At least my vocabulary is fertile
It's no secret; I'm more deadly than a serial killer when it comes to plants. I have one remaining live plant in my home. It's a philodendron, the most forgiving plant on God's green earth. (It started out with several brethren, who have all mysteriously "gone away." It could have its own reality show -- "Survivor.")
Outside my home, however, I have about 1,000 plants. This is not ironic, however, because every last one of them is a weed.
We used to have grass. But for three years I have been the majority caretaker of our lawn. I have killed all my grass. (All right, I may be exaggerating ... but I have, at very least, captured the spirit.)
Each year -- because hope springs eternal, even though my plantings don't -- I try to fertilize the lawn myself. Now, I'm not your ordinary schmuck. I put real effort into being one.
Research
I have researched lawn care. I know to cut the grass short before the season's first fertilization, and I know to cut it higher after that and allow the grass droppings to fall on the lawn "to shade the grass."
Some years, I buy all four levels of fertilizer the first day of spring. I invest in starter, weed and feed, feed the weeds more, and get-the-lawn-ready-to-look-terrible-all-winter fertilizer bags and line them up on the back porch, just waiting for application.
I put on my jeans with the hole in the knee, the caked-in-mud tennis shoes, a tank top (in case the sun is shining), and I head out to "garden." I call spreading fertilizer on my lawn "gardening" because it's as close as I will ever get. My outfit is a reflection of my expertise -- no cute little sun hats and garden gloves for me.
I dump half a bag of granules into the Speedy Green fertilizer spreader and start marching across the lawn, careful to overlap the appropriate amount, as instructed by the fertilizer bag -- the fertilizer bag is my friend.
Tricky business
Now, putting fertilizer on your lawn is tricky, and unless you do it yourself, you may not appreciate the intricacies. This, too, comes from my friend, the bag: You have to put the granules on a damp lawn.
The fertilizer must cling to the weeds for about 48 hours, then it must rain like you live on an African savanna.
You may, alternately, water your lawn, but, in order to do this, you must actually REMEMBER two days after fertilizing. This is impossible for me (since my heart is not in it), so I must time my fertilizing with the first big thunderstorm of the season. Quite frankly, this doesn't always work out ...
Sometimes I burn big brown patches in my lawn. Sometimes it rains on the 43rd hour and washes away the weed killer. Sometimes I get rid of 50 percent of the weeds, and the other 50 percent have offspring and invite relatives over from other lawns.
Sometimes, I shower my tennis shoes with deadly chemicals and inhale dust that would make a canary drop. It just makes me feel heroic.
This year, we decided to give my lungs and the lawn a break and hire a service.
Our mailbox is usually stuffed with estimates from companies every spring ... but no one came calling.
So, this year again, I tried to "garden." Instead of throwing good money after bad, I searched the back porch and found a half-used bag of weed and feed just itching to tackle our lawn.
The dandelions, as usual, were pernicious (which means I couldn't kill them and decided instead to impress them with my vast vocabulary). I also bought Round Up, a weed killer.
I mixed up a batch, got onto my hands and knees, and sprayed each dandelion leaf.
Now, here's where it gets tricky. With Round Up, you have to let the spray stay on the leaf until the poison travels to the root and kills the dandelion. So, it can't rain -- the antithesis of fertilizing (again, a vast vocabulary, to impress weeds). But, since, this too, takes timing ...
To bring you up to date, we have about four dozen dandelions and a brown spot in the shape of Texas.
I am searching for a lawn service ...
murphy@vindy.com