What should Mahogany do about her lawn?

[mahogany]

I'm going to try to convince my dh that we should get rid of our lawn. I've never been a fan, and I've decided that this might be the year that we get rid of it.

I'm thinking of overseeding my lawn with a wildflower mix with flowers that are native to the pacific northwest, with some extra fragrant flowers thrown in.

[Poll #1713216]

Comments

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

Love your icon! I'm a tree hugging hippy too!

Funny you should mention clover. The thing that got me on to this whole alternative lawn thing in the first place was an article in a gardening magazine talking about ground covers. It talked about how clover used to be included in lawn seed mixtures because of its nitrogen fixing properties and drought resistance. It stopped being included when a herbicide manufacturer created a weedkiller that also killed off clover. So in order to get this stuff on the market, clover had to be declared a weed, and it was removed from lawn seed mixes. I just about fell out of my chair.

All summer long, I had a long standing argument with my husband. Our back yard is filled with clover, and in the summer, it was lush and green, even though it's south facing, and received tons of direct, punishing sunlight, and our front lawn is a monoculture that turned a hideous brown. Blech. My husband was on my case about spreading the clover because I insisted that we by a reel lawn mower instead of a gas or electric one with a bag, and so every time I mowed the lawn I was spreading more clover.

[new-iconoclast.livejournal.com]

Really piss the neighbors off - get a couple of goats. They'll eat the clover, keep the lawn trrimmed, and be good for meat and/or milk (depending on which sort you get) if and when TSHTF.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if goats are allowed in our city, but I do know that bees are allowed. Chickens are allowed in certain in the GVRD, but not mine, unfortunately, though I believe the approval is in the works. If we had a slightly bigger place, and my husband wasn't completely bee phobic, I would consider bees. Oddly enough, city bees are healthy and not prone to colony collapse, or so I've read.