A Man's Turf: The Perfect Lawn - Hardcover

Schultz, Warren

 
9780609600689: A Man's Turf: The Perfect Lawn
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0609600680 ISBN 13: 9780609600689
Verlag: Clarkson Potter, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

A witty, insider's look at the Great American Lawn--and the American male's obsession with it--answers questions about the origins of men's fascination with turf, mower design and mowing techniques, the science of luxuriant lawns, and more. 15,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Warren Schultz is one of the nation's foremost experts on natural lawn care. He is the author of The Chemical-Free Lawn as well as nine other books. Schultz, who lectures frequently about lawn and garden topics, has received several awards from the Garden Writers Association of America.

Aus dem Klappentext

the country on any summer Saturday and what do you see? From coast to coast you see millions of men mowing. There also may be some women tending to the turf these days, but the obsession with the lawn is truly a male phenomenon. How green is it? How thick is it? How well-mown and weed-free is it? These are the questions that try men's souls. <br><br>In <b>A Man's Turf: The Perfect Lawn</b>, author Warren Schultz delves into history, psychology, and botany to explain the irresistible appeal of the riding mower and freshly cut grass. But as a leading expert on lawn and garden care, he also offers a wealth of practical, hands-on information for growing, mowing, weeding, and watering a better lawn.<br><br>Schultz explores how the lawn grew up in America and visits some of the great historical lawns. He examines the machines involved--reel and rotary lawn mowers, weed whackers and water sprinklers--that shape the lawn, and gets down on his knees to look at some amazing grass, highlighting

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"I believe a blade of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars."
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

As I wrangle the power mower across the lawn on a Saturday morning, I can almost hear, above the roar of the engine, a small voice calling out plaintively: "How can you say you love me when you don't even know me?"

No, it's not someone complaining from inside the house. It's not an argument overheard from next door. It's the voice of the lawn itself. And I have to admit, it has a strong basis for complaint.

I know every inch of my property. I know where the buried ledge sticks up through the soil and chips the mower blade if I'm not careful. I know where the backyard stays boggy well into June. I have notes (somewhere) about the shrubs planted along the property line, including variety names and when they were planted and pruned. I study nursery catalogs and memorize tongue-twisting botanic names. I do my homework and know the best plants for the sun and shade and which will survive our frigid winters. But the grass under my feet--that's a different story. It remains a cipher. Even though I spend more time tending to my grass than I do to any other plant, I can only guess at the species of the grass in my lawn--or even how many different types there might be there.

But there's one thing that I do know: Each grass plant is a marvel. Any single grass plant in my lawn may be ten, twenty, as much as fifty years old. There may be as many as eight to ten individual grass plants per square inch of turf, or 8 million in an average lawn. And what we see is only a small part of the plant. A little grass plant can produce more than three hundred miles of roots.

And those grass plants work hard. They absorb pollution, catch rainfall, prevent erosion, cushion the ground, muffle noise, and manufacture oxygen. And they just keep growing.

The grass plant is a survivor. We trod on it, roll on it, trample it, neglect it, scalp it--and it comes back. It withstands the winters of Alaska, the droughts of California, the searing heat and humidity of Florida. And it keeps coming back for more.

Grass is a no-nonsense, bottom-line plant. Neither fussy nor temperamental, it gets the job done without calling attention to itself. And that earns our respect. We take comfort in the certainty that the lawn will green up in the spring, and that it will always need mowing. Maybe it's the resilient nature of the grass plant that causes us to admire the lawn so. We modern men can identify with it. We, too, are often clipped just when we think we're growing.
Turf grass is a member of the ancient plant family Gramineae, which first appeared on earth during the Mesozoic Period, about 100 million years ago. Over the years more than 7,000 species evolved from this family, including wheat, rice, corn, and bamboo.

The grass plant is also built to photosynthesize. Turf grasses are characterized by short, hollow stems and long leaves. The leaves, or blades, are much longer than their stems. If a maple tree had the same kind of configuration, each of its leaves would be as big as a house. Of course, that means that grasses are photosynthesizing powerhouses. In fact, when it comes to converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, grass plants are four times as efficient in this process as most trees.

Meet the Grasses
Though they all belong to the same family and look pretty much the same to us from behind the mower, turf grass species have many different characteristics, including growth habit, texture, and regional adaptability. Those attributes help to determine which species you should be growing in your lawn.

Growth Habit
Turf grasses are characterized as either sod-forming grasses or bunch grasses. A sod-forming grass, such as Kentucky bluegrass or Bermudagrass, spreads by stolons or rhizomes and knits itself into a strong carpet of sod, leaving little room for weeds to crop up. But a bunch grass, such as perennial ryegrass or blue grama grass, grows in tufts that expand laterally by tillers. This type usually grows faster than a sod-forming grass.

Texture
For most of us, appearance is the most important characteristic of turf grass. And along with color, the most important aspect of appearance is the width of the blade or relative coarseness. It's important enough that all grasses are classified according to their texture--either fine-bladed or coarse-bladed. Fine-textured grasses--such as fine fescues or Kentucky bluegrass--with blades of 6 millimeters or less in width are the most desirable lawn grasses. Coarse-textured grasses, like tall fescue and centipedegrass, present a less refined appearance in the lawn.

Growth Region
Finally, and most important, grasses are classified according to climate; they are either cool-season or warm-season grasses. Cool-season grasses, as the name implies, grow best in the northern part of the United States. Their prime growth periods there are the late spring and early fall. Cool-season grasses grow best at temperatures between 60°F and 75°F. They may go dormant and turn brown during the hot weather of the summer. Warm-season grasses grow best during the heat of Southern summers at temperatures of 80°F to 95°F.

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Verlag
Clarkson Potter
Erscheinungsdatum
1999
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0609600680
ISBN 13 
9780609600689
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
180
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
QE GmbH & Co. KG
info@averdo.de

Martinistraße 3
Osnabrück
Deutschland

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