Cutting the Grass

We had a warm period in late February that melted all the snow and ice, including the hazardous area behind the enclosed back porch that gets little in the way of sun. The melting allowed me to put out feeders for the first time in a week. Birds were singing in profusion and I knew spring would be here soon.

The largest of the three ornamental grasses, October 2023
(Margo D. Beller)

So would the spring chores.

There are certain plants that should be left alone over the winter, and there are plants I don't bother to cut back in autumn because it is tiring to work around, over and behind the deer netting.

Now that I have more time to go birding during the week, I have little inclination to go out on the weekend when plenty of people with kids are at the parks. So on March 1, knowing from the weather forecast the wind would start blowing and the temperature would fall during the day, I went out into the garden. 

There are many chores I do in the spring. One is digging out finished compost, which I do sporadically. (I did it last year.) Another is deadheading the plants I left standing. The most important, however, is cutting back the ornamental grasses. 

Ornamental grasses are wonderful plants. They grow tall and wide and the deer don't eat them because the leaves, at least on the type I have, are thin and spiky. But like all plants, including my beloved daffodils (another plant deer don't eat because all parts are poisonous, including the flowers), when the growing season is done there is foliage to cut back. A lot of foliage.

After a long period of dryness we had rain in November
2024 and the grass went from brown to more of a gold
color not seen well in this photo.
(Margo D. Beller)

I was not ready to start work in the garden but I knew this had to be done because eventually the daffodils and other plants in this particular area were going to start growing. The three grasses I have were pummeled by rain, snow and especially wind. The northwest wind blew hard for much of the winter, another sign of changes in the climate as the Earth's oceans continue to warm.

So I planned to attack the plants from the rear. Except I discovered behind one of them that the daffodils had started growing much earlier than usual, even before the crocus, thanks to the unusual pattern of warm weather than followed this season's very cold winter. I also found the irises I had put here after dividing the ones in the front yard were growing, too. So on this particular grass my strategy had to change. (Getting to the other two to cut them back was easier.)

I was glad to see the plants had survived, tho' disturbed by how early they had shown up. The other week I was walking along one of my usual birding areas, Patriots Path, once the ice had melted and saw a phoebe. This flycatcher, a harbinger of spring migration, should've shown up in mid-March, not Feb. 25. And yet here it was, in an area by the Whippany River where I have seen and heard them before. Now that it has become cold and windy again, will it find the food it needs to survive?

I wondered that about the yard birds, too, when I couldn't risk falling on the ice to put the feeders out (a hungry squirrel that could jump over the baffle was another factor). But they managed and were quickly at the feeders once I put them out.

The largest of the grasses before the cutting in 2024.
(Margo D. Beller)

Back to the grasses. It took about two hours to cut the three of them, the largest of them taking the most time. When I was nearly done with that one the wind picked up strong, forcing me to hold down what I had piled in a large pail for composting until things calmed down. But now you can see the growing daffodils the foliage had covered.

As for the other grass - the lawn - it is still brown from its winter dormancy. Eventually it, too, will green and grow and the area will be filled with the noise and smell of lawn mowers. For now, in the renewed cold, it is quiet out there.

Which reminds me, once again I need a spring haircut, too. 

Grasses cut, daffodils exposed after last
March's cutting. (Margo D. Beller)

In the Weeds

"In the weeds" definition: "A colloquial expression used when persons are near or beyond their capacity to handle a situation or cannot catch up."

It is one of those rare summer mornings when you get a break from the heat and humidity. It is Sunday so the neighborhood takes its time waking. As I sit outside on my patio enjoying the cool, dry breeze I hear only the whirring of insects and the occasional bird call. It is so cool, even the cicadas haven't started calling yet.

Apple tree losing its leaves, Aug. 26, 2018
(Margo D. Beller)

The apple and pear trees have been losing leaves for weeks, although the other trees are still leafy and green. A catbird quietly flies to the apple, perhaps curious about my sneezing. There have been no hummingbirds yet but the squirrels have been active. The rain-like sound I hear are pieces of acorns being dropped as the critters use their sharp teeth and strong jaws to crack into the nut. The squirrels are jumping rather acrobatically from tree to tree, searching. At some point they'll stop eating and start storing, and that is when I will find holes in my lawn.

But for now it is a solid carpet of green MH mowed the other day for the first time in two weeks. I am thankful he did it because he lopped off the weeds as well as the long grass. There have always been weeds in the grass, and over the years I've learned the names of some of them:  ground ivy, wood sorrel, crabgrass, locust seedlings pushing up from the long tree roots I know are spreading under the turf. But this year I have been finding other things I've learned to identify to pull them up before they spread: poison ivy, Virginia creeper, Rose of Sharon, many raspberry seedlings and even a few poplar trees, the latter particularly strange because there are no poplars in my immediate area.

As MH mowed, I completed my third straight day of weeding, taking advantage of the relative coolness and the decrease in humidity.

Ground ivy and other weeds (Margo D. Beller)

I don't know why I am compelled to bother. The weeds are everywhere, this year even more so because of all the rain. The trenches I dug last year kept down, but not out, the ground ivy but the Bermuda grass was everywhere. Bermuda grass, unfortunately, is a perennial and it is one of those weeds that you have to use a spade on if you have any hope of getting out the whole plant. Just yanking on the leaves won't help you get rid of the plant although removing the long foliage will allow you to see the other plants you want to keep.

You might ask, why not use weed killer? Because using such poison indiscriminately will kill your garden along with the weeds. And there are some good weeds. The clover and the marigolds draw bees. Sometimes I find a flower growing in a weed pile and dig it up and plant it elsewhere. Recently I pulled up a raspberry cane and put it near the compost pile to see if it will grow and give me berries, if I can get out ahead of the birds. (Canes are thorny, like roses, so deer shouldn't be a problem.) 

Flowering ornamental onions (Margo D. Beller)

I don't mind the weeds in the lawn. They keep it green in hot weather and the purple flowers of the ground ivy are quite pretty in the spring. MH will put down fertilizer for the grass, which is why we still have most of it in the lawn despite the weeds, but putting down poison that can run off in heavy rain down the driveway and into the storm drain just hurts the environment. I see neighbors getting their lawns treated - the company has to put in a flag to warn people to keep their kids and dogs off the grass - and yet there are still weeds. 

So I'm out there pulling.

Some weeds let you pull them out completely. On the first of the days I spent weeding, I was pulling out a type of grassy weed that comes back every year. I pull and it comes out easily, in large handfuls. I filled a pail going along the area between our yard and the next house, an area falsely called "the dead area." This dead area has all sorts of weeds, but removing this thin, grassy stuff allows me to see the wild strawberries and any fruits I can pick. These are not the large, cultivated, sweet berries in the grocery stores. These are small and dryer and not very sweet but quite edible.

This year's weeds atop the compost pile. (Margo D. Beller)

The next day, even dryer than the first, I pulled out weeds from the area where I have three ornamental grasses, many daffodils and ornamental onions including two plants that flower in the fall. I remove the weeds as best as I can so I can see the other plants and remove some of the competition for moisture. I also get an idea how much room I have in case I follow through with a plan to divide the astilbe that has not flowered for two years.

The last day, as MH mowed, my plan was to put the coneflower I'd bought into the ground. I did so, dislodging eight daffodil bulbs I then had to plant in front of it. Then I started pulling weeds from the plot and saw the encroachment of the Bermuda grass under the rhododendron. Then I saw it all over the plot at the side of the house, under the andromeda bushes and around the ferns. I had a bigger pail with me and it, too, got filled to the top as I worked my way along other parts of the back yard.

At the end of those three days my compost pile had a hefty pile of green on top. When more of the leaves fall and we start raking, a layer of brown will go on top of those weeds. But for now, with the return of summer heat and humidity forecast, I can take a break from these garden labors and wait for the next spate of cool weather to cut down what's done for the year and prepare the garden for winter.

But the weeds will keep growing and next year, as usual, I won't be able to keep up.

Update: Today, Aug. 29, the New York Times has announced, in its food section, that weeds are the new big deal in food and flower arrangements. Really? How nice of the Times to inform me of something I've known for years. I still find weeds a pain, however. 

Leaves of Grass in a Sea of Green

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
- Walt Whitman

It is once more Sunday morning and I am in my "corner office." There have been chickadees rather than goldfinches at the thistle sock and the light plays prettily on the medallion atop my feeder pole.

At close to 9 am, I hear, once more, the drone of a lawn mower, likely that of a homeowner rather than the big mowers used by a lawn service.

Backyard lawn, Aug, 13, 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

By our town's laws, 9 am is when mower and blower noise is deemed ok on a Sunday and so, once more, I am hearing one of the most recognizable sounds of summer along with slammed screen doors and the whirring of cicadas.

Lawns are the cornerstone of suburbia. Mowing the lawn is mentioned as a suburban rite in the song "Pleasant Valley Sunday" co-written by Carole King and her husband at the time. A neat and tidy sea of green, the lawn shows the world you know how to take care of your property and you are a person of substance. An untidy lawn brings you stares from the neighbors, comments from passersby and visits from deer that think you have provided a nice little meadow in which it can bed down.

And yet, nothing is abused more than a lawn.

It is watered, by rain and sprinkler, sometimes daily. Then the mower - whether homeowner or service - cuts it down weekly, whether it needs cutting or not, to within an inch of its life. Then the mowed, cropped grass goes brown in the summer heat, prompting the homeowner to use the sprinkler, sometimes daily, prompting the grass to go green and grow, which brings the mower, etc., etc.

First 2017 mowing - note the ground ivy flowers
(Margo D. Beller)

There comes a point each summer when MH and I watch the service working on the lawn across the street and one or the other will mutter, "He's mowing dust."

MH, for assorted reasons, likes to go out every other week to mow, or he may leave it a tad longer. When he does mow the lawn, it is a higher cut than mowers on the neighbors' lawns. The grass cuttings are not put in a pail for the town to turn into compost for sale but left to nourish the lawn. The longer cut protects the grass' roots from the summer heat. So our lawn looks a bit greener.

Yes, that has brought deer but deer pass through anyway. We find evidence that they have visited, including the areas where they have bedded down. Without a high fence, that will continue.

Another thing we do not do is spray chemicals on the lawn to keep it green and perfect. We feed the grass in spring and fall because, after all, lawn grass is a plant as much as anything in a pot. But our lawn is not perfect. In the front yard it is fighting an invasion of ground ivy, one of my least favorite weeds. In back I sometimes find trees and wild rose growing where the seeds have landed and taken root.

There are also bugs, and that brings ground birds that eat them: flickers, robins, grackles, catbirds, Carolina and house wrens, chipping sparrows and, just today, an infrequent visitor, a phoebe diving for insects from my apple tree. There is no reason to use chemicals when the birds are just as effective.

We are not perfect either. When there has been no rain for a while and the grass becomes crunchy, MH will look at me and ask about putting on the sprinkler system. At which point it is programmed to go on during the wee hours of the morning, when the water will be absorbed and not dried away by the sun.

You would think this is a no-brainer. And yet I see plenty of my neighbors, even the ones who mow their own lawns and do not bag their clippings, using their sprinklers in the middle of the day when the grass is getting the full effect of the sun. Waste of water and their money.

Lawn care is a big business. There are plenty of books and websites on the topic such as this one. Much of the information is put out there by people who want you to hire their lawn service or buy their chemicals and other products. There are even scientific studies on lawns. According to a recent Op-Ed in the New York Times, mowed grass is the nation's largest irrigated crop. Between the lawns and the sod farms I can believe it.

American toad, backyard, July 2014 (RE Berg-Andersson)

Those times I mow our lawn I re-acquaint myself with its quirks. I pay attention to which areas get more sun than others, which are wetter. I have spooked up American toads with the mower and once, unfortunately, gave a young rabbit a scar on its ear when I went over a nest in a lawn depression. In spring, the lawn in front is filled with the tall purple flowers of the ground ivy, the only time it looks pretty. Then comes the yellow dandelions, which we try to dig out before the uglier seed heads rise.

As a former neighbor once said, as long as it's green I don't care.

It is unfortunate that more towns like mine do not encourage creating small grasslands where manicured lawns now sit. Grasslands bring different types of plants, insects and birds to an area. They are more interesting, less sterile. Certain birds -- grasshopper sparrows, for instance -- and insects such as monarch butterflies are endangered because more farms and their grasslands are being "developed" into suburban housing developments with, of course, a huge ocean of lawn.

Monarch butterfly, Griggstown Grasslands, Aug. 2011 (Margo D. Beller)

So I can look at a long, sweeping, immaculately mowed, green, unweedy lawn and envy the homeowner his or her money paying the lawn service that would spare MH and me a lot of physical pain if we used it. But I do not covet that lawn.

A Plague of Locusts

I have several neighbors - you probably do, too - who can’t go a week without mowing the lawn. One in particular has a lawn service that comes every Tuesday morning.

As the summer heat has continued it has taken the lawn service less and less time to cut what must now be 1/100th of an inch of new growth each week.

What is it about the suburban man and lawn care? Another neighbor goes out with a small mower to do edges, then an edger to go around trees, then his big riding mower to get everything else. Each week he puts out two to five buckets of what I would use as compost for my pile for someone else to pick up, leaving behind stinking garbage cans.

I don’t see the point of watering to make grass grow and then mowing to make it so short the summer sun makes it go dormant - not dead - and brown.

Most of the rest of us on the street, whether we do the lawn ourselves or hire a service, have not been so fanatical. For instance, we do not go out every week but let the grass grow so it can protect its own roots from the summer heat.

There are a few of us with underground sprinklers, and you can tell who uses them even during a drought - especially during a drought - because their grass is thick and green while the rest of us have grass in various stages of brown crispiness.

This neighbor with the lawn service has a mainly brown lawn, too, with one significant exception.

A small forest of green locust trees.

The locust seedlings are the brighter green plants on this lawn.

Whoever thought the black locust would be a wonderful shade tree for my street 30+ years ago doesn’t have the misfortune of having a female tree, the one that grows the long seed pods that liberally litter the lawn nearly every year.

I have one such female tree. My neighbor does not. Even so, he has been agitating to have the two male locust trees cut down for years. Within the last year the town finally took them down. My neighbor was quick to seed the uprooted space and create a lawn. He even went out to water it.

Normally my town would’ve put in two replacement trees of a type whose roots don’t push up the pavement. It has not done so in this case, either because there were no funds or because at some point a sidewalk may go in and the trees would have to be uprooted anyway.

Or maybe my neighbor just paid a “fine” and made the problem go away.

Locust trees, however, are as tenacious as weeds. The town periodically goes through and trims back branches and within a year you can see little branches growing back. With the trees gone and the grass cut to within a millimeter of its life in summer, there are perfect conditions for tenacious things other than grass to spring up.

So now his lawn is covered with locust trees saplings.

The lawn service cuts them back but I don’t see my neighbor out with a spade to dig them up, as I do when I find one or two growing.

I expect there will be a point when he will have the lawn dug up and sod put down, likely over a sprinkler system that can keep the grass thick and green and surviving until the weekly decapitation by the lawn service. If he has the money to throw around on this, more power to him.

I, however, think it is a waste of time, energy and resources, and the only one who benefits is the lawn company.

Certainly not the lawn.

Tick, Tick, Tick

I was probably the only person in the greater New York City area who was not happy to have May in March. I look all around me and see more evidence of a world out of ecological balance, and I wonder what will be coming.

While all the dry heat has kept the grass short, it went brown. That didn’t stop the lawn services from getting in, blowing out the debris and filling the air with their gas fumes. My crocuses bloomed and busted in what seemed like a day and a half, and now my daffodils have opened at once, weeks early for some, instead of at the more usual, gradual pace.

Forsythia was one of the many shrubs flowering early.

The trees and shrubs have started to flower, leaving my husband and me with watery, itchy eyes from the pollen. Allergists are saying this will be a long, bad allergy season and I feel sorry for those who have even worse problems than MH and I have.

What is this obsession people of all ages seem to have with endless summer? Why do they want to wear tank tops, shorts and flip-flops at any slight rise in temperature?

While they are lying on the grass working on their tans the water table beneath is going down. Without a significant rain, and soon, there will be drought restrictions before summer. I’ve been to several marshes recently that are bone dry, and that has a profound effect on the flora and fauna.

What a relief it wasn’t like last winter, someone told me recently. Well, all that snow, while a pain in the back to shovel, was providing a nice blanket for the lawn and, more important, was melting and keeping it watered. We had no water restrictions last year and many of my neighbors took advantage to run their sprinklers at all times of the day - including in the midday sun - in their lust for a green lawn that they encouraged to grow so they could have it cut every week, then water again to keep it green.

What are they going to do this year?

Even I got caught up in it. When the daffodils started coming up I had to fight through the netting and remove the winter debris I’d left when we had the Halloween snowstorm. After a winter of indolence suddenly I had the urge to put seeds into pots. Now I have five lettuce seedlings I have to put someplace outside behind netting. Luckily, lettuce likes cold weather. Not so the tomato and pepper seedlings slowly coming up that I can‘t put outside yet so they are crowding the window sill. The potted annuals I brought in to keep growing over the winter are now overgrowing. My canna started growing in its pot during the winter - when it should have been resting - despite not getting a bit of water from me. My rosemary is practically begging me to put it outside.

I’m not ready for this yet!

Delicate magnolia blossoms are already falling on the lawns.

Here’s another problem I have with this unnatural warming: By the time the tropical migrants get up here from Central and South America, all the trees will have leafed out and it will be nearly impossible to see the birds. Worse, how will the early summer affect their ability to find food? Many of the flowers and fruits may already be gone when they come north.

And some of the migrants coming from the U.S. south are already passing into this area even as the winter birds - the juncos and white-throated sparrows - continue to hang around the feeders.

I was at Great Swamp the other day, looking for early migrants. I was lucky enough to find some of them: pine warbler, field sparrow, phoebe. I also, despite my best efforts to prevent this, found a tick as I was getting ready to shower that night. (If I was a better journalist I’d have taken a picture to show you but the impulse to throw it in the sink and wash it down the drain was more immediate. So this picture will have to do.)

A birder I met at the Swamp said with all the warmth and dryness this will be a long, bad year for ticks, and he has already gone places elsewhere in New Jersey where he’s found 30 on his leg after hiking on a trail (rather than crashing into the woods as, unfortunately, a lot of birders do). Ticks are one of the many reasons I get the deer off my property as quickly as possible. But now I must worry that I could get one or more from any of the places where I go birding thanks to the mild winter and warm spring.

Sigh.

Well, to paraphrase Mark Twain, if you don’t like the weather in New Jersey, wait a few minutes.

Instead of coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb, March came in like May and is, according to the forecast, going out like February - windy and cold.

In the long run it may not mean much, but for now I can’t wait.