Grass is talking to me!

FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010


Grass is talking to me!

Not like in college… but grass answers some very important questions about you. These are some of the things that came to mind when I mowed the lawn.



Like: “Are you an environmentalist?”

From what shade of green your grass is, the answer is: yes, maybe or definitely not.
Or: Do you have OCD?

This multiple choice question is either somewhere on a continuum, a definite yes or no, or the one other prospect that looms ominously: no one living in the house could possibly be afflicted.

Do you enjoy yard work?

This is definitely the wrong question because the answer to the OCD question weighs the answer heavily in one direction or the other. Someone in the household besides you either might or might not have OCD or enjoys yard work or does not. At least that much is usually brutally obvious.

Because of the difficulty confirming anything specific about you because of your lawn I am going to address the additional things the grass keeps talking about concerning someone that might live in the house or even the landlord. Not to ignore or forget the local fauna.


Do your neighbors let their dogs pee on your grass when they walk their dogs?

This is a no brainer. Just how many spots of brown grass do you have within a leashes length of the curb? This distance has increased from six feet and is up to twenty-five feet due to the huge popularity of the magic spring loaded yoyo style leashes. The sex of the dog is determined by seeing if the brown spots are right next to the trees, roses or handrail. If so, the dog is male. If the spots are just all over the place and look like a brown grass scatter gun was shot from a satellite, spy plane or drone, the dog is a female.

Does a hippie or a hippie from some previous life live in the residence?

There are several clues to a correct answer. If all the florae are native plants and none are invasive plant species and there is no grass except what others might consider weeds, then there might be a real live hippie or a hippie in a previous life living there. Or, the neighborhood Sierra Club representative lives in the dwelling. If the entire front yard has been rototilled and is planted in food and it is a non-HOA neighborhood, there is a good chance that the resident probably still is a hippie. If there is a sign that indicates Free Food on a wooden stake in the garden we all know the correct answer.

Can you run a straight line with an edger?

Either: yes or no AND obvious. If everything in the yard is edged, it decreases the chance that both people or even one person living in the house has been, is or may ever be a hippie. It also increases the chance that at least one person living there has OCD.

Grass tells me a lot about my neighbors.

If the entire front yard is flowers and a concept like ‘Rooms’ (a staple of some landscape architects) is not followed, there is a good chance the resident or residents are flower power people or love hummingbirds and butterflies. If the yard is just weeds with no flowers, the residents are very lazy or just do not enjoy yardwork. Chances of them being an environmentalist are only about 1.5 out in 10. If a concept like ‘Rooms’ appears to be the theme of the yard then there is a high chance that the residents paid way too much to make it look that way. If there are lots of beds with symmetrically arranged plants, tons of mulch and many exotic nonnative and invasive species of flora; it is likely not my house but it is likely that someone that lives there has OCD.


If there is a toilet in the front yard with the seat up with some flowers and weeds in the bowl, a huge garden where the grass would be then there is an extremely high probability that you are a neighbor and I forgot your name. You definitely do not have OCD but I am sure you have nonconformity issues.


If I hear the chainsaw running and you just moved into my historic urban forest downtown neighborhood, there is a chance you missed the memo. My friend across the street with no grass is coming to visit you and explain the rules.

Have a Nice Day. Or as we say to each other: “Bon Jovi”.

POSTED BY SRPLUS AT 11:12 AM 0 COMMENTS