Plants or poison?

My neighbors are on a rampage. A rampage to have neat orderly little golf putting green lawns. They are out there nearly every day spraying chemicals and mowing and trimming and pulling.... you know. I can't say that my neighborhood is remotely quiet, even in the rain, the noise from yard machines abounds.

On my block my family is known as the 'trashy' neighbors. We are the only ones without the putting green lawn. Also, due to the wind patterns, most of the neighborhood trash and recycle ends up in our yard. No one has offered to come help pick their trash out of my yard, but they are happy to call me trashy.

Has anyone ever read the label on Weed N Feed? It says use only 2 times a year. 2 times. You know why 2 times? Because the stuff is incredibly poisonous and noxious when it enters the environment. The herbicides kill and poison the water and the fertilizers cause toxic algae blooms in the water.

Now I am a little confused here about the rush to have your lawn look like Martha Stewart's or at least like everyone elses on the block. I thought we lived in America where we were free to be ourselves, but I guess that doesn't apply to lawns.

I like to volunteer, none of neighbors do. They are too busy maintaining their lawns. Hour after hour, day after day. I don't know where they find the time. I barely have time to mow mine once and a while. Forget the weeding and primping.

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we found something to do with all that time spent all lawns? But then I guess everyone needs a hobby.

My hobby next spring is going to be finding native plants that I can grow in my yard that don't require all this poison, fertilizer and maintenance. Maybe a few days of back breaking labor can reduce all the rest of the labor involved the rest of the year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going crazy about it. Just the back yard, which is just no fun to hang out in. Not to mention that we have lots of wild life that likes to hang out in the backyard and I'd like to encourage that wildlife to stay.

When we moved into our house there were butterflies, preying mantis, grasshoppers, frogs, huge dragonflies, hummingbirds and many other critters that went unseen this 4th summer after our house purchase. I had stalked croakers and kidnapped them from my brothers, only to find, only the male frogs croak. I created a wonderful froggy bachelor pad in my back yard. I was disappointed by the lack of tadpoles in my pond. Well I'll try again next year.

I also found out that the frogs favorite homes are under the fall leaves. I had raked them all up in my vain attempt to plant a lawn in the back yard and the frogs left. The leaves are back now. Luckily the tree had some left.

The dilemma of a yard is that you don't want it to look like an abandoned vacant lot and tall dry grass is a fire hazard as well. Another dilemma is finding someone who sells your native plants.

I went searching today and found a native plant nursery! My online search was disappointing. I guess pictures are difficult to afford and post on websites. I guess I'm off to the nursery next week when they open again.

Think about what you'd like to see in your yard. A picture perfect putting green is as desolate as a desert for wildlife, if you want to see some critters, be a great American and just say no to being like everyone else.