Pater Familias … because I'm your FATHER!

Lawn Edging Stops Here

May 5, 2010

Are you neatnik or laissez-faire about yard grooming?

Along the border between next door and our place, grass and sidewalk

Split the diff between RoboNeighbor (RN) and myself, you get an average, well-adjusted adult human being. True in more than one area, the most obvious of which is commitment to keeping the yard neat.

Neat, actually, does not begin to express the drastically immaculate, squared-away conditions next door. And it’s all by dint of unceasing vigilance and effort. Any given hour, we see RN running around improving the state of police, as a Marine buddy of mine says. RN’s fast broomstrokes are part of our Sounds of Home.

You can’t call our place run-down or neglected – Minerva is a serious gardener – but we go for a more casual, dress-down effect and tolerate way more stuff that falls out of trees. I, who do routine grooming, act only in response to pressing need. Like, fall leaves pile up before they get raked, and I only do it because the damn things will kill the lawn.  

Situation sounds all Israel-Gaza Strip, right? But from Day One, RoboNeighbor and I found common ground in the complete lack thereof and have had a lot of laughs.     

Just yesterday, out by the front walk and our property line, I rolled this around in my head and smiled. Then I looked at the boundaries between grass and sidewalk. On RN’s side, machine edging by a crack professional yard squad divides concrete and lawn, making a cutaway side view of the turf, sort of like a flattop haircut. Looks sharp and right and fitting.

On our side, lawn and walk have begun to commingle. A 2010 development because last year I edged, mostly because I liked doing it with the string weed trimmer. Took concentration and finesse, like homeowner fly fishing. But that lost its magic, and this year I stopped. Out in front, I considered this year’s softer look, like seeing beach meet sea, mountains coming down to desert.  Nice. Nice surprise, too, because I thought I quit edging because I didn’t feel like it. However, “No” is a “Yes” to us and our sovereign right to make 180 Wrenmead Street our own.  

Later, going to and fro in the Unsuburb, I took in other people’s lawn edging. Some of it seemed wrong for the so-so yards, like starching and pressing sweat pants. I wanted to ring bells and say Give it up, people. You phoned-in the rest of the place, so why bother edging? Of course mow-and-blow crews do a lot of it as part of the package, and self-mow guys might just feel the need. That’s cool, too.

But I will edge no more.  

Disclaimer: This declaration is entirely personal, unconnected with the international anti-lawn movement, or any other green/philosophical/aesthetic yard doctrine. I have some sympathy with enviro fretting about noisy, polluting machinery and possibly dangerous pesticides used in suburban lawnoculture. But, as an American male, I also respond to machines that burn gas and believe in chemical solutions to problems. And I don’t really care what other people do with their yards.

Except if RoboNeighbor quit edging I wouldn’t like it a bit.

So, are you anal or laid-back about yard grooming? And how do you feel about edging?      

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