YARD WARS Episode I

October 2006

It was going to be an up-hill battle. The former residents at this address had done an exceptional job of maintaining not only the home, but also the yard. The first question I was asked by the first person I met on the first Sunday we attended our new ward was, “Are you going to keep your yard as well as T.J.?” You know, it’s so much easier to follow an itinerant band of gypsies or 14 college students. The yard under those circumstances can be so neglected that just cleaning up the beer cans or raking the dirt can be seen by the neighbors as an improvement. In my professional life, my company has always regarded me as someone they could count on to fix things that were broken…clean up messes made by others. I have been called upon to take on challenges others would not…and go where others feared to tread. My expertise is in making bad things better.
So you can understand my trepidation in taking a beautiful yard and keeping it nice. It would be like someone saying, “Here, run Target. Run Costco. Run the Detroit Tigers (of today)…and make them better. I’m desperately trying not to ruin it.
And so the epic begins. Dead spots of grass appear throughout this beautiful carpet of a lawn. What can it be? One person suggested grub worms, another deer urine and a third some sort of fungus. Thank goodness for knowledgeable family members who directed us to the local nursery where experts on the local flora and fauna were available to help diagnose the problem and recommend solutions. I was hoping for the fungus. Worms are creepy and how do you keep deer from tinkling? What relief, “It sounds like Necrotic Ring Spot,” Debbie announced. Now Necrotic Ring Spot is not to be confused with “Yellow Patch” or “Fusarium Patch”. “Ring Spot can occur throughout the growing season and is characterized by a blackening of roots and rhizomes, and by dark brown ectorrophic hyphae on dying roots, rhizomes and crowns.” Sprecken zie Deutch? Debbie was speaking a foreign language to a guy who has had the good fortune of having a very affordable swarm of non-English-speaking yard experts taking care of things since the youngest slave (er, child) left home. When the kids were still at home, I was one of those dads who believed in teaching the children the value of good, hard work. How they thrived out in the fresh air performing good, honest, manual labor. What a blessing! I didn’t touch a rake or a lawn mower all the time they were growing up. When the last one left home, I was grateful to provide employment for young people like my own grandparents who came to this country not speaking English but looking for a better life for themselves and their families! Enough rationalization. The truth is, I have approximately 5 hours of free, non-sabbath daylight time each week and I have appreciated not having to spend it in the yard.
But a new chapter has begun. The Lord made Adam ruler over the whole Earth and placed him in a garden to till and take of it. My inheritance from father Adam is a third of an acre on the Wasatch front. I don’t want to “blow it!”
So, back to Debbie and Necrotic Ring spot. The cure is simple. Rake up the dead grass. Check. Treat affected soil with a solution of 1 tablespoon dishwashing detergent to 5 gallons of water to break the surface tension of the soil and make it possible for subsequent treatment to take effect. Check. Aerate with a pitch fork. “I don’t have a pitch fork.” “Go buy one for $29.97 plus $1.95 tax at Home Depot.” Check. Purchase bluegrass seed that has a proven resistance to Necrotic whatchamacallit and plant it over the spots you have raked, washed and aerated. Check. Treat entire yard with Fertilome F-stop Fungicide. Check. Then try to explain to visitors why there are these big muddy patches in the yard. Check. (As soon as the words “Necrotic Ring Spot” come out of my mouth their eyes sort of glaze over and they turn to comment on the beautiful view of the temple.)
This is round one. A mere skirmish in a war that may last a lifetime. But several things I’ve learned already. 1) Going to the nursery is like going to Target or Costco. Take lots of money, because a simple bag of weed killer ends up being $102.75 worth of chemicals, seeds, bulbs, bulb planters (a tool, not an immigrant worker) a $5 “kit” for eliminating a kind of spider I’ve never heard of but was pictured on a poster at the check-out counter with a picture of the swollen, red, puss-oozing dead skin that results from being bitten, and 5 lbs of rocks in a plastic bag (We don’t have the right kind of rocks for an indoor planter, even though we now live in the Rocky Mountains), and
2) When you go through the prescribed steps to eradicate Necrotic Ring Spot in your yard (after soaking the darn thing with dish washing soap solution), you may still have brown spots all over the place, but you can at least boast that you have the cleanest grass in the neighborhood!