Will prices change your lawn mowing habits?

[aida2003]

Nope. We do what we have to do. Besides we're in drought here, so it's more a 'growing' hay than grass ...no need to mowe anything.

[simpleyme]

a 'natural "lawn would turn to hay and tall weeds then the city would fine us
we do not live in a picky community but just choosing not to do any yard maintenance at all is not an option I am sure

[sounderella]

Originally Posted by myrdale

Watering bans is what actually made that idea come to mind. GA is in a drought and they will come take away your children, arrest you, then beat you severally if you so much as glance at a sprinkler. Err ok I jest but they have had a ban on outdoor water use for over a year now and do threaten fines.

Being a Georgian....I can attest they will do this LOL. However in my area they warn you once, then give you a $1000 fine. We have slow growing grass so it probably gets done every 2 weeks. We have 1 ac so it's not a tremedous spend of $. However, some of the neighborhoods around here have homeowners associations and you can't not cut your grass regardless if gas prices are high or not....they'll come after you with torches and pitch forks.

[PrincessPerky]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

I do wish they would ban lawn watering, though. It drives me nuts every night when I go out walking and see how many of my neighbors are wasting hundreds and thousands of gallons of precious water on their lawns. We have never watered our lawn and it always looks just fine.

What drives me batty is the people watering their driveways!

We have restricted watering right now, so this summer I haven't seen much, thankfully. But other years...blood boils.

Last month I watched automatic sprinklers come on...in the rain!

[PrincessPerky]

Originally Posted by cschin4

I would like to see some leeway into the mindset of how one "must" maintain their yard. When we were in England, they didn't have postage stamp grass lawns but instead their lawns were covered with wildflowers, weeds and whatever else grew there. It was kind of refreshing and looked pretty.
This year my daughter was upset because her daddy mowed down her "pretty flowers" which were the dandelions. Funny that we consider them a weed. But, if they didn't grow naturally and were hard to cultivate, then they would be highly prized and wanted in the flower community!
Why can't we let our lawns go natural if we choose too? It is our property yet we allow govt to tell us what we can and can't do on our own property so in reality you don't own anything.
As for us, we mow but I am just letting it go a few days longer to save a few bucks.

I agree, I have found that you can get your lawn certified by the national wildlife foundation, and they have some legal pull to allow more natural lawns, but I never really went into the paperwork of it.

wildlife habitat

Seems like too much work to me....ok so the whole natural thing appeals to the lazy in me.....

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by PrincessPerky

What drives me batty is the people watering their driveways!

We have restricted watering right now, so this summer I haven't seen much, thankfully. But other years...blood boils.

Last month I watched automatic sprinklers come on...in the rain!

I just don't know why people need to water their lawns at all around here. We don't live in a bad climate area. Our lawn, trees, shrubs and flowers do just fine without us wasting water on them. The natural rainfall is more than sufficient to keep everything growing. And if we do get a prolonged dry stretch, the grass may get a little brown - SO WHAT?

[tripods68]

I have to keep watering our lawn everyday, and trimming it weekly. Otherwise our neighbors might think our house is in Foreclosure. Then well get people knocking in to our doors all the time wanting to buy it or sell it for us.

[JBinKC]

My habits have definitely changed. Last year, I made my yard into an edible landscape.

[Simpatico]

We're doing the opposite; soon, I will *start* mowing my grass, though I've always tended to let the natural growth go wild. I live in the country on several acres where I have the freedom to do this. A weed eater has been my sole yard equipment for eight years.

Now, with a tractor and a lawn mower I will be tending the area. Nothing fanatical, just keeping it under control.

Edit: typo

[simpleyme]

Originally Posted by tripods68

I have to keep watering our lawn everyday, and trimming it weekly. Otherwise our neighbors might think our house is in Foreclosure. Then well get people knocking in to our doors all the time wanting to buy it or sell it for us.

I had to laugh at that but I know that you really are not kidding
when I took over outside maintenance at work I finally had to add pots of flower as I keep it so clean outside people kept saying that the place looked abandoned I doubt abandoned business are kept immaculate but enough people said it I added the flowers

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I get bitten by mosquitoes less when the grass is kept mowed. In the early morning and evening I get bitten more when working in the vegetable garden than when on the lawn. That is because the taller plants give the mosquitoes more places to hideout under leaves during the hot daylight hours. I figure a taller lawn would also harbor more mosquitoes. So to me one of the reasons for lawn is to reduce mosquito bites. I turned on the radio this morning and heard a news story about both West Nile virus and St Louis encephalitis. In the suburbs here people have to be concerned about both ticks and chiggers, but those are not a problem in the city.

[Ima saver]

We live on 2 acres of all grass. We cut the grass about once a week. It does cost more in gasoline to cut grass than it used to. We are in a very nice subdivision so we must keep our yard nice!!

[mom-from-missouri]

For the past 2 years, I mowed every Tuesday. Now, I mow every 10-12 days. It takes about 8 gallons to mow, even though I am mowing less this year (we enlarged the hayfields by about 6 feet in the front, side and behind our arena and barn). Should get more hay and less mowing....

[JimInOK]

No change here. We have a bermuda lawn that is pretty tough, but to really keep the grass healthy it needs a cut every 5-7 days. I don't like to take off too much in a mowing as it stresses the grass, which causes more expensive problems like making it easier for weeds and crabgrass to infiltrate. Besides, I mow an acre or maybe a little more and it costs me about $4.50/mowing at $3.89/gallon. That's about $25-30/month, compared to about $20 last year and $12.50 the year before. I'm not too concerned about that.

[JimInOK]

Originally Posted by tripods68

I have to keep watering our lawn everyday, and trimming it weekly. Otherwise our neighbors might think our house is in Foreclosure. Then well get people knocking in to our doors all the time wanting to buy it or sell it for us.

There are beautiful alternative grasses that require much less water that you might want to consider. I had a fescue lawn when we first moved in and it required tons of water in the Oklahoma heat to stay alive and healthy. Finally got sick of the water bills and removed enough trees to allow enough light for bermuda to get established. Now I hardly ever have to supply more water than it gets by rainfall. We had about 60 blackjack oak trees on our acre+ and took out half of them. We did it strategically and still have trees spaced very nicely around the entire lot. The result was a much prettier landscape, and also one that requires much less time and resources to maintain.

[osadg]

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who still supports the push mower!