On my "lawn kick" again. Maybe it's because 'lawn season' is in full swing. Or spiral. Downward spiral if you're a chemi-synthet-o-phile about your pwecious widdle gwass plants. Yeeuch!
I can't seem to get through a garden column, garden blog, garden forum, nursery, garden lecture....wherever gardens and all-things-horticultural are being discussed or written about, without the ubiquitous Lawn Possessed Person rising to complain about their browned out, burned out, depressingly bare-spotted and generally sickly patch of what used to be "green".
"I don't know what's the problem". they'll moan through toxic tears. " I watered every day. I fed it fifteen-gazillion times. I gave it half a bazillion treatments of fungicide/herbicide/pesticide/anycide and everycide. I applied every known Scotts et. al. lawn killer (er...lawn treament) put out by their little lab-coated snuffers of all things living in the grounds around our homes. And then I applied some more."
That's pretty much (with a little poetic license) what I'll hear or read. They water every day, too. Every day. You mean the way I see my neighbor's sprinklers ratchet on for 1/2 hour each and every morning. Rain or shine. Or the way I see oscillating sprinklers going for 30 minutes around noon or mid afternoon? Can anyone say: "Not watering long enough and yet, watering too often? " And is anyone familiar with the term: Evaporation? Gaack.
Adding insult to injury, these same overusers and abusers of synthetic fertilizers and chemicals, don't even know how to spell what they're using. I read this just this evening. A guy grabbed a bag of SevEn (that'd be SevIn folks) instead of Weed-O-No-More or Be Gone or some such other defoliant. These people can't spell what they 're using and can't differentiate one bag of poison from another. Ignorance is bliss? Ignorance is running rampant on what's left of America's lawns. Ignorance is wildly careening down the aisles past the foul, acrid stench of - primarily - Scotts chemical buffet at the nearest Big Box stores. And these people never stop to think their lawns are living things. Or at least they're trying to be. They're living things crying out to "Leave Me The Hell Alone!!! Back off from all that crap your dousing me with and give me a freaking chance to breathe and get some alive, beneficial organisms back in me to at least put me on life support before you come along with another bag of Kill-Em-Off". Geesh.
I don't think I'd want to have dinner at the home of one of these synthetic/chemical mental midgets. Boxes of rat poison could easily be mistaken for Sweet N'Low. Then again...isn't Sweet N'Low rat poison?
Showing posts with label lawns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lawns. Show all posts
June 27, 2008
Lawns And The Men Who Love Them
I am more than ever convinced that the quest for the almighty perfect lawn is predominantly a male domain. Oh, I'm sure there are many females as enamored of their nice blue-green, totally-weed-free, chemically-saturated lawns. But after inculcating myself into the chemical-laden vortex of Lawndom at a major [Scotts] lawn [Scotts] chemical [Scotts] forum, I was astounded at the inordinate number of males extolling the virtues of chemically-enhanced lawns and slavishly avowing their whore-ish devotion to their chemical pimps [Scotts]. ("They poison me, man, but I know they really love me"). I'm certain that if physically possible, they would gladly have sexual relations with their sod, which might explain some of those 'gopher holes' one often sees in even in their perfect, synthetically-enhanced lawns. Hmmmm? Could be those stains in the front yard really aren't from the dog?
As high school boys compare genitalia or boorishly boast falsehoods of conquered girls, so too does that verbose, chest thumping accompany many into adulthood where comparisons of lawns and boorish boasting of weedless, bugless, and (thanks to chemicals) - lifeless - lawns still persists. After all, what respectable earthworm could live with all that accumulated salt from four-times-a-year Scotts weed, feed & bleed toxic concoctions?
The fact is that size never really matters since it's not how big your lawn, but what you do with it. That huge, perfect grass carpet, if attained with synthetic fertilizers, chemical herbicides and pesticides, is not as impressive as that slightly-dandelion-dotted, naturally-green hued grass maintained by nothing more than conscientious mowing, irrigation left to Mother Nature, compost additions or twice-yearly applications of corn gluten meal for weed control and a healthy green color. Any person - male or female - who would skew their priorities so drastically by putting the health and safety of their family and pets at risk for the sole sake of their gazillion little grass plants, is in a word: A dope. Well. Two words.
To suggest, however, that these lawn jockeys consider alternative lawn care practices, or God forbid ratchet back their instant gratification-perfectionist expectations, is tantamount to spiting on the American flag. (An analogy to which they allude quite often as in: "It's American to want a perfect lawn!") In this day and age of all manner of horrors, exploitations and terrorism, I can think of a great many other things that a true American might want, And a perfect lawn isn't one of them. Or at least, it shouldn't be.
'Talk to the hand' is an attitude I've encountered before. It's hard to penetrate a wall of thick,synthetic-mindsets. Even amongst organic gardeners, there are stoic differences of opinion and approach. But most are at least willing to listen or read or research. Why, we even occasionally delve into the dens of ChemicalLand and keep our compost-tinged ears open to chemical drivel from Scotts or Monsanto junkies if for no other reason than to remain updated on The Darkside. It helps enable a cogent, viable argument if you know what "the other side" is thinking when some macho lawn dude pontificates his chemical mantra.
Perfection is in the eye of the beholder; as are priorities, and 'means' do not always justify the end. Sadly, even if the ability to comprehend alternatives is there amongst the Scott's groupies, the willingness to even consider such alternatives was long ago eradicated by copious applications of RoundUp**.
**RoundUp: A non-selective herbicide apparently capable of wiping out brain cells and common sense as well as weeds and several other once functioning, living organisms.**
As high school boys compare genitalia or boorishly boast falsehoods of conquered girls, so too does that verbose, chest thumping accompany many into adulthood where comparisons of lawns and boorish boasting of weedless, bugless, and (thanks to chemicals) - lifeless - lawns still persists. After all, what respectable earthworm could live with all that accumulated salt from four-times-a-year Scotts weed, feed & bleed toxic concoctions?
The fact is that size never really matters since it's not how big your lawn, but what you do with it. That huge, perfect grass carpet, if attained with synthetic fertilizers, chemical herbicides and pesticides, is not as impressive as that slightly-dandelion-dotted, naturally-green hued grass maintained by nothing more than conscientious mowing, irrigation left to Mother Nature, compost additions or twice-yearly applications of corn gluten meal for weed control and a healthy green color. Any person - male or female - who would skew their priorities so drastically by putting the health and safety of their family and pets at risk for the sole sake of their gazillion little grass plants, is in a word: A dope. Well. Two words.
To suggest, however, that these lawn jockeys consider alternative lawn care practices, or God forbid ratchet back their instant gratification-perfectionist expectations, is tantamount to spiting on the American flag. (An analogy to which they allude quite often as in: "It's American to want a perfect lawn!") In this day and age of all manner of horrors, exploitations and terrorism, I can think of a great many other things that a true American might want, And a perfect lawn isn't one of them. Or at least, it shouldn't be.
'Talk to the hand' is an attitude I've encountered before. It's hard to penetrate a wall of thick,synthetic-mindsets. Even amongst organic gardeners, there are stoic differences of opinion and approach. But most are at least willing to listen or read or research. Why, we even occasionally delve into the dens of ChemicalLand and keep our compost-tinged ears open to chemical drivel from Scotts or Monsanto junkies if for no other reason than to remain updated on The Darkside. It helps enable a cogent, viable argument if you know what "the other side" is thinking when some macho lawn dude pontificates his chemical mantra.
Perfection is in the eye of the beholder; as are priorities, and 'means' do not always justify the end. Sadly, even if the ability to comprehend alternatives is there amongst the Scott's groupies, the willingness to even consider such alternatives was long ago eradicated by copious applications of RoundUp**.
**RoundUp: A non-selective herbicide apparently capable of wiping out brain cells and common sense as well as weeds and several other once functioning, living organisms.**
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