should I expect the same of my yard? If
there’s a patch of dry grass here or there, well, so be it. I will not be
co-dependent. Next year will be different. I promise.
Kerry Brophy Lloyd
is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org). She serves her lawn in Lander, Wyoming.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 05 August 2008 )
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