You Say Weeds, I Say Meadow

On our street of manicured lawns, where people don’t just mow them but also edge them, our lawn stands out like a red-headed stepchild.

Let’s recall that it was winter two days ago. Or it felt like winter. It was rainy, windy, and cold. And there was snow on the ground until fairly recently. Today, it’s warm and sunny. And the grass grew four inches in the twenty seconds after the snow melt.

Today and yesterday, the lawn mowing brigade has been out from sunup to sunset, grooming and manicuring their weedless front lawns. Why all of the dandelions took root on our front lawn is mysterious to me, and alarming. In comparison to all of the dark, lush, green lawns from the top of our street to the bottom, ours looks like it was shipped in from the wrong side of the tracks.

We had a mowing guy until this year, but now that we’ve decided to maintain the grass ourselves, the future of our lawn looks uncertain. Whether we’ll actually cut it regularly— without yelling, nagging, crying (me), barking (our dog, and occasionally me), and threatening—is still up in the air. It’s early days.

I’ve often thought that a meadow in front of our house, filled with tall grass and wildflowers, and even dandelions, would be lovely.

I have a feeling that our neighbors would not agree. Suburbia’s one rule is conformity. And a meadow on our front lawn would make all of their lawns look boring. Or make us look lazy, or possibly insane.

Either way, I’d better go dust off the lawn mower.