Lawn Humble, Like a Bad Neighbor

Tumbledown is a bad neighbor. He does not employ the ubiquitous (in suburban Indiana) orange-green-white trucks from LawnPride to apply their tank full of "treatments" to his lawn. He does not ask whether the products are "safe" for his rabbits to eat or his children to play on. He sees the man in the truck don elbow-length (green!) latex gloves to handle the stuff. He knows that it is designed to keep his home free of ants (kill them dead), and spiders, and other "pests." (Oh, my!) He knows the chemicals kill the worms and the grubs. And he does not have to ask what happens to the nitrogen from the excess fertilizer when it rains. He sees the street drains, and knows they run to the White River, and on into the Ohio, and the Mississippi, and down into the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone."

How does Tumbledown keep his lawn green? He welcomes the jumble of life. (But he squashes spiders that make their way inside.) He lets the larger eight-legged ones go free to spin their webs under the eaves. He enjoys the chirp of the crickets in early October, and the mantis as she makes lunch of the other pests.

What is the result of not spraying weed killer or chemical fertilizer? The result is dandy-lion greens and jelly in the spring. White clover (and fixed nitrogen, nature's fertilizer!) run amok with white flowers in mid-summer. And bugs everywhere. Tumbledown's aeration comes from plants (a.k.a., weeds) with deep roots. They break up the deadpan clay that the construction company left (hardly soil at all, more like concrete), making paths for air and water to get to the roots of the grass. And the grass? It grows tall and lush without watering, even through the longest, hottest part of our mild Indiana summers.

Tumbledown's lawn is such a tragedy. (No, really!)

Problem is, Tumbledown will not be molified by corporate promises that the poisons are "approved for use on residential turf and landscapes." Approved? By whom? Rather than say "O.K." and "that must make it right and safe," Tumbledown asks why the government has the right to "approve" the spread of poison on every lawn in suburbia?

If that is LawnPride (tm), Tumbledown is glad to remain LawnHumble. If that makes him a bad neighbor, so be it.