The Pros and Cons of Grass
Writing in last Thursday’s NY Times, Brent Staples chronicles his ten-year effort to cultivate a passable grass lawn in the back yard of his Brooklyn townhouse. Ultimately, he cries uncle and builds a brick patio. “When I first moved to the neighborhood I was aghast at how many people had given up on grass and…
Writing in last Thursday’s NY Times, Brent Staples chronicles his ten-year effort to cultivate a passable grass lawn in the back yard of his Brooklyn townhouse. Ultimately, he cries uncle and builds a brick patio. “When I first moved to the neighborhood I was aghast at how many people had given up on grass and paved their yards right over,” he writes. “After a decade of heartbreak, I, too, have taken the path of least resistance. Grass, I have learned, is the cruelest crop of all.” What kind of luck have other brownstone owners out there had? This is particularly relevant to us, as we will be planning our garden this autumn.
Grass is for Experts, Don’t Try It At Home [NY Times]
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I’ve had okay luck with grass in my Park Slope backyard. The yard was all weeds when we moved in seven years ago. I got rid of the weeds and planted grass seed; it came up and we had a reasonably nice little lawn. My next-door neighbors put down sod and it was all dead within a year. My “lawn” got patchier and weedier over the years, so this year I turned the soil and replanted. So far, so good. You have to plant a LOT of grass seed because birds love it. We also have stray cats who poop out there and WAY too many squirrels — I hate the squirrels because they dig up my bulbs. Anyway, I think you can do okay with grass if you don’t need suburban-style perfection. What IS that “Brooklyn bamboo” anyway? I’ve been battling that stuff for years and it’s winning.
The key to good looking grass, water, feed and air. Last year I bought those shoes with long spikes from Lee Valley http://www.leevalley.com, and within 2 weeks, voila, no patches and green as green can be. Also, I use a push mower because it cuts the blades of grass straight.
From Carroll Gardens backyard poster — we did find some animal droppings we couldn’t identify late last summer to our dismay — we first suspected the neighbor’s dog, but didn’t see how the dog could have managed acccess, so maybe it was cats Then we put up a barrier on the two back corners which seemed to work. I think we found another dropping a month later and decided it must be from squirrels — which we do see hopping across the grass on occasion. We haven’t found anything unpleasant so far this year, but it’s definitely something we worry about. Haven’t noticed a rodent problem to date (I see squirrels in other backyards as frequently as ours). And, our backyard has no trees so stays shadeless all summer (which can be a drag), but maybe that’s why the sod took so well.
This will be our 3rd summer working the yard in our home in FogChill (Fort Greene/Clinton Hill…anyone else call it this? Guess that’s a topic for another day 🙂 It was new construction and the developer dug out the concrete and top 18 inches or so of topsoil that capped the lot. The first summer we removed a dying tree that was also casting shade on most of the 25’x30′ back yard and the extended family pitched in to lay down a 8’x12′ patio. The rest of the yard was a dustbowl! I don’t even remember weeds growing. Spring #2, we had sod professionally installed; the true American Dream. What a beautiful, lush lawn…for 3 weeks. I think the neighborhood cats got more use out of it than we did. All of their defecating took the fun out of running around in our bare feet. My dreams of rolling in the grass, playing with my toddler quickly faded with the first surprise “squish”. The cats eventually settled in a couple of favorite spots that we tried to avoid, but the damage had been done. By the end of the summer, we mostly sought refuge on the patio. This spring, the lawn didn’t look to be coming in too good. The first thing I did was to patch all of the gaps in the fence where the cats were coming from. Next we set aside a 3′ wide strip along one long side of the yard where our garden is currently taking root in a combination of raised and ground-level beds. For the rest of the lawn, I began throwing down seed weekly, trying to stay ahead of the birds that ate most of it. I also tried to keep it moist which is very difficult to do when there is no outdoor water spigot and the local hardware stores don’t carry plumbing adapters to connect a garden hose to an oversized fancy-shmancy bathroom faucet. By mid-April, things were looking ok. I continued throwing down seed. In the big spots that looked barren, I pulled up the topsoil, flipped it over, and re-seeded. Now I think about 25% of the grass is remnants of the sod, and the rest is new growth. Definitely not as lush as those few precious weeks last summer, but better than I could have hoped for two months ago. Between the patio, the garden, the lawn, and the BBQ nook (next project), I think we have a good balance of back yard usage without too much maintenance.