This may be premature for readers who live above the Mason Dixon Line, but for those in the South, the azaleas are blooming, the peas and lettuce are up, and it is time to attack the yard before Mother Nature spins totally out of control.

If you are still shoveling snow instead of compost I'm sorry - on so many levels.  Please come back later and read this later, hopefully soon.

For those of us who already have dirt under our fingernails, let's talk about something we can do to make our grass greener.

We must define our terms because grass has lots of definitions including bamboo, ornamental plants such as Pampas Grass as well as some popular illegal substances.  We are talking lawns - those swaths of fast-growing plants with small blades planted as ground cover throughout the country.  Cut short and kept green, healthy, and weed free it looks neat and tidy, holds down dust and dirt, makes a comfortable outdoor carpet for sitting, walking, or playing.


But a traditional lawn not an environmentally sensitive way to landscape due mainly to the last sentence above "cut short and kept green, healthy, and weed free...."

To achieve any of these three conditions involves some very eco-unfriendly behavior. 

Gas lawnmowers are incredible polluting machines, contributing tons of CO2 to the environment every year.  Lawns require frequent heavy watering, and treatment with chemical insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers which wash into streams, and lakes causing fish kills and excessive algae growth.

It's no wonder that landscape designers are treating lawn more and more as an accent and relying on desert plants, non-living ground cover such as gravel or marble chips, and alternative ground covers like ivy or pachysandra.

If you already have an acre of lawn you are kind of stuck but "grasscycling" can eliminate some of the environmental concerns.  Grasscycling is the practice of leaving grass clippings behind when mowing. 

If done properly, grasscycling will not create thatch and will cut the need for watering and for fertilizer.  The clippings will act as mulch to hold water in the soil and will feed the lawn as they decompose. 

Grasscycling does require frequent mowings, but they will be easier and quicker without the need to empty the lawn mower bag or rake and pick up the clippings.

It is best to mow when the lawn is dry and mower blades should be kept sharp so that they cut rather than tear the grass.  Set the blade height to cut only the top third of each blade.  The short pieces of grass will not thatch up or keep roots from breathing and will decompose faster.  The longer grass will also shade itself and the soil, further slowing evaporation.  If a mulching mower is used, however, the one-third rule does not have to be observed.