I have never had a green thumb; just the opposite. If I plant it, it will die, water and fertilize be damned. There was a time, however, when I could grow a nice stand of grass (not the kind people smoke) by disturbing the ground enough to toss some seeds out and get them to dip root and hang on.
As a teenager, we convinced a yard full of St. Augustine to set up shop. St. Aug (as one old-timer called it) is squishy like carpet with a four-inch pad. It is tough, green and a man can change his oil on it without much worry of it turning surly on him. Salt water doesn’t affect it. It loves heat, sun, rednecks and hurricanes. Planting it involves yanking up a few strands and putting them in bare spots. St. Augustine is also no respecter of persons, loving mansions to mobile homes.
That was the Gulf Coast. This is Virginia. Different story altogether. As the summer turns to fall, I am suffering from the blue grass blues.
For years, I treated my lawn like a hot date – feeding it, pampering it, whispering sweet nothings into its delicate blades. I hate to imagine how much money I have spent on our yard just trying to encourage grass that won’t embarrass me. No matter how hard I tried, we never won Yard Of The Month. Then this summer, our good grass ran off into both neighbor’s yards and a splotchy rash of crabgrass took over.
I tried like hell to stop it. I pulled it up as fast as I saw a clump making an infectious island. It simply outran me and had its way with my lawn. Soon, crabgrass was the only kind of grass we had.
Crabgrass – it is hard for me to type the word without cursing – is immune to almost everything except lightning. The urine of a female dog will usually kill a hand-sized puddle of fescue. Not Crabgrass. This scourge thinks dog pee is a Mojito and can thrive on a rock in a drought that will kill a pine tree. In a week it will spread like jock itch during two-a-days. My defense could not contain its offense. Crabgrass had me 58-0 at the half.
We finally soaked it in Roundup (the suburban equivalent to Vietam’s Agent Orange). This evening, when I got home from work, I walked through the carnage, now just a landscape of stubbly mud. At least I don’t have to mow it anymore.
I joked about paving it and painting it green with a mop. Then I read on the Internet that crabgrass is the only thing that will grow in the dessert – on asphalt.
After staring at the bog for an hour, it hit me how to beat the stuff: I will plant crabgrass and nurture it and after months of hard work, it will die.
