Quote Originally Posted by pinkytoe View Post
I will turn the topic to a great mystery to me and that is why all the old men on my street spend hours tending their lawns. No flowers or plants - just their bright green squares of lawn. Water, water, weed and feed, edge, edge, blow, blow, mow, mow. Repeat. Is it a sense of control over their turf? Please explain.
I agree--that's an interesting question.

As an old man on my street I'd suggest that we just like the lawn to look nice.
I respect that--it is the prototypical idea of suburban beauty and a very reasonable response, but if another "old man" chose NOT to cut grass so short it needs excess irrigation; NOT to weed and feed and infiltrate ground water with pesticides, NOT to blow stuff around and add to noise pollution; while instead creating a more diversified yet beautiful landscape that required fewer poisons and less water, and more color using beautiful native perennials and shrubs that provide habitat and food and pollen for wildlife--that's what I could consider a yard that "looks nice."

But I do agree that in most subdivisions in America, the yard with the most monocultured, weed-free, velveteen, carefully edged blocks of lawn wins. It's all a matter of perspective.