More Trees, Softer Look, Less Mowing

[bp fick]

Maybe it stems from my youth, I don't know, but we had several acres of lawn to mow at the farm. OK, there were six of us kids and we needed a ball field, and the septic tank field took a whole bunch of ground and the one acre front yard stretched from the front of the house down to the river and wasn't probably worth anything else, but still. I hated having to mow, mow, and start all over again. My brother and I took turns with a 22" push mower.

When my wife and I took possession of our rural property last year, there was almost 2 acres of lawn to mow. In fact, the prior owners had dedicated virtually every square inch to being mowed. I asked myself, Why?

Well, I took almost an acre out of play immediately for my gardening. That helped. Now I am "reclaiming", au natural, even more of the land, bit by bit, allowing the native grasses, hopefully ferns and trees to grow. I have planted over two dozen trees of both evergreen and deciduous varieties. Each year, dedicating another 10 feet by the lot width to a "no mow zone".

When I got my Kubota, I didn't even buy the MMM. Others here on TBN talk a lot about mowing 2 acres, 3 acres and such. That's fine for them. Personally, I have other things I want to do with my time and fuel money.
Just my own personal plan and preference.

 

[sld]

I'm with you BPflick.

To me, the most beautiful piece of land is one that is manicured just around the house and has native plants everywhere else.

Mowing is an evil necessity that most of us accept.

 

[dave1949]

Me too. I mow a patch about 30x70 in front of the house where we set our lawn chairs and table. The rest gets hit with the bush hog once per summer whether it needs it or not That's our solar heat opening, it has to be kept clear of trees.

We usually get a good bit of mammoth red clover, some black-eyed susans, hawk weed, ox eye daises and even the grasses look good when they go to seed. The lightning bugs are thick in there, fun to watch them from bed on mid-summer nights. Birds sit on the fence and watch for bugs all day long.
Dave.

 

[dooleysm]

We started out with about 1.3 acres of yard (including the house and driveway, so maybe an acre?). 2 years ago I ruptured my achilles tendon and my wife had to do the mowing. She quit mowing a 20' strip all along the end of the front yard. By the time I was able to get back on the mower it was too overgrown to worry about reclaiming. Then last summer she stopped working to stay home with the kids and started mowing while I was at work. She stopped mowing another 10-15' strip off the front yard. So, our yard has slowly shrunk over the years. I'm all for it!

 

[bp fick]

My immediate adjoining neighbor to the east, John, got his 15 acre parcel some 5 years ago. The previous owners were "mowers". The front five acres had been mowed constantly during their residency. This was, for centuries, big woods, with monarch white pine. The very weak soil, lack of precipitation and the climate here at 45th parallel does not permit the growing of a "lawn", unless artificially maintained through extreme means.

By mowing off what little does naturally grow, the former owners were exposing the weak soil to the sun, shearing off any naturally sown seedlings of poplar, oak and pine and eventually it was close to becoming merely a sand dune. The smartest thing John did was to turn that front 5 acres back to nature. Now, 4 years later, little white pine seedlings are popping up, the grasses are filling in a bit, trapping blowing leaves for natural mulch production and so forth.

John still has a very good sized lawn off the back of his cabin, going down to the creek, but only mows 4 or 5 times a year and it is staying fairly healthy and green.

Some folks move here, in early retirement, and seem to try and import their suburban lawn ideas. That simply doesn't work here. Also, there remain people who think, well, if i have this 5 acre piece, I'm supposed to mow it all, right? Actually, the best thing they could do would be to let it be more natural. Cheaper and easier to maintain.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

When we bought our 43acres everyone kept saying, "That's a lot of grass to cut." When I would tell them, no, it's not going to be. We'll keep about 1.5-3 cut and the rest will get hogged once or twice a year......

My mom and the mother-in-law are the worst. They both have postage stamp yards. When I tell them, "It's the country, we don't cut everything." They just look at me like, "He'll see.......":confused2:

I'll cut around the house and barn, the rest will get cut when I want to cut it.....

 

[Tororider]

My suburban yard is tiny and I can cut it in twenty minutes with a 22" push mower. Our farm is about 18 acres, 9 of which is marsh and forest. In the front we keep around the barn cut as well as a "yard" for the kids to play in. Other than that, we try to keep the grass down between the 1500 trees we have planted. The rest gets hogged once a year, maybe twice. Too much mowing for me, but until the evergreens get bigger, we want to make sure they can get to the sun and that we don't cut them down if they were to get covered by the grass. I will be very happy when we can stop cutting between them.

 

[Chuck52]

When I bought my 10 acres the seller had made it look like a golf course. He had a big bat-wing gang mower and was able to cut the whole thing in 15 minutes or so....maybe an exaggeration, but it was fast. I tried to keep it up with a five foot finishing mower. but quickly decided to let most of it go back to the hayfield it had been for years. One of my neighbors gets a few big round bales off it for free, and I get to watch him! I still mow way too much, partly because I put in an orchard that needs to be mowed. In fact, I'm now trying to figure out how to minimize mowing around all the trees and other features my DW and I have managed to put in....takes much more time going around all that stuff than just straight mowing.

Chuck

 

[Ken45101]

We always wanted a wooded yard. Back in the 70's, we bought a typical subdivision lot (no trees) and planted something like 35 trees of 28 different species.

Circa 1985, we bought a house surrounded with big virgin (100') trees. We thought it was wonderful....until the storms came! Every heavy storm, we worried if one of them was going to crash down on the house! One morning about 6 am, the house shook as if an earthquake had hit. It was a big tree on the neighbor's property coming down into the woods. It hit a fence post, the biggest piece of the post I found was about 3" long

Two blocks behind us, a tree broke off in another storm and went through the roof and second story to the ceiling of the first floor!!! It hit dead center in the house. Fortunately the parents were in the bedroom on the right side and the kids on the left side.

We felt a LOT safer when we moved. The new house (and now the present house) have NO trees within reach! We no longer fear storms.

Ken

 

[2manyrocks]

The absence of trees in many cases is because the land developers move all the dirt around to make as many lots to sell as possible, and the trees get dozed in the process.

Mowing is a pain. What Chuck52 said reminds me of my Mother. My Mother used to plant more obstacles in the yard to mow around every year, and usually she'd put a few bricks around whatever it was to keep the mower at bay. So there was always more to trim in the days before weedeaters and zero turn lawnmowers.