Lawn Story

“Where do I begin
To tell the story of how hard a lawn can be..”

To me, for most of my life the word “Lawn” was associated with city parks or street dividers. Lawn as an element of private residence did not exist in Soviet Union. Just was not a part of the culture. People had gardens, and shrubs and trees,  but the idea of a uniform carpet of green grass, manicured twice a month, and fertilized, and weeded, was not something on everyone’s mind.

After we moved to USA, our first stop was in Alaska.

I can’t say that there is no lawns in Alaska… but “National Sport” there is snow shoveling, not lawn mowing. Our house had NO lawn. Large lot of land, but it all covered with trees and wild shrubs. Small spot in front of the house, that was cleared was all mud and rocks… May be eventually we would grow grass there but… again, in Talkeetna lawn was not in the culture and very few people had them.
When our family moved to Washington state, we had our fist official lawn. It was slightly larger than US Mail stamp. And it was not doing well. Later I realized that construction workers dumped leftover concrete right on the ground and covered it with an inch of topsoil with sods on the top of that. So there was not really access to water and grass was suffering. I could rent jackhammer of course and redo the lawn, but instead I planted hedge around it and that way it became rather hidden than being a pride of a homeowner.

Florida is a completely different story. Everything here is about lawns… and beaches. When you drive on the street of our city (and I do everyday for my work) you see endless lawns blending into horizon. House after house after house. They are large, they are manicured, they are obscene in certain sense – a rebel against rules of nature. Lawn existence is as stable as spinning basketball on the finger of basketball player, when he is doing it for fun, or as tall pile of sand in the waves on the beach.

Lawn is a pit for a homeowner energy and/or money. There are plenty of examples of that. As soon as owner has not time for maintenance or money for hired help, lawn begins to deteriorate. At first slow, but as neglect stays on, uniformly green carpet of the lawn turns into unruly disheveled clumped something, ugly and unpleasant.

You can almost always tell rental home from owned. Landlords save on lawn maintenance and unless HOA demands it, it shows.

We have a huge lawn here in Florida. When I finished mowing it first time 6 years ago, I realized that I made a mistake moving here from Alaska. There, I only had to shovel snow from my driveway, here you have to clean space everywhere else, but driveway. I think it took me two hours first time. I was soar and tired.
With practice, I cut it down to about an hour/ hour and quarter now, but I still soar and tired every time I do it. Of course I could delegate it to professional… of course I could… but you cut grass in Florida EVERY WEEK, and at 35 dollars a pop, it becomes something burdensome for a budget… so I have a bit of workout each weekend.

But mowing the lawn is just a beginning and “easiest” part of the lawn maintenance. Scorching Florida sun will kill your lawn in no time, if you will not give it water. Water is very expensive here (think of no glaciers or major rivers) so nobody in their right mind use city water for it (may be some very rich do). Best solution for this problem is a well with irrigation system. Fortunately our house came with one. Very convenient. Program the system, turn it on and sprinklers will dispense water to desired area.

Sounds easy, but it isn’t. First – city conserves water (yes, even non potable one from shallow well) and regulates days and hours when you can do it… and those days and hours change depending on rainfall. Then sprinklers themselves need maintenance, they get broken by parked cars, lawnmowers, strangers on property. They clog, they wear out, especially ones with gears inside, they lose correct angle of the jet, they get grown over with grass and become non functional.
And then comes hardest part – weeds, moles, chinch bugs, mole crickets, fungus.
For longest time I tried to maintain it myself. Previous owners somewhat cared about the lawn, but it definitely was not perfect.

In trying to save a buck, and ignorant about how complicated lawn maintenance is, I tried to take care of it myself. Feeding it with fertilizers, applying weed killers, aerating the turf. Year after year I did it, but my lawn looked worse and worse every year.

Finally I gave up and signed for services of the company I am working for (they even gave me significant discount for being an employee)
I tell you. Some jobs have to be given to professionals. It took 8 months of treatments to bring lawn to the state, when one can take a look at it and to appreciate beautiful emerald colored even carpet laying in front of the house.

Victor Urusov

June 2021