Killing the Grass

I do not cultivate grass. One develops an aversion to the stuff when one lives in the city and to step on grass courts an encounter with dog dreck.

I do remember a time, I think it might have been 20 years ago, when I was called to jury duty and walked to court. Crossing the Capitol lawn I realized that here was one place where I need not fear to tread and I took off my shoes and let my bare feet happily squish along in the dewy morning freshness.

Grass is also a pain in the ass to care for. There was a time even farther ago than the jury incident when the prince and I had a bit of lawn (or so we thought) in the back garden. It was all very pretty and bucolic, with a climbing Queen Elizabeth arching above a white wicker couch and squirrels in the apricot tree pelting me with fruit pits as I attempted to relax over some grisly murder mystery or other....

And then one day when guests were due in the evening (and my back was turned) the prince lofted the weed killer and....It's amazing that what passes for grass is sometimes not grass at all.

So the minuscule backyard is a wilderness of vines and shrubbish; some flowery, some not. I like it like that.

The front patch is also grassless. It is a dense and yawningly boring tangle of ivy and a very sad looking pink dogwood. I do not like this and have repeated that most forcefully to myself over the years.

There is an exhausting story that I will one day tell about the prince's aversion to the removal of anything vaguely alive...but if  lightening struck...

Oh good thinking. One could pretend lightening struck! (My fingers just did a happy dance on the desk). And then I would follow the lead of one or another or, knowing me, all of the gardeners (simultaneously) that Adrian Higgins writes of in today's Washington Post. City or suburb, they've taken the lawn and throttled the bore out of it.

Note that this piece is in several parts! Read on;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR2010072005347.html

(Note. The photo is not my front yard. It is the back garden with a cartoon bunny dancing around and is placed here to attract your attention because it's said that we're no longer capable of reading anything without illustrations. Or something like that).