Lawns: shaggy and green, or trimmed and brown?

[Monkeyleg]

It's July here in Wisconsin, and your choice of lawns is either long and green, or trimmed short but burned brown by the sun.

Lazy SOB that I am, I haven't mowed in three weeks. But I've watered the lawn periodically.

So, I have a somewhat shaggy lawn, but it's green. My neighbors all mow their lawns short, also water like crazy, but their lawns are brown. One neighbor, who got a lawn twice the size it was last year courtesy of the city of Greenfield and the taxpayers, has a lawn that's beyond brown. It's a very light yellow, bordering on white. That's dead grass.

But I still hear the comments, when I'm not there: "Hey, have you looked at Dick's lawn? He hasn't mowed it in weeks." "Yeah, what's with that guy?"

Well, one thing that's "with me" is that the rabbits in our neighborhood have dug several nests in our yard. And the baby bunnies are just now starting to emerge. They're so tiny that it would be easy for me to mow them down into bloody bits of bunny fuzz.

Of course, I'm the neighborhood gun nut, so wasting dozens of fuzzy baby bunnies is expected of me.

My neighbors, OTOH, do it more quietly. They just drown the bunnies in garbage cans.

The sanctity of The Lawn, you see.

[Fly320s]

Shaggy and green for me.

If your neighbors are greenies, one-worlders, global-warmists, or just annoying, tell them that long grass is healthier and more eco-friendly than short grass.  Yes, it's true.

[cosine]

Where's the choice for shaggy and brown? Never water (anyway, New Berlin always sets out their signs about this time that state that the watering of lawns is prohibited) and the grass doesn't get cut regularly either, so it's shaggy and brown here.

[wmenorr67]

How about no grass at all. 

Acutually there is a few places on the FOB I am on that has grass and the LN workers cut it with one of those push type reel mowers.

And to make matters even better the areas that we use all the time is concreted or asphalted over.

But it still gets rather dusty.

[charby]

I mow with authority, my lawn is about as short as a fairway in a golf course. 

No rain for three weeks here is making a brown lawn for everyone, no one is watering because once you start watering, the city pulls a water shortage ban thingy. Unusual here in July for Iowa to brown lawns, normally happens late August.

I think we might have all time high for corn prices this fall for December grain, weird summer.

[Firethorn]

I mow with authority, my lawn is about as short as a fairway in a golf course. 

Longer grass can support deeper root structures, able to retain and collect more moisture; some varieties can reach over a meter down.

I'm one of the 'shaggy' lawns.  I leave my mower on the second highest setting.  It works out.

[Vile Nylons]

I hate mowing grass. Seems so useless. By next week you got's to do it all over again. But since we run a business out of my place it has to look neat, so I pay to have it done. My neighbor's just replaced their front lawn with a rock garden and wild flowers kind of thing which looks very nice but is actually more work than mowing.

[Tuco]

Short and green, mow at least once a week, irrigation system on a well.
Most of the yard is planting bed, total lawn less than 900 sq. feet.  Eliminated another 50 square feet a few weeks ago.
By education, I'm a landscape architect, so it's a hobby, like cleaning the guns. 
I get a sense of satisfaction from it.

FWIW, our local water authority has had serious problems with its intake.  Watering restrictions are very common.  Excessive use will cause pressure drops in the system, and possible infiltration and contamination.  Real live public health stuff. 

The old woman we bought our house from told the City to stick it, and had a well sunk.  Now, I'm the only house on the block with a green lawn.  Haven't had the police come and give me any tickets for violating the sprinkling ban, but if they do, I'll walk em down past the gun safe and show 'em the well pump.

I'm looking forward to that day.


Anti-authority Soakers

[meinbruder]

Lush and green in some spots, pale brown and stunted in others, with spots of bare dirt peeking out from a variety of places.  I havent mown in three weeks so any healthy part has gone to seed and should be dropping anytime soon.  Why buy seed when it grows for free?  The soil is heavy clay so it requires a lot of water to keep the lawn green; the mostly shady areas are the greenest so it looks like a quilt.  I do have an assortment of vigorous native plants which are on the cusp of seeding; those will need to be dealt with soon.         

}:)>

[Bogie]

Well, I'd always mowed on the highest setting...

Screw it. Last weekend, it got sheared.
 
Maybe this'll kill it.
 
Next year, I'm going to put a sign out front that says "Experimental Green Zone - Tall Grass is Good for the Environment" and see if (a) I make the news when the city gives me a ticket; and (b) what the neighbors say.
 

[Bigjake]

chop it once, it goes dormant from no rain, and becomes green and scushy again come september and moisture. 

way low maitenance.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The nice old neighbor lady down the road never mows her lawn.  The city tried to ticket her once a few years ago, but she refused to pay it.  The city sent out a crew to mow her yard for her, but she chased 'em off and threatened lawsuits and grave bodily injury if they ever came back. 

Ya see, she's a professor of botany down at the local college.  She claims that there's a species of endangered flower weed mingled in with all the other weeds that have overgrown her yard, and that to mow would kill the precious little plants.  It's obviously a scam, but she seems to have pulled it off successfully.

[bedlamite]

Even though I never water it, my lawn was shaggy and green until I mowed it this morning, it's been a month since I mowed it last. Ironically, that's about the same time you last started a thread about lawns

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

18 inches high and green  except where the goats have eaten it  they are catching up with the grass now that the growing has slowed down  high grass hides the 4 trucks and 3 trailers from folks

[stevelyn]

The only time I mow if I can no long see larger predators passing through the back yard.

[Firethorn]

Even though I never water it, my lawn was shaggy and green until I mowed it this morning, it's been a month since I mowed it last.

Isn't this part of the point of the thread?  An unmowed(or mowed high) lawn requires less precipitation to remain green, whether in the form of rain or watering.

[Tallpine]

I keep almost an acre of "yard"* around the house mowed for fire protection, and to avoid becoming a habitat for rattlesnakes.  But I use the highest setting on the mower, which is about 5 inches.  I can mow right over small rocks.

We don't water much at all, but the area over the septic leach field is always green 

* the "yard" by definition is the part we keep mowed; the other 39 acres or so is just wildland grass and timber, except there is a fenced portion (about 20 acres) where the horses graze.

[onions!]

Does a bumper crop of beautiful green thistles on a field of crispy brown grass count as a lawn?

[Paddy]

What lawn?  I live in Central CA and we're in the middle of a drought.

[roo_ster]

I can keep my St Augustine green by mowing at the tallest setting and watering once every 1.5 weeks in drought conditions.

This year, though, we have had so much rain, I chop it off real short, cause if I don't,  I can't get the mower through it next week.

[MechAg94]

Same hear on the rain.  I haven't had to water at all this year. 

I generally mow at a higher setting.  There is enough uneven area in my front and back yard that cutting it too short will leave large stretches with roots cut up and dead grass.  Then you get all sorts of weeds and other grasses trying to move in.  St Augustine grass will choke out everything else if you let it grow. 

Same reason to mow hear as mowing growing up.  If you don't, you get snakes and all sorts of stuff moving in.  I grew up out in the country and the mowed area around the how meant few rodents and few snakes and such.  At the very least, you had no problem seeing the snakes that were there.  Lots and lots of copperhead snakes where I grew up.  Always seemed to kill 2 or 3 in the yard every year.  Since my mother was bit by a copperhead when I was a kid, poisonous snakes were not allowed in the yard.  Death penalty for that violation.  No appeals. 

[mountainclmbr]

At Casa Mountainclmbr there are severe rock outcroppings that make a large part of the 1 acre lot instant death to a mower blade. The rest has rock just beneath the soil. The pines, spruce and aspen seem to get roots down in cracks in the rocks. Grass does not like the habitat. Am I really going to get a visit from the APS lawn police if I can't get grass to grow on rocks?

[Tallpine]

Am I really going to get a visit from the APS lawn police if I can't get grass to grow on rocks?

You could paint the rocks green 

[charby]

Am I really going to get a visit from the APS lawn police if I can't get grass to grow on rocks?

You could paint the rocks green 

indoor/outdoor carpeting

[roo_ster]

You ca now get astroturf for your backyard.  A specific kind is marketed for folks with dog, so fido doesn't freak out.