You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Trying to grow grass in Tennessee is crazy.
Summer time grass maintenance is ridiculous in the South and the Volunteer State is no different.
In June, July, and August, it rains about as often as a mother in law issuing compliments. The sun stays in the sky higher, hotter and longer. The brutal rays of heat squeeze the life out of each blade of grass until your lawn has more crunch than a bowel of cereal.
If this was 1930’s Chicago, my lawn would have a hole in its head laying slumped over the wheel outside a sleazy speakeasy.
In August, you need a meat thermometer to measure the temperature near the curb where the heat off the asphalt can be a scalding 120 degrees.
During the dog days of summer when the heat lifts its leg and excretes toxins onto all it surveys, lawns stagnate and wither like rust on a 67 Chevy. Put your ear to the suffocating blades of grass and hear their dying gasp whistling the tune from the Good the Bad and the Ugly.
I know it’s coming. I know this death march is inevitable, but every Spring my lawn tricks me, hypnotizes me into thinking this year it is going to be different. This year, the roots will absorb the right combination of fertilizer, weed killer, sunshine and water.
This year, I convince myself, is the year that I transform my Tumbleweed factory into Scotts Turf Builder lawn of the year. I imagine my lawn being featured in a commercial airing during the U.S. Open. I am interviewed wearing Bermuda shorts drinking ice tea. There is a hammock nearby and my dog is playfully nipping at my heels. I am barefoot in a lawn so plush, it looks like lime green shards of melting butter.
This is a day dream, and I know it’s a dream. I should know better, but my lawn is deceptive and it knows my weaknesses.
“That’s right baby! Give me what I need and I’ll make it all better,” the lawn says with a wink and a smile.
My lawn is like a sinister minx. She’s a drug dealer, giving me free crack, getting me hooked and then making me pay for it.
“Hey handsome,” the grass whispers. “You want to buy a dime bag of Weed and Feed. You know you want it. It’s Primo stuff, lawn boy.”
Like many men, lured into the rocks by the soothing siren’s call of lush green, U.S. Open commercial lawns of splendor, I get in the yard and once again take the position. I am bent over and perspiring and covered with dirt.
Another Summer of impossible turf expectations is upon us.
Learn from my mistakes. Don’t worry about the scrutinizing ire of your neighbors. Don’t listen to the seductress growing around your home.
Unless your home is on an endless oasis of water, your grass is going to die. Period!
Deal with it, and remember :
Grass isn’t just grass. It’s crazy!