Goerwitz

By Richard Goerwitz (2008)

(Sorry, ladies, gay dudes, etc., but this was written for middle aged married guys who, like me, need to think outside the box a bit more. By all means read on, if you like. But just note that you're not the target audience.)

Credit: All photos below, except the one of the Busch Gardens sign and the one of dad and "the goat," were taken by Amy Goerwitz. Aren't they terrific? See more here.

Hated Job

I have been mowing lawns since I was a kid, and have never liked it. Neither did my dad, who once went so far as to fence in the back two thirds of our 1.9 acre suburban yard then borrow a couple of goats from the nearest farm. This worked well—too well, in fact. The goats ate everything down to within a half inch of the ground, including flowers, small bushes, and the pine seedlings he and I had been planting.

Goat Mower

As soon as I got old enough, Dad gave me the job of mowing, and ever since then I've been carrying on his tradition of finding ways to get out of it.

So Why Do We Do It?

T he thing is that lawn mowing makes abolutely no sense, if you think about it. Power mowers are dangerous, loud, and probably bad for your hearing. They also put out lots of emissions (far more per gallon than your catalytic-converter-outfitted car). At least that's what I tell myself while I put the mowing off.

Lawn mowers also kill off the plants that would otherwise serve as homes for insects, birds, and usually other animals as well. And they sometimes kill the animals (snakes, frogs, etc.) themselves.

Reel Mower

From what I gather, talking with neighbors and friends, a lot of us mow because we feel we have to fit in, or because some towns have so-called weed ordinances (laws that specify how wild our lawns can get), or because our wives tell us to.

Go ahead, by the way, and tell me I'm sexist (see "wives" above), but the reality is that mowing has, since I was a kid back in the 60s and 70s, always been primarily a man's job. When I see a woman mowing, I usually figure she's lesbian, or single, or, if the lawn is really long, that she's pissed off enough at her husband for putting the mowing off that she's taken matters into her own hands. I know that's not always true, but that's my small-town knee-jerk reaction.

There's always the occasional man or woman who claims to like mowing. I sometimes hear people actually say they like it for the fresh air or exercise. Of course if people really mowed for fresh air and exercise, they would use natural, emission-free, hand-powered push mowers—the reel kinds, with no engine. (I usually do use a push reel mower, and the guys in SUVs driving by sometimes look at me like I were some sort of freak.)

Clearly people don't walk around behind power mowers (or sit on lawn tractors) for their health or anyone else's—except maybe my aunt Sharlie, who used to use the lawn mower as a way to keep her six kids at bay for a couple of hours.

So Why Do We Really Do It?

F or most people, though, the main reason for mowing is aesthetic. People think the lawn should look a certain way—i.e., "look nice." Or they think their neighbors feel that way (which they probably do).

If the motivation is genuinely aesthetic, though, then something just doesn't make sense. An uncut lawn actually has variety to it. It can have anything you want, from wild cup plants to luscious fruiting and flowering bushes—the kind of stuff people drive off into the country for hours to see when they're on vacation trying to "get away from it all."

Korean Bush Cherry

So to me the aesthetic argument is just a facade. And anyway, aesthetics are highly subjective. Think about what your wife tells you when you put on a nice suit and take her out. She says, one would hope, "You look great." And she probably even means it. But think what would happen if you were to put on a vintage 70s suit with, say, an over-wide tie? Assuming you weren't going to a costume or retro party, she'd say you looked ridiculous, right?

But say it's the 70s again. Most women would think you looked pretty good. (And back then you and I both probably did look pretty good. But right now I'm talking about the retro suit and tie.)

Beauty is one of those gloriously fickle and culturally relative things. If it's 1880, and your wife is plump and white, she's likely to be considered pretty cute. Why? Because in 1880 the "haves" (as opposed to the "have nots") had plenty of food—and enough money that the womenfolk didn't need to work in the sun. Of course now, in 2008, nearly everyone in the U.S. has enough to eat, both haves and have nots, and people spend most of their time inside. So in an ironic twist of cultural fate, it's now the "haves" who end up thin and brown. The "haves," in other words, now distinguish themselves by going to the health club or hiring a personal trainer, or by heading off to Jamaica or the tanning salon to get dark. Anyway now, in 2008, if your wife is plump and white, she probably wishes she was thin and nicely bronzed.

Let's face it: We're all snobs, and our idea of what "looks good" really has very little to do with what actually does look good (if such a thing exists).

We're all like the mommy cardinal who thinks red looks great on her significant other. Male cardinals, as some of you may know, make no red pigment of their own. They have to get it from carotenoids in their diet. To a mommy cardinal, therefore, the daddy's deep color signals that he has the energy and verve to find and eat all those carotenoid-containing foods that make his feathers red. It means he's a good mate. To other males, it says, "I'm powerful" or "I'm rich," kind of like a nice suit. I'm sure, though, if you asked a cardinal, they'd just tell you that the red "looks good."

So It Is With the Lawn

S o if you ask people why they mow, and they tell you because it "looks good," take that explanation for exactly what it is: indirection. The mowed lawn looks good because it sends a culturally relative signal about the owner, not because it's actually better that way. It shows that the owner is getting the job done; that he or she is a responsible suburban citizen; that he or she has enough extra time or money to take care of business and keep the place "neat" (which always means doing something extra, kind of like the daddy cardinal with his special diet). Conversely, an un-mowed lawn is seen as a sign of unfitness, unability to cope, or as a cry for help.

I sometimes also hear it said that the lawn needs to be mowed so the kids can play on it. But let's look at whether that's really happening. Americans' houses are bigger than ever, with larger mowed lawns, often outfitted with "landscaping" (typically maintained by paid "landscapers"). Yet we entertain less than ever. And where are the children? They're pretty much sequestered off at schools, at sports practices, at music lessons, or (if you're very lucky) hanging out in your basement listening to music, rather than hanging out on the street or in town making trouble.

So in reality the kids aren't out on the lawn all that much. And in fact the true reason we keep the lawn "nice" is that this fits in with a sort of ideal lifestyle we feel as though we should have, or with the way we'd like to project ourselves to others.

By the way, anyone who puts pesticides on their lawn definitely isn't thinking of children. I'll just say that flat out.

Another Way?

M y wife and I have finally come to an understanding about the lawn. I take care of it, in a manner of speaking, and she never has to touch a mower or really do much of anything in the yard other than plant a few flowers if she wants. In return, I (and my son) are allowed to rule the yard.

Newspapering To Keep Down Weeds

What my son and I have done is split the mowing (at least when he's at home, which is only for part of the year these days). He does the back and I do the front. This is more equitable than the arrangement my dad and I had, which was that I would put off doing the lawn, and he would turn a blind eye—until, for example, a neighbor would get so pissed off that he'd come over and mow a section himself (yes, this actually happened).

My son and I have also done a lot to landscape ourselves out of a lawn. We've put in a garden, a grape trellis, two apple trees, a dozen hazelnut bushes, a cherry tree, multiple pawpaws, bush cherries, asparagus, lovage, raspberries, juneberries, chokeberries, wild grasses, wildflowers, a shag bark hickory, miniature peaches, rhubarb, hardy kiwis, bush cranberries, mint, oregano, chives, and a number of annuals in the main garden. Soon we'll have some persimmons in as well. We don't put any chemicals on the lawn, and we don't have to fertilize anything, because frankly we aren't looking for a uniform, green lawn of nonnative grasses. We dig little, and our idea of fertilizing is to compost our food waste and lay it down on the garden, sometimes with an extra layer of newspaper or cardboard and some soil above that (see photo left). A lot of what we do comes from my son's knowledge of books written by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, and from the discipline of permaculture.

All this in a tiny fifth-acre lot. Yeah!

Backyard Habitat

Those not willing to go as far as we have might want to take a few small steps using "backyard habitat" techniques suggested by the National Wildlife Federation. I recently saw an exhibit at Busch Gardens in Tampa of these techniques (see the photo, right). To me it was kind of funny to see a mowed lawn with heavily manicured beds being exhibited in this way. But if you're not ready to take a big step, a small step like what we saw at Busch Gardens is better than nothing. To this I'd just add the observation that if you drove by our house, you probably wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary. It's really not all that radical looking. And in actuality, our tiny front lawn is still mostly conventional. You also don't need to keep a garden, like we do. Bushes, trees, and ground cover are enough, and can be very low maintenance if correctly selected. What I'm saying is that although I might seem to be portraying what we've done as radical, that's really not the case. What we've done is actually pretty simple and easy.

Anyway, as the amount of mowable area in our yard decreases, we find more and more animals living around us, more butterflies, more hummingbirds, and more living things generally. My daughter (now seven) wanders about, picking cherries, tasting mint, and watching squirrels, opossums, rabbits, snakes, and other animals duke it out with our two cats—who spend most of their time outside patrolling the yard or sleeping on the back porch.

Garter Snake

Every year since we moved to our current home (six years as of 2008) I've had less mowing to do. I also feel pretty good about what I'm doing. I expend few or no non-renewable resources to grow the yard plants I do, and most of them produce things I can eat. I use a hand-powered reel mower, but if the grass is heavy I don't feel bad about hauling out the power mower once in a while. I probably use a gallon of gas a year. My kids both love wandering through the yard eating things. My daughter feeds her friends, who are also welcome to our yard. My son actually designs the annual garden for me as a kind of Christmas present each year, and orders all the seeds I need. My wife has fresh herbs to use in her cooking and so do I. My daughter helps me plant in the spring. We have fresh aparagus.

Best of all, I feel as though I'm no longer just pandering to the aesthetics of middle and upper middle class suburban Americans. I'm even thinking of checking to see if we have local weed ordinances and taking some time to work with our city council to rewrite them if that's needed. I'm also thinking of trying some no-mow grass seed for the few areas where I do actually want a little lawn.

In closing I'd just offer a blanket invitation to other middle aged men (and any women who have made it this far) who want to break the mold and do something, however small, to make the world a better place: Manage your yard creatively. Reduce the need to mow. Plant "easy" native shrubs, trees, and flowers that attract local birds and insects. And, if you can, mow what's left with an old-fashioned hand-powered reel mower. Don't let yourself become a King of the Hill charicature. Trust me, Jesus doesn't care if you don't mow. In fact, quite the opposite: He'd rather you gave up materialistic attachments and ornaments like your lawn (Matthew 19:21, Luke 16:13; see also Ecclesiastes 2:4-11, 1 Peter 3:3). So don't be materialistic. Don't be a heel. Be cool. Be different. Do the right thing.

Oh, and in the process you, like me, will get out of mowing the lawn.

Resources

Google is your best resource, as always. But if you want some specific recommendations, here are a few:

• Carleton College Shrinking Footprints blog (I work at Carleton)
• Permaculture Institute Blog
• Imaginary conversation between God and St. Francis asking why U.S. suburbanites seem bent on destroying some of God's best work. Very funny. The answer is stupidity. (My view: They destroy God's best work to demonstrate fitness for middle-class society. Put differently, it's precisely because lawns, foreign shrubs, and flower beds won't just grow on their own that people use them to signal their social position. They're misdirected, in other words—not stupid.)
• Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class (New York, 1899). For full text, see Google Books; also, Project Gutenberg. Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption, of which he says, "Unproductive consumption of goods is honourable, primarily as a mark of prowess and a perquisite of human dignity; secondarily it becomes substantially honourable in itself, especially the consumption of the more desirable things." Veblen wasn't advocating conspicuous consumption, but rather just explaining why people do it. The suburban lawn is a prime example of it (see pages 133 ff.).