Learning to love your perfectly imperfect lawn
Summary points:
- The lawn chemical industry has presented an unsustainable image of what a healthy lawn should look like
- The image given to us by the chemical industry is that of a biological monoculture; a biodiverse lawn is typically healthier
- A biodiverse lawn (one with clover, dandelions or other groundcovers) is less susceptible to disease, fungus and pests like grubs
- Turfgrass in northern climates like Michigan naturally goes dormant in hot, dry summer months
- Water your lawn as early in the day as possible for 30 minutes or so; in hot, dry months, a 45-60 minute watering could be necessary
- Add organic matter to your lawn regularly; compost or vermicompost is good, organic (plant-based) lawn fertilizer is even better
- Nature works slowly, stop expecting instant results from your turf
If there’s one thing we try to convey to homeowners, it’s that you need to stop trying to attain perfection in your lawn. If you’re interested in growing an organic lawn, you just have to accept that nature’s idea of a healthy lawn isn’t the same as the lawn chemical industry’s.
Unfortunately, since the 1950s, the only image of a beautiful lawn that we’ve been regularly given has been given to us by the chemical industry. But that’s an unsustainable image. Trying to attain perfection in our lawn is just as unhealthy as trying to attain perfection in ourselves.
Around 60 years ago, the world was introduced to the Barbie Doll. There’s no doubt that this iconic toy has had a huge impact on our society. Barbies allowed children to use their imaginations while dressing her up as an astronaut, surgeon, firefighter, engineer, reporter, Olympic athlete, and much more.
But there’s also no denying that the original Barbie Doll has contributed to negative body image for generations of women (and men). When a plastic doll is held up as a standard of feminine beauty for more than a half century, while sporting unrealistic (and impossible) proportions– as well as a single skin, eye and hair color– it can create pressure on girls to look a certain way, and give both boys and girls unrealistic expectations.
But it’s not just Barbie. Also contributing to these unrealistic expectations are magazine photos that have been retouched and photoshopped, actors’ bodies that have been enhanced with CGI technology, photo filters on our phones, and the selective lens of social media. When you boil it all down, corporate America has been feeding us unrealistic beauty standards for decades. And trying to meet these unrealistic standards can really take a toll on a person’s mental and physical health.
If you saw a loved one regularly harming their body in an effort to meet these impossible physical standards, you might say something, right?
Well, what if we saw someone harming the planet in an effort to meet unrealistic expectations in their lawn?
It was actually around the same time that Barbie was introduced that chemical lawn companies began introducing the idea of a “perfect” monoculture lawn. Prior to World War II, all grass seed was sold with clover seed right in the mix. Clover was a natural part of having a lawn! And lawns were actually created as a space of leisure and relaxation, not of fretting and stressing over every flaw and blemish.
After World War II, when the post-war economy was booming, men had more leisure time to hit the golf course, or catch a baseball game at the ballpark. It should come as no surprise that golf courses and ballparks were the first places the chemical lawn companies targeted with their weed killers and synthetic chemical fertilizers. As those places began producing carpet-like monocultures with their turfgrass, those men golfing and relaxing at the ballpark began pining for such a lawn in their own yard. And the chemical companies were more than happy to oblige.
And thus began a nearly 80-year run of tons and tons of toxic chemicals being dumped onto American yards, all to support unsustainable and dangerous monocultures.
Now we’re not saying that we should just ignore our lawns, and let nature do its thing– whatever that may look like. Just like we’re not saying it’s bad to exercise, eat right and do other things to make ourselves look nice. But at the end of the day, if our only standard of beauty is Barbie (or Chris Hemsworth as Thor, the god of thunder), and we’re actively harming ourselves mentally and physically to achieve that level of beauty, something needs to change.
Likewise, if your standard of beauty for your lawn is a thick monoculture that stays dark green from April through November, you may need to change your standards. Changing expectations isn’t the same as lowering expectations. Be happier with the lawn you have, instead of being upset that your lawn doesn’t look like the picture on the bag of Scotts Weed n Feed.
Here are some things you can do to be happier with your lawn:
1. Accept that turfgrass in Michigan goes dormant in the hot summer months. If it’s brown or weak-looking, it’s because the type of grass we have in northern climates doesn’t naturally grow or stay green when temps regularly go above 75 or 80 degrees. Don’t judge your lawn in the summer; it’s not at its peak performance. Spring and fall are when it looks its best.
2.Water your grass in the morning, as early as possible, for at least 30 minutes, as needed. In the hot summer months, you could go as long as 45 or 60 minutes per watering, especially if you have sandier soil. Watering in the morning is important to prevent fungus from getting out of control (which is what can happen if you water in the evening). You don’t typically need to do much watering in the early spring or fall; the rain and cooler temps will keep your grass green. Never let it go more than 14 days without water in the heat of summer.
3. Accept a certain amount of diversity in your lawn. A monoculture is unnatural. Nowhere in nature will you find 6,000-20,000 square feet of only one type of plant growing. If your aim is a natural lawn, it’s going to have diversity in it. Period. A lawn with clover in it stays greener all summer. A lawn with ONLY grass growing in it is more susceptible to grubs, disease, fungus and other problems.
4. Limit the amount of diversity in your lawn by doing two things regularly: Pull weeds you really don’t want, and overseed your entire lawn in early-fall (and/or in the spring). Use a sun/shade mix of grass seed to fill in gaps where weeds may otherwise pop up. Even better? Throw down some Dutch white clover seed with your sun/shade grass seed. As mentioned above, the grass around clover stays greener all summer long. How? It pulls nitrogen out of the air and deposits it into the soil– nitrogen is a nutrient that greens up your turf.
5. Add organic matter to your turf regularly. We’ve become so focused on pumping our lawns with nitrogen, that we overlook one of the most important things a healthy lawn needs: Organic matter in the soil. Organic matter holds onto water, loosens up compacted soils, and locks in nutrients for when your turf needs them. You can add organic matter by top-dressing with compost annually, or applying our Alfalfa Blend Lawn Fertilizer.
6. Be patient. Offer your lawn some grace. Nature doesn't do things quickly, and it doesn't always do what we want. But if we want a natural lawn, we have to accept that we can't control nature, we can only work with the processes that God has put into place, and that might mean we don't get instant results, or it might mean some months look better than others.
Lawns, like people, are healthiest when we finally learn to embrace those imperfections. We can be happier when our standard of excellence isn’t Barbie or Chris Hemsworth or our college friend who only posts the highlights of his life through wrinkle-masking filters on Instagram…or if our standard of excellence isn’t the outfield turf at Comerica Park. The grass may sometimes be greener on the other side of the fence, but that doesn’t mean it’s better or healthier. When it comes to setting standards for our lawns, we should set them; we shouldn't let Scotts or our neighbors do it for us.
Unfortunately, since the 1950s, the only image of a beautiful lawn that we’ve been regularly given has been given to us by the chemical industry. But that’s an unsustainable image. Trying to attain perfection in our lawn is just as unhealthy as trying to attain perfection in ourselves.
Around 60 years ago, the world was introduced to the Barbie Doll. There’s no doubt that this iconic toy has had a huge impact on our society. Barbies allowed children to use their imaginations while dressing her up as an astronaut, surgeon, firefighter, engineer, reporter, Olympic athlete, and much more.
But there’s also no denying that the original Barbie Doll has contributed to negative body image for generations of women (and men). When a plastic doll is held up as a standard of feminine beauty for more than a half century, while sporting unrealistic (and impossible) proportions– as well as a single skin, eye and hair color– it can create pressure on girls to look a certain way, and give both boys and girls unrealistic expectations.
But it’s not just Barbie. Also contributing to these unrealistic expectations are magazine photos that have been retouched and photoshopped, actors’ bodies that have been enhanced with CGI technology, photo filters on our phones, and the selective lens of social media. When you boil it all down, corporate America has been feeding us unrealistic beauty standards for decades. And trying to meet these unrealistic standards can really take a toll on a person’s mental and physical health.
If you saw a loved one regularly harming their body in an effort to meet these impossible physical standards, you might say something, right?
Well, what if we saw someone harming the planet in an effort to meet unrealistic expectations in their lawn?
It was actually around the same time that Barbie was introduced that chemical lawn companies began introducing the idea of a “perfect” monoculture lawn. Prior to World War II, all grass seed was sold with clover seed right in the mix. Clover was a natural part of having a lawn! And lawns were actually created as a space of leisure and relaxation, not of fretting and stressing over every flaw and blemish.
After World War II, when the post-war economy was booming, men had more leisure time to hit the golf course, or catch a baseball game at the ballpark. It should come as no surprise that golf courses and ballparks were the first places the chemical lawn companies targeted with their weed killers and synthetic chemical fertilizers. As those places began producing carpet-like monocultures with their turfgrass, those men golfing and relaxing at the ballpark began pining for such a lawn in their own yard. And the chemical companies were more than happy to oblige.
And thus began a nearly 80-year run of tons and tons of toxic chemicals being dumped onto American yards, all to support unsustainable and dangerous monocultures.
Now we’re not saying that we should just ignore our lawns, and let nature do its thing– whatever that may look like. Just like we’re not saying it’s bad to exercise, eat right and do other things to make ourselves look nice. But at the end of the day, if our only standard of beauty is Barbie (or Chris Hemsworth as Thor, the god of thunder), and we’re actively harming ourselves mentally and physically to achieve that level of beauty, something needs to change.
Likewise, if your standard of beauty for your lawn is a thick monoculture that stays dark green from April through November, you may need to change your standards. Changing expectations isn’t the same as lowering expectations. Be happier with the lawn you have, instead of being upset that your lawn doesn’t look like the picture on the bag of Scotts Weed n Feed.
Here are some things you can do to be happier with your lawn:
1. Accept that turfgrass in Michigan goes dormant in the hot summer months. If it’s brown or weak-looking, it’s because the type of grass we have in northern climates doesn’t naturally grow or stay green when temps regularly go above 75 or 80 degrees. Don’t judge your lawn in the summer; it’s not at its peak performance. Spring and fall are when it looks its best.
2.Water your grass in the morning, as early as possible, for at least 30 minutes, as needed. In the hot summer months, you could go as long as 45 or 60 minutes per watering, especially if you have sandier soil. Watering in the morning is important to prevent fungus from getting out of control (which is what can happen if you water in the evening). You don’t typically need to do much watering in the early spring or fall; the rain and cooler temps will keep your grass green. Never let it go more than 14 days without water in the heat of summer.
3. Accept a certain amount of diversity in your lawn. A monoculture is unnatural. Nowhere in nature will you find 6,000-20,000 square feet of only one type of plant growing. If your aim is a natural lawn, it’s going to have diversity in it. Period. A lawn with clover in it stays greener all summer. A lawn with ONLY grass growing in it is more susceptible to grubs, disease, fungus and other problems.
4. Limit the amount of diversity in your lawn by doing two things regularly: Pull weeds you really don’t want, and overseed your entire lawn in early-fall (and/or in the spring). Use a sun/shade mix of grass seed to fill in gaps where weeds may otherwise pop up. Even better? Throw down some Dutch white clover seed with your sun/shade grass seed. As mentioned above, the grass around clover stays greener all summer long. How? It pulls nitrogen out of the air and deposits it into the soil– nitrogen is a nutrient that greens up your turf.
5. Add organic matter to your turf regularly. We’ve become so focused on pumping our lawns with nitrogen, that we overlook one of the most important things a healthy lawn needs: Organic matter in the soil. Organic matter holds onto water, loosens up compacted soils, and locks in nutrients for when your turf needs them. You can add organic matter by top-dressing with compost annually, or applying our Alfalfa Blend Lawn Fertilizer.
6. Be patient. Offer your lawn some grace. Nature doesn't do things quickly, and it doesn't always do what we want. But if we want a natural lawn, we have to accept that we can't control nature, we can only work with the processes that God has put into place, and that might mean we don't get instant results, or it might mean some months look better than others.
Lawns, like people, are healthiest when we finally learn to embrace those imperfections. We can be happier when our standard of excellence isn’t Barbie or Chris Hemsworth or our college friend who only posts the highlights of his life through wrinkle-masking filters on Instagram…or if our standard of excellence isn’t the outfield turf at Comerica Park. The grass may sometimes be greener on the other side of the fence, but that doesn’t mean it’s better or healthier. When it comes to setting standards for our lawns, we should set them; we shouldn't let Scotts or our neighbors do it for us.