The First Mow of the Season

Ahhh. I finished the First Mowing of our yard the day before yesterday, and it's a satisfying feeling. I feel like we're not truly in the gardening season until the grass has greened up and I've mowed it to be all neat and trim and tidy. I had mowed the little yard inside our picket fence (where the grass greens up earlier) twice already, the first time on the day before Easter, but this was the first time I mowed everything.

Some people might view the first mow as meaning only that I'll again have a weekly chore for the next six months (barring a serious drought), but I still look forward to it each spring. It's so lovely to have green, green grass after looking at the drab non-colors of winter for four months, and if mowing is the price of a trim, tidy, emerald-green lawn, that's okay with me.

The mowing's really not so bad, even though it does take some time, probably an hour and a half to mow the almost two acres of grass that I regularly mow. I have a fast, efficient Zero Turn Radius (ZTR) mower with a 51" deck, so it could be worse. But I have managed to reduce the time I spend mowing by doing the orchard and the grass areas along our driveway only once a month or so -- and last year I let the driveway go all summer and it didn't look too bad, parts of it flowering with what I think was hairy vetch during much of the season.

I use the time on the mower to think about things, both garden-related and other things in life. I find it to be like any other mindless and not physically demanding job that you are experienced in doing -- it can be comforting and familiar. On a beautiful sunny day, it can actually be a pleasurable task.

And I love the way it renders my gardens orderly and presentable. I think of mowing like vacuuming, but outside: I always try to do it before people come over to visit, so that our property will look its best, just as I try to to tidy up the inside of our house before we have guests.

I know that my views are politically incorrect in this age of environmental guilt -- each of us can actually Save the Entire Earth by giving up our lawn! But I live in Iowa, where there's usually enough rain to keep a lawn green without effort, and a freshly-mowed lawn gives me so much pleasure that I have no intention of giving it up, even if I have reduced the areas I keep mowed (simply because I don't enjoy mowing those difficult areas).

Here are a few shots of my yard and gardens, after the First Mow:

The Big Yard, as viewed across the Pond Gardens.

The Back Yard, behind my house. The North Border is at right and the Yellow Garden can been seen at left.

The Yellow Garden and West Island, as seen from the North Island. There's a lot less area to mow in this part of the yard too, after I made these island beds last year.

The Front Yard, with the tulip display still blooming in the Mint Circle. The White Garden tulips can be seen in the center. The grass was obviously pretty long here, as you can see from the clippings.

The Kitchen Garden and Chicken Shed & Run.

The little front yard inside the picket fence. As I mentioned, this grass, which I installed as healthy new sod several years ago and which my husband fertilizes, greens up several weeks earlier than the rest of our yard, so this has been mowed three times now. I dig the weeds out of this small patch by hand (I've already gotten that dandelion you see at the forefront of the photo!).

I hope that you are enjoying the greening up and tidying up of spring where you live as well. Thanks for reading! -Beth