Getting Out of Mowing the Lawn
Hated Job
I have been mowing lawns since I was a kid, and have never liked it. Neither did my father, who once went so far as to fence in the back two-thirds of our 1.9-acre suburban yard then borrow a couple of goats from the nearest farm. This worked well—too well, in fact. The goats ate everything down to within a half-inch of the ground, including flowers, small bushes, and the pine seedlings he and I had been planting.
As soon as I got old enough, Dad gave me the job of mowing, and ever since I’ve been carrying on his tradition of finding ways to get out of it.
So Why Do We Do It?
The thing is that lawn mowing makes no sense. Lawnmowers are dangerous, loud, and probably bad for your hearing. They also put out lots of emissions (far more per gallon than your electric, hybrid, or regular catalytic-converter-outfitted car). Lawnmowers also kill off the plants that would otherwise serve as homes for insects, birds, and other animals as well. And they sometimes kill the animals (snakes, frogs, etc.) themselves. I hate it when that happens.
I gather, talking with neighbors and friends, that a lot of us mow because we want to fit in, or because some towns have so-called weed ordinances (laws that specify how wild our lawns can get), or because our partners tell us we have to.
There’s always the occasional man or woman who claims to like mowing. I sometimes hear people actually say they like it for the fresh air or exercise. Of course, if people really mowed for fresh air and exercise, they would use natural, emission-free, hand-powered push mowers—the reel kind, with no engine. (I usually do use a reel mower, and the people in SUVs driving by look at me like I were some sort of freak.)
Clearly, people don’t walk around behind power mowers or sit on lawn tractors for their health or anyone else’s—except maybe my aunt Sharlie (may she rest in peace), who used to use the lawnmower as a way to keep her six kids at bay for a couple of hours.
So Why Do We Really Do It?
For most people, the main reason for mowing is aesthetic. People think the lawn should look a certain way, i.e., “look nice.” Or they think their neighbors feel that way (which they probably do).
If the motivation is genuinely aesthetic, though, then something just doesn’t make sense. An uncut lawn actually has variety to it. It can have anything you want, from wild cup plants to luscious fruiting and flowering bushes—the kind of stuff people drive off into the country for hours to see when they’re on vacation trying to “get away from it all.”
So to me, the aesthetic argument feels like a façade. And anyway, aesthetics are highly subjective. Think about what your partner tells you when you put on a nice dress or suit and take them out. They say, one would hope, “You look great.” And they probably even mean it. But suppose you’re a guy like me and you put on a vintage 70s suit with, say, a period-appropriate over-wide tie? Assuming you weren’t going to a costume or retro party, your partner would say you looked ridiculous, right?
But say you slip into a time warp and it’s the 70s again. Most would say the suit looked pretty good.
Beauty is one of those gloriously fickle and culturally relative things. If it’s 1880, and you are a slightly plump, pasty-white woman, you’re likely to be considered pretty cute. Why? Because in 1880 the female “haves” (as opposed to the “have nots”) didn’t need to work in the sun and as a result sported fair skin. It was a sign of status. Of course, now nearly everyone in the U.S. spends most of their time inside. So in an ironic twist of cultural fate, it’s now those same “haves” who end up thin and brown. The “haves,” in other words, now distinguish themselves by going to the health club, tennis court, or Caribbean beach where they end up with a tan. Nowadays, if you are plump and white, you probably wish you were thin and nicely bronzed.
Let’s face it: We’re all snobs, and our idea of what “looks good” has very little to do with what actually does look good (if such a thing exists). Looking good depends heavily on cultural context.
We’re all like the mommy cardinal who thinks red looks great on her significant other. Male cardinals, many biologists believe, make no red pigment of their own. They get it from carotenoids in their diet. To a mommy cardinal, therefore, the daddy’s deep color signals that he has the energy and verve to find and eat all those carotenoid-containing foods that make his feathers red. It means he’s a good mate. To other males, it says, “I’m powerful” or “I’m rich,” kind of like a nice suit. I’m sure, though, if you asked a cardinal, they’d just tell you that the red “looks good.”
So It Is With the Lawn
So if you ask people why they mow, and they tell you because it “looks good,” take that explanation for exactly what it is: indirection. The mowed lawn looks good because it sends a culturally relative signal about the owner, not because it’s actually better that way. It shows that the owner is getting the job done; that they are a responsible citizen; that they have enough extra time or money to take care of business and keep the place “neat” (which always means doing something extra, kind of like the daddy cardinal with the special diet). Conversely, an un-mowed lawn is seen as a sign of unfitness, inability to cope, or as a cry for help.
I sometimes also hear it said that the lawn needs to be mowed so the kids can play on it. But let’s look at whether that’s really happening: Americans’ houses are bigger than ever, with larger mowed lawns, often outfitted with “landscaping” (typically maintained by paid “landscapers”). Yet Americans entertain less than ever. And where are the children? They’re pretty much sequestered off at schools, at sports practices, at music lessons; or they’re hanging out in the basement fawning over social media, or gaming.
So in reality the kids aren’t out on the lawn all that much. And in fact, the true reason we keep the lawn “nice” is that this fits in with a sort of ideal lifestyle we feel as though we should have, or with the way that we’d like to project ourselves to others.
By the way, anyone who puts pesticides on their lawn definitely isn’t thinking of their, or anyone’s, children. I’ll just say that flat out.
Another Way?
My partner and I have finally come to an understanding about the lawn. I take care of it, in a manner of speaking, and she never has to touch a mower or really do much of anything in the yard other than plant a few flowers if she wants. In return, I manage the yard.
When my son was still living at home, he and I split the mowing. He did the back and I did the front. This was more equitable than the arrangement my dad and I had, which was that I would put off doing the lawn, and he would turn a blind eye—until, for example, a neighbor would get so pissed off that he’d come over and mow a section himself (yes, this actually happened).
My son and I also did a lot to landscape ourselves out of a lawn. He and I put in a garden, a grape trellis, a dozen hazelnut bushes, a cherry tree, pears, pawpaws, bush cherries, asparagus, lovage, raspberries, juneberries, chokeberries, wild grasses, wildflowers, a sugar maple, Aronia, rhubarb, hardy kiwis, viburnum, mint, chives, and a number of annuals in the main garden. I’ve added to that since he moved out fifteen years ago.
I don’t put any chemicals on the lawn, and I don’t have to fertilize anything, because frankly, I’m not looking for the proverbial uniform, green lawn of nonnative grasses. My idea of fertilizing is to compost our food waste and lay it down on the garden, sometimes with an extra layer of newspaper or cardboard and some soil above that.
Those not willing to go as far as we have can turn their backyard gardens into a small wildlife habitat using techniques suggested by the National Wildlife Federation.
While visiting my parents in Tampa a few years ago, I saw a Busch Gardens exhibit of these techniques. To me, it was kind of funny to see a mowed lawn with heavily manicured beds next to a backyard gardening technique display. But if you’re not ready to take a big step, a little semi-wild area like what we saw at Busch Gardens is a great way to start.
To this, I’d just add the observation that if you drove by our house, you probably wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. It’s really not all that nutty looking. In actuality, our tiny front lawn is still mostly conventional, if a bit heavily treed. It’s also not necessary to keep a garden in back, like we do. Bushes, trees, and ground cover would have been great as well. They can be very low maintenance, but wildlife-friendly, if correctly selected.
Anyway, as the amount of mowable area in our yard decreases, we find more and more animals living around us, more butterflies, more hummingbirds, and more living things generally. When I get tired of working indoors, I wander around the yard picking cherries, tasting mint, and watching squirrels, opossums, rabbits, snakes, and other animals grazing and sometimes duking it out.
Because of the work we’ve done, I’ve had to spend steadily less time mowing. I expend few or no non-renewable resources to grow the yard plants I do. I use a hand-powered reel mower often, but if the grass is heavy I don’t feel bad about hauling out the power mower, too. I probably use two gallons of gas a year mowing. My kids when they were younger both used to love wandering through the yard eating things. My daughter fed her friends, who were also welcome to our yard. My partner has fresh herbs and vegetables to use in her cooking and so do I.
Best of all, I feel as though I’m no longer just caving in to the warped Veblenian aesthetics of middle- and upper-middle-class suburban Americans. I’m even thinking of checking to see if we have local weed ordinances and taking some time to work with our city council to rewrite them if that’s needed. I’m also thinking of trying some no-mow grass seed for the few areas where I do actually want a little lawn.
In closing, I’d just offer a blanket invitation to other suburbanites who want to break the mold and do something, however small, to make the world a better place: Manage your yard creatively. Reduce the need to mow. Plant “easy” native shrubs, trees, and flowers that attract local birds and insects. And, if you can, mow what’s left with an old-fashioned hand-powered reel mower.
Don’t let yourself become a King of the Hill caricature. Trust me, Jesus doesn’t care if you don’t mow. In fact, quite the opposite: Jesus would rather you gave up materialistic attachments and ornaments like your lawn (for Bible enthusiasts, see Matthew 19:21, Luke 16:13; see also Ecclesiastes 2:4–11, 1 Peter 3:3).
Be cool. Be different. Do the right thing.
Oh, and in the process, you, like me, will get out of mowing the lawn.
Note: All plant images above, and the snake, were taken in my backyard. The slightly faded family photo of my dad was taken in 1968 by Richmond (“Brit”) Brittingham, a photographer friend of my father’s, who had stopped by for a visit. (Both my father and Brit worked for the railroad.) It’s hard to imagine my dad posing for any photo, but with the cigar, a cocktail, and the goat I suppose it was too perfect for even him to resist.
