It has generally been stunning to me that even with the truth that the cultivated lawn is a purely human creation, we really should have these kinds of a tortured and unpleasant relationship with our turf.

Lawns started off out as a very community indicator of prosperity — think Downton Abbey and the like. If you could pay for to have a crew of tweed-clad gardeners devote their days on palms and knees with minor hand clippers and precision scythes, you were undoubtedly worthy of inviting to the community barbeque. Afterwards, the Levittown Lawn of the 1950s was a contractual requirement foisted on all of its new property owners. And thus American garden lust was born.

By the time I located myself sitting in late 1970s landscape architecture lessons, it was clear that the tide had turned. By that time, a big garden was thought of only the house of