Yard wars take on new scope with fall's arrival

                             

Article Courtesy of The News Journal

By 

Published October 8, 2009

My annual fall yard campaign has taken on a new twist -- and gained a new adversary.

Usually this time of year I'm reorganizing my forces and preparing for the long winter layoff. And my main foe, Mother Nature, is by this time occupied with the fall leaf season and calling down those first faint cold reminders of the season to come.

But now a new competitor has stepped into the mix, one both unexpected and unwelcome: My homeowners association.

It seems that the august and honorable organization sworn to uphold the integrity and property values of my neighborhood is less than thrilled with the quality of my yard maintenance this year.

Now I will be the first to admit that Mother Nature waged a pretty harsh campaign this year. Lots of rain early, then lots of heat and a counter offensive with chinch bugs and an exotic variety of weeds has kept me on my toes. And of course, this was the year I decided not to wage any chemical warfare, opting instead for controlled watering, precise cutting and faith in a higher power.

But at this point in the year, whether or not I have the upper hand and after defending against whatever Mother Nature threw at me, I was ready for a little R&R. Not so, according to my homeowners association brethren. I apparently have more work left.

So instead of doing routine maintenance on the power equipment and cleaning and sharpening the other implements in the garage, I'm back to full-scale operations. And even though Mother Nature is backing off some -- except for the odd late-season hurricane she is more focused on bringing winter's chill to our northern neighbors -- I have been forced to draw up new battle plans and confront the enemy.

I admit that homeowners associations are not completely evil organizations. There are some things that do require a little extra outside influence to keep under control. And I certainly don't want to see overgrown and disheveled yards in the neighborhood -- at least not on my street.

But in this time of recession, delinquency and foreclosure, maybe we all need to show a little more compassion and a little less impatience when we notice a neighbor is a bit behind with the yard work. After all, it's not like the housing market is anywhere near what it once was. Despite falling house prices and rising sales statistics, concern about property values at this point in time is like worrying about your dinner plans on the Titanic.

But more than that, why the mania to pour so many chemicals all over our yards? Is cookie-cutter conformity that important?

Does every yard have to look like it was manicured by hand and lovingly coaxed to the height of "greenness" to reflect the upwardly mobile status of the homeowner and the gentle pride of living the American Dream?

I realize people are concerned about property values, but if homebuyers aren't beating a path to your house for sale, I doubt the state of my yard six houses down on the left is really making that much of a difference.

Maybe the real reason there are few nibbles out there is because some sellers still think it's 2005 when everybody and his uncle could get a mortgage loan and home buyers were willing to jump on the housing bandwagon in droves with the "found money" from all those subprime mortgage loan offers.

This doesn't mean I don't care about my yard, just that it's not the end-all and be-all of my existence.

I certainly want my property to look neat and orderly -- and keep Mother Nature's voracious appetite at arm's length. But I have never been that concerned that I have the best-looking lawn in the neighborhood. I just want to make sure I don't have the worst yard on the street.

And as long as there are rental houses in my little subdivision, I have little to worry about on that score.

So I say to my friends in the homeowners association, chill out.

Summer is over and winter is on the way.

Soon the yards will be turning that lovely shade of brown that St. Augustine "grass" takes on when the weather turns cool and dry. And even though many of my neighbors will continue to saturate their lawns with chemicals and keep those irrigation systems humming along at full tilt in the hope of keeping their grass a deep, inviting green through the dead of winter, I am content to let the grass -- and Mother Nature -- hibernate for a while.

After all, that gives me time to plan out the next spring campaign. This time, I might just have a few things up my sleeve when it comes to those pesky weeds and overly reproductive ant colonies.

Or I could just give into the inevitable and hire some mercenaries to do it for me. But what would be the fun in that?

 

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