The weeds and the mowing ... and lawns in general... drive me up the wall.

There is almost no upside to the whole deal:
1. Demands on water in periods of drought.
2. the heavily polluting lawn equipment... and all the stuff that goes into maintaining the stuff.
3. the toxins and problems with fertilizer and weed killers.
3. the noise pollution of lawn equipment... what a racket!
4. Mowing itself is a serious labor....just to be repeated in a week.
5. Then, with all of that, it's a matter of "what the heck am I'm doing all of this for???"

I'm considering just planting most of my yard with desirable and manageable trees. Then, if I must, even allowing English Ivy to take over the lawn duties. Having walking paths cut through the ivy. The ivy is already in most of my wooded area, and it's very little problem... very rarely, I go out and trim it back to the ground around the tree trunks. That kind of work is easy and gives me an excuse to stroll around the area.

Cotoneaster and other shade tolerant ground covers would work as well.

It seems to me, that one could easily have a green "lawn" that requires very little if any lawn equipment, fertilizers, weed killers, and watering!

Even with the price of the trees and ground covers, I get the feeling that the whole deal will end up being much cheaper than lawn maintenance.

Not looking forward to this season's lawn obligations!
Kelton

We are having the same problem. I'm in Tipton county and we have about 1/2 and acre. Hubby tries to keep the lawn weed free as possible and he has no problem spraying. Last year was a lush green lawn......this year are dandelions and other not so colorful weeds. It has been the worst I've seen in years.

By the way, Howdy Neighbor!!

My mower is completely pollution free....

I use a traditional style, human powered, reel mower.
It takes less effort to push than a power mower, leaves a better cut (no brown tips the next few days) and it only consumes uses 500ml of beer to cut 1/4 of an acre. (Ok, the person pushing it consumes the beer.)

Here is a link that might be useful: Lee Valley Reel Mowers

Nice. But I mow 3.25 acres.

I don't worry much about weeds though. I just let them hold the soil down until the grass takes over. A good lawn is a war of attrition. We've been here just about 3.5 years.

No fertilizing or pesticides with this much area. That would get expensive quick. Luckily most of this had been pasture for a long time. And yes, the weeds and especially dandilions seem to be much more agressive this year.

yeah they have been bad this year. This will be the third summer I have lived in my house. It is a newer subdivision and the whole think has only been their about 5 years. They didn't leave the ground out and used cheap sod, and since it was just shortly ago wooded area, the weeds seem to come in thick. The first year I spend 4 hours in the front and back digging up weeds roots in the front and back yard. Didn't really have a probbaly the rest of the summer. Last year a few weeks came back but spent about a hour of so getting them and then it wasn't a problem. This year is as horrible as the first year was. Ugg!! I spent for ever out their gutting the yard of weeds and guess what, 3 weeks later their seems to be just as much out there as there was before

just keep in mind that once these "winter weeds" finally die out in the next month or so they're going to leave huge barren patches of exposed soil that will be a haven for various forms of poa annua (annual bluegrass) and various types of crab-grass, quack grass and goose grasses. :sigh: