Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Lawn care

Today the landscaping guy was doing a THOROUGH job of cutting the grass outside the office.  It got me thinking about how Kiwi lawns are different than American lawns.  Well, Californian lawns.  Well, rich peoples' Californian lawns.

For one thing, the grass here isn't some engineered hybrid bought with the intent to instill envy in one's neighbours.  Kiwi grass is hardy and native and making do with what it has, co-existing with the weeds because hey, they're not bothering anyone.  Grass just IS, it HAPPENS, it is not perceived as a commodity to be leveraged into status.  If it goes brown, so be it.  It's just grass.  It's for playing on, and walking on, and for sheep to eat.

As I mentioned, there are plenty of landscaping companies here who will come over to do your trimming.  The one my office uses is run by a white guy (come on, when's the last time you saw that in Cali?), and he seems to like his work, as evidenced by the time he spends puttering about at it.  Come to think of it, his job description is actually pretty straightforward-- cutting grass.  I've never seen a sprinkler system or even any obviously-fertilized lawns.

2 comments:

Dad said...

Sounds like a Michigan lawn, well, U.P. lawn, well, ours.

Mom said...

Does NZ have the ubiquitous dandelion, too?