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Thread: Rant of the day - Of neighbors and lawns

  1. #11
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    My husband takes his pickup truck to town and actually collects bags of leaves which he adds to his extensive compost holdings.
    Makes me crazy, but it seems like his heart is in the right place.

  2. #12
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tybee View Post
    My husband takes his pickup truck to town and actually collects bags of leaves which he adds to his extensive compost holdings.
    Makes me crazy, but it seems like his heart is in the right place.
    Aw, that is nice, he is topping up his compost piles.

    Compost is a beautiful thing.

  3. #13
    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
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    Sorry Pinkytoe! I have often wondered why people think lawns have to be so "perfect". To me, a "perfect" lawn is totally sterile (and probably full of chemicals).
    I wonder what some of your neighbors' reactions would be if you explained your more natural philosophy to them?
    I'm just glad we live too far out for any neighbor to even see our yard. DH was raised to have that "perfect" lawn and I constantly have to remind him to STOP IT!!

    I've planted so many trees, and now we have tons of leaves. Yes, if you leave all of them, the grass dies......which is his concern. But I get so ticked off when he thinks he has to get every single leaf up. Don't people understand that when mulched, it actually feeds the grass?

    In DH's defense, we do have too many leaves to deal with closer to the house. We've actually bought a big piece of equipment that you pull behind a mower and it shreds and sucks up all the leaves. Then we dump them in the compost pile..........great stuff! But it's still a lot of work and uses fossil fuels.

    All I can say Pinkytoe is that I would suggest to talk to your neighbors about your approach to nature, and if they can't deal with it.......well, it's their problem. (But I'm talking as a person who actually loves weeds because they are so good for so many other species.) Good luck!

  4. #14
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by iris lilies View Post

    Compost is a beautiful thing.
    +1

    And, Cathy, I agree that the emerald green carpet look is not appealing to me. I was on MMM forum, and one guy was complaining about his neighbors who didn't fertilize their lawn and he said, "If people aren't going to take care of their lawns, they shouldn't own a house." Thankfully, there were several people who extolled the virtues of living with a few weeds and doing without chemical fertilizers.
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    Some leaves mulch better then others, and it sucks when you have trees that don't much well, either uphill/wind from you as well as leaning over your yard from the downhill neighbor, over the fence. I lose grass every year due to being overwhelmed by them.

  6. #16
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    I wonder what some of your neighbors' reactions would be if you explained your more natural philosophy to them?
    Well...I have already figured out that these three particular men have very conservative values on many topics and it is apparent that any explanations would not matter to them. Their minds are closed. The funny thing is that they blow the leaves into the street and as it is very windy here, they just swirl around and come right back. Perhaps it is a sort of daily meditation for them. A time to zone out and escape their wives

  7. #17
    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
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    Pinkytoe........would a fence help to deal with the issue?

    It's funny, I know DH loves living out here away from the maddening crowds (he gets plenty of them every day when he drives into the city to work).........but he just can't seem to shake his upbringing on how a lawn "should" look.
    And he also (I'm pretty sure), loves getting on that mower and zoning out. He tells me he's only going to cut such and such an area, but I always find him acres away! It's like his brain goes on auto-pilot when he mows. And like you brought up......maybe it's a time for him to escape from his wife.

  8. #18
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CathyA View Post


    I wonder what some of your neighbors' reactions would be if you explained your more natural philosophy to them?...

    ...All I can say Pinkytoe is that I would suggest to talk to your neighbors about your approach to nature...
    Please save me from earnest neighbors who yack at me about their feel good actions to save the earth, save the children, save the brothers, save the whatevers. You know me, always cranky.

    We just headed off a do~gooder who wants to gather up unpicked produce and distribute it to The Needy and she even worked out an elaborate system to make it attractive for us, community gardeners. Why wouldnt we jump on her fantastic idea from a random stranger who doesnt even live in our neighborhood? She doesn’t realize key issues, among them

    1) there have been many many efforts to use extra vegetables in the community garden, none of them come to fruition for longer than 3 weeks
    2) What she is proposing is actually stealing. It is stealing from our garden


    But back to lawns: There is a good chance that the OP bought real estate in that neighborhood because it looked “nice.“ It looked well cared for. It looks like people who care about their property lived there. One obvious manifestation of that value is well tended lawns. Doesnt mean that aesthetic cant change, but this reminds me all too much of people who buy real estate in my neighborhood and then complain about historic design standards that keep it looking the way it looks.

  9. #19
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    WE live in a high drought area. Many people are either using astro-turf or doing xeroscaping. WE used astro-turf for our dogs. We do need to pick up the leaves as it won't help fake grass. In the front yard we have no trees. However, our neighbors huge tree manages to blow all his leaves in our yard. It stops with us because we live in a 1950's ranch area but our house has a front porch added that stops the leaves from traveling. Ugh! I am really getting to hate that tree. We have 3 fruit trees in the back yard and do give away the fruit we don't use to anyone as it is wasteful to let it rot. OUr new puppy just loves the leaves. He loves to jump in them and bring them in the house. He is only 4 lbs so it is quite the sight.

  10. #20
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    For several months each year one of our neighbors replicates the leaf issue with snow. Doesn't matter how little fell or how hard it's falling at the moment; their driveway is C L E A N. Snowblowing followed by shoveling followed by the #&^% leaf blower for the drier snow. I guess everyone needs a hobby.

    It's illegal here to burn leaves, but apparently not illegal to burn brush. I think all of my neighbors have done it (so have I), in our little metal fireplace. It also is illegal to rake/blow leaves into the street because they clog the gutters and sewer grates and many of them in this neighborhood drain right to the Mississippi River. We wait for the city street-cleaning crew to show up halfway through leaf-falling season to sweep up what nature has provided. The remainder wait for the post-winter sweep.

    I am fortunate in that most of the neighbors in this area are far more into gardening than lawn-tending. That may be because most of us have just a city lot with not much of a front yard (if any). We also have a big tree that inhibits prolific grass. Which is good because I'm not the neighbor that loves a uniform, level, green monoculture of grass.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

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