by Lisa H Warren

Created on: January 17, 2008

For the last two decades or so I have lived in houses that have huge front lawns, side yards, and back yards. During that time my town has had it's share of water bans. In fact, as far as I can recall, lawn-watering has been restricted most years. There is, however, always rain (in varying amounts). In our situation there are also, of course, the option of building a ground-water well for lawn-watering. My well-less neighbors and I have generally enjoyed a green lawn for part of the Spring and early Summer, a mostly green lawn for mid-Summer, and an increasingly high percentage of hay in late Summer. There have been years, though, when the hay sets in much earlier.

We live with, and our "well-endowed" neighbors understand it. Believe it or not, a barely green lawn that has the hay raked out of it doesn't look all that horrible. It doesn't look nice, but somehow the grass keeps showing up to cover the freshly raked dirt.

Last week I decided to go to the "street view" site, which allows for virtual visits to a number of places in my state. I went to my childhood street, which was once a tree-lined street with black sidewalks and neatly mowed, little, lawns. To my sadness, I discovered that the trees had been cut down, and concrete sidewalks replaced the old blacktop ones. Many of the homes had blacktop or other non-grass in place of what was once a nice little lawn. I kept staring at the photos in an attempt to recall the time when that street did not look like a cold, dead, expanse of houses and concrete - with barely any grass, very few shrubberies, and no trees. I wondered who, on Earth, in that city or neighborhood decided to turn the pretty street into a parking lot with houses.

Water problems are a serious problem and need to be addressed. Grass lawns, however, should not be banned. They don't have to be watered, and they don't even have to be encouraged to grow thick, but they should not be banned. Every time a new ban is put in place something is lost forever. Its too soon to end grass lawns forever.

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