In Relentless Pursuit of the Ideal Lawn

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Every year I try, every year the dirt wins, and every year I come back for another round. In pugilistic terms, I am Chuck Wepner — The Bayonne Bleeder — and the yard is Muhammed Ali. But I always get up for one more go.

I have tried all sorts of solutions. One year I planted some kind of Kwik-Gro seed. It was wonderful. The lawn grew to a glorious, if slightly bizarre, brilliant green in about a week. It had a sort of a fluorescent day-glo tone. But I didn’t mind. It was lawn, and it was mine. It died almost as quickly.

Seeds come in any number of flavors — sunny, cloudy, partly sunny, partly cloudy and mixed. I can stand in front of the seed counter at the local hardware store for hours, studying the various offerings. People come in and they see me there, they point and whisper to one another, awed at the studious professionalism I am bringing to the selection of lawn carpeting.

In fact, I am rooted to the spot, indecision wrapping its tendrils around my brain. If only my lawn grew as well as my terror of the gardening aisle. I finger bag after bag, reading, trying to decipher the words. Well, let’s see, this spot is bright in the morning, until about 11, when the sun moves behind the trees across the road. Or until the trees on my side begin to bloom a bit, and then it is shady all day, except the last hour or so, when a bit of open space lets the rays through. And, how about those pictures on the bags? Does anybody’s lawn ever really look like that? I mean, outside of New Jersey?

So, do I choose Miracle Lawn or Green Garden Grass, the one guaranteed to eliminate crab grass? And what’s wrong with crab grass, anyway? It’s better than anything I’ve got to show.

But back to reality, do I want 10 pounds, 20 pounds, enough for 10,000 square feet? And how much is 10,000 square feet? I’m not trying to seed Fenway Park here. Even if it feels that way sometimes.

Finally, I choose a 25-pound bag, with the words, "Our Professional Blend," stamped in some sort of red-brown ink on the side of a serious-looking sack, with no frilly pictures. If it’s "Professional Blend," it must be the real thing, for real yardsmen. I lug it to the counter, and to the car, and drive home. I should probably be using a pickup truck, like a real lawn-care guy, instead of the intrepid station wagon of the weekend warrior. But, forget that, I don’t have a pickup.

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Now I paw around in the barn for rakes and stuff, to attack the old winter’s accumulation of dirt and road sand and pine needles and leaves. (Weren’t they all cleaned up last November?) I’ve got my old work gloves on my hands and my Australian Blunnies on my feet and I’m set to go. I rake, and shovel, and sweat and mutter when my glasses slide down my nose. I turn up rocks. Why can’t the lawn grow as well as those rocks? Drat! Where did all those roots and vines come from? Did they really need to use all those tons of road sand? This winter wasn’t all that bad.

But, the spot is finally cleared, and raked out, and it’s time to seed. Lug the sack out of the car and into the wheelbarrow — you don’t think I’m going to try to carry that thing, do you? — and maybe a small break is in order, just a quick rest for a soda, and to survey my work so far.

Seeding should be the easy part. Just reach into that ol’ bag and grab a handful of "Our Professional Blend" and start tossing it out onto that beautiful freshly raked dirt. Whoops, wind got that bunch, right back into my face. But it made a nice pattern on the roadside. Second handful, tossed a bit lower, a bit less exuberantly. Yeah, that looks good. This is pretty easy. I ought to be through in no time.

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One of the great jinxes of human endeavor is the phrase, "This is pretty easy." That last handful just dropped in a big clump right by my foot. And you know, looking back, it’s really not as even as I thought. Bet there’ll be a lot of bare spots. That’s OK, I’ll just toss some more in there. Oops, another clump. Oh, well, the rain will even it out, right?

Now nearly four hours have passed and I’ve raked up tons, it seems, of old leaves and sand and hauled them away. When did that wheel start to stick? Where did those new muscles, the ones that are screeching, come from? I’m sore. I’m tired. But the job’s done, and my little plot — Fenway? — is cleared and seeded and don’t I feel proud of myself.

Now it just has to grow.