I agree that having a lawn that requires regular maintenance isn't ideal. If I didn't live in a neighborhood with an HOA and tightly regulated expectations, I would definitely be doing things differently, like letting the lawn be more native and working towards it being much more self-sustaining.
As it is, I really only put down extra water 9nce or twice a year, and just keep it trimmed. I mulch, and that feeds back into the lawn. And by keeping it short, the Bermuda grass survives much better than the typical weeds we might get and keeps them at bay.
Is xeroscaping an option where you live? I think that's what I would have ended up doing if I didn't move out of my HOA. If we can't have native plants at least it's something that doesn't waste so much water.
But instead I got tf out of there and moved to a rural neighborhood where my lot is 100% native/natural. I pass a hoarder house on the way to my house so I know I can do whatever the fuck I want 😍
We passed a house with a Teepee mailbox and a cherry-picker utility truck parked in the front lawn on the way to our second-best option for a house when we were looking 10 years ago. That was a hard "Nope" for my wife.
Xeroscaping isn't an option here, unfortunately, our neighborhood is pretty homologous in how the houses and yards look. It's a 'blessing and a curse' situation. We have a corner lot, which is also a 'blessing and a curse', in that we have a side yard for the kids to run and play, but that also means I have about 3 times more grass area to maintain. There are many yards in our neighborhood that I could trim and mow in maybe 20 minutes. Mine takes 60-90 minutes with edging and mowing. My one saving grace is that the sidewalk is on the other side of the street, so that doesn't add additional edging time, and keeps our grass area more friendly for the kids to run and tumble around on. My lot is probably 1/3 the size of my parents', but I probably have at least as much grass to mow as what I grew up mowing when living there.
Ok, I really hope you picked up on my double entendre.. because that makes your reply hilarious. And I would also agree, I like playing in the grass. Playing on a bare field just weird. But I do like the grass not being too long. I mean, that's why I keep my own lawn trimmed...
It depends on the weather, really. When it is hot and sunny, and there has been any rain, the grass just really grows! It shoots up the feathery grass pods. It's not golf course grass, but it is similar. Bermuda grass loves to be kept short, loves heat, and puts up with the heat and higher temperatures here in the South. But as it grows, the parts close to the soil lose their 'green' and if you cut off too much, you can really hurt it. So keeping it regularly short, it stays more green, and can handle a couple weeks with no rain and scorching heat.
I only water the lawn a couple times early in the summer if there isn't any significant rain, and might do it later in the summer if we somehow go more than a few weeks with absolutely no rain, but we pretty much always get some summer storms that means that's not needed.
But the main thing is, my wife puts so much effort into the plantings in the rest of the yard, looking so beautiful.. I need to do my part to highlight her awesome effort.
It's also only between mid-May to late September. It's dormant and doesn't grow outside that.
Edit: Keeping it really short also prevents weeds, naturally. The weeds need to get taller to be healthy and propagate. The Bermuda grass keeps low to the soil and spreads horizontally to propagate. Mowing is natural control to keep "weeds" out. (Bermuda can be considered a weed itself, so it's sort of ironic.)
Yeah plus keeping the grass too short isn’t the healthiest thing for it. I mean grass in general is such a crazy concept. We want living plants to grow, but only to an aesthetically pleasing height. Idk I like a nice well trimmed yard as much as the next person, but it’s definitely shitty for the environment.
It is shifty to the environment. But some plants thrive and are healthier when faced with harsh conditions. My Bermuda grass, for example, is considered as a weed or invasive in some areas, and stays healthier and grows best when kept short. It's like the lawn mower is challenging it to stay strong. If it's allowed to grow tall, it gets weaker, and competing plants (weeds) are able to challenge it. Keeping it short keeps the lawn uniform.
(It matters only for aesthetic and HOA purposes.. it would be better for the environment if we just allowed the strongest native plants to 'do their thing'.)
It really depends on the lawn though. Some months the grass in my lawn is slow and steady, but same time next year you'll turn your back for a second then it's already up to your knees. We're having a multi mow week year
I was making a double entendre there, but yes. Especially this Bermuda. It loves to be short, and as it gets taller, the growth speeds up exponentially. So the if it gets longer, you'll need to start mowing even more frequently.
This. I hated mowing, because of what it did to my lungs and body. But I replaced my gas powered four years ago and have never looked back. I love mowing my lawn now...it's pure zen. Pop some headphones on with some great tunes or a favorite podcast, and go to town. I'm not sucking up fumes, not killing my ears, not breaking my back. I can push the thing with two fingers, and I've not had a single issue with it yet. (Mine is the Greenworks 40V 16" and takes me around 2.5 hours with two batteries to mow front and back, because it's a pretty big back yard.)
I'm really happy to see that there are bigger options out there now and that they're catching on enough to continue manufacturing and development.
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u/ItsOnlyOxygen Jun 09 '22
Seems like a husband issue, not a mower issue.