The Working Lawn

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From this neighbor, we also learned to appreciate some of nature's bounty we'd previously ignored. Each spring, Mrs. White would pull up new dandelion greens as soon as they appeared, well before they matured into bitterness. She dug the dandelion knife as deep as it would go to extract the roots and sweet, flower bud-filled stems. She brushed them free of dirt, then steamed them until tender and served the greens with butter and vinegar. From the shade under her maple tree, Mrs. White gathered violet leaves and new blossoms for spring salads.

We lived on an unpaved cul-de-sac that lacked curbs, so our front yard maple served as a sun-shading car park. The soil under it churned to mud each spring until I had a truckload of crushed rock spread there. Renewed periodically, it hosted an abundance of violets after I transplanted them from surrounding stands. To keep encroaching lawngrass sod at bay, I sprinkled rock salt sparingly around the borders. For the sake of appearances, we retained a patch of turf right in front of the house, but also planted a sour cherry tree in the circle of sod, which was covered by water-permeable black landscaping fabric. Half of the fabric was disguised by a blanket of chipped-bark mulch. On the other side was a border of dwarf filberts and Hansen's bush cherry.

The inner half of the side yard was left with the existing fescue/perennial-rye sod, but also hosted a bathtub-shaped sand pit, a basketball goal and other play stuff that evolved as our children grew older. I tried to mow the remaining lawn with a cordless electric push-mower, but electrics, with both battery and motor, are heavy - and this land sloped upward. I compromised by using a small mulching mower with a tunnel-topped deck that minced clippings small so they'd rot down and not contribute to a thick thatch. Today, I'd compromise even less and purchase a low-horsepower, gas-powered string-trimmer/mower. On the down side, these universal mowers use petroleum and their thick, monofiliament cutter can inflict a nice gash. Still, they're much lighter to push and dimensionally safer than a steel mower blade. A house-powered electric model with a long extension cord might be better for flat yards.

The sod that was in a wide strip around the house foundation was dug out and composted. Under more bark-covered landscaping cloth, the soil was augmented with compost and planted with old-fashioned beauty bush, althea, trumpet vine, honeysuckle and dwarf fruit trees. These ornamental plants were pruned to be espaliered on the house walls.

Along the back and side borders of the lot, sod was dug out and planted with self-reliant fence plants including mock orange, bird-attracting Russian olive, lilacs, wild plum and other hardy, tall-growing bushes. We interspersed the flowering bushes with a random selection of scrawny and misshapen white pine, spruce, balsam and hemlock seedlings dug from where they were fighting to find sunlight in the deep woods.

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