see what happens when you have two mb open?
My parents are paying me 20 dollars a week to do it while I’m home for the summer (yay!). I’d be crazy not to.
Just a WAG, but it probably goes back to the days when royalty and the very rich could afford squadrons on groundskeepers and kept acres of well-tended grounds to prove the point.
Personally, I like xeriscaping. I’m currently xeriscaping with Bermuda grass (well that’s what it looks like…)
Grass is a flowering plant, and needs to be cut to help control local pollen.
That’s the one. Hell, I’d like my yard better if it was paved (and pitched away from the house).
It’s such a waste of time, energy, and money to mow a lawn.
As far as lawn maintenance…I’d never water my lawn because that would just make the grass grow faster. Dandelions? Welcome aboard. Creeping Charlie? Come on in. Crabgrass? Fine by me.
I live on a busy street, and when the plows come by in the winter, I get the snow/rock salt/sand dumped on my lawn. Try to get decent grass to grow in that envrionment.
Lawns in America are an attempt to mimic the lawns on British estates. That sort of look was determined to be desireable, and the idea was imported to the states, ignoring the fact that the climate was different (you’d have to be a fool to want a green lawn in Arizona, for instance).
Now it’s part of the national culture, so much so that if you don’t mow your lawn, you can get grief from the local authorities (some people have had to get court orders allowing them to do something else, like planting wildflowers, which, ironically, was the way people used to dress up the area near their houses).
I don’t mind mowing, but I’m not a fanatic; every 2-3 weeks is fine with me. However, it’s a silly custom with little to recommend it. If my wife didn’t insist, I wouldn’t water at all. If it turns brown, it turns brown.
Because if it is not mowed the dogs REFUSE to go out on it and end up shitting on the pavement instead which makes getting in and out of the yard akin to ballet. (ie jumping and twirling to avoid all of the dog feces.)
That and the weeds.
Hard to have a proper garden with weeds spreading seeds like mad from the lawn.
What kniz and Shagnasty said.
Have you ever SEEN an unmowed lawn? Since our neighbors lost their house, the people who are taking care of it for the bank haven’t been back in a while-and the grass is almost knee high. It looks bloody awful.
Let’s me get in touch with nature.
I can see where the bares spots are in the lawn.
I like to watch my shoes turn a nice shade of green.
I love mowing, watering and trimming a lawn. For me it’s kind of zen.
In my job these days I am in an office and put out a product that many people pull together to create (a newspaper). It’s a good paper and I am proud of it, but it is not exclusively mine.
But with my yard it is my creation that I craft through sweat, toil and strain to look a specific way. You would be surprised just how mowing a lawn one way will create a different feel as opposed to mowing it just slightly another way. It is like trimming a bonsi tree, but on a larger scale. I might craft the lawn to accent a specific point of the house or neighborhood. One month I will make the house look a bit taller; the next, I will make the lawn look like an athletic field or a park - all by slightly varying the method of mowing. It’s truly creative.
Still, it’s more than that, when I am pushing my mower over my three and 1/2 lots, the whirr of the little engine blocks out the rest of the world. I have achieved an isolation that people go to tops of mountains to achieve or go to expensive spas to find. No problems can reach me for the hour or so it takes to mow my lawn. I studied zen in a monastery in rural Japan for a while and the feeling I achieve while mowing my lawn is very similar.
Also there is a feeling of taking on nature. You see, nature wants to do one thing and you are saying, “Nope, I want to do it this way.” So that parts fun too.
And addition to all of that, mowing a lawn is great physical exercise, too. Usually by the end of summer, I am tanned and fit and don’t feel the least bit quilty about sitting out on my lawn in a lawn chair and having a beer as townspeople drive by and stop and chat (there is something in a nice lawn that encourages people to stop and chat and that’s nice too).
Honestly, I love mowing lawns. After I finish mine, I generally head over to some elderly neighbors we have nearby and mow theirs. Everybody in town is convinced I’m a wonderful person. Not true at all. I’m being very selfish. I enjoy it as much or more than a painter with a new canvas or a marathoner on his “runner’s high” because it gives me the satisfaction of both pursuits.
Why do people mow their lawns? Heck, they’d be fools not to.
TV
Cornflakes almost has it right. IIRC, it’s a defense strategy. In fact, even having a lawn to mow is a defense strategy. Any kind of fortification surrounded by trees gave cover for attackers to hide. Trees were downed, earth levelled out, and grass (and other natural ground cover) was shorn so that there was a clear line-of sight from the “castle” to anything within the reach of a bow or trebuchet.
I am sorry, off the top of my head I don’t have a cite, but I’m sure some clever googlers will find this. As to why we mow them now, I’m with Cheese- driving my tractor around(I have a big yard!) and making the grass short is an activity of almost zen-like purity.
Well, if you’re willing to get past the internal-combustion thing- hell, it worked for Pirzig. Dang, I just saw TV time’s post on preview. Well, since I’m not first I’ll have to agree.
b.
"lawn’ comes from the word, LAND…& I mow other people’s lawns cause they pay me a fortune.
“Distant bells,
New mown grass smells soooo sweet”
- Pink Floyd “Fat Old Sun”
Love the smell of freshly cut grass. Love lazing in the sun on a rug with soft music in my ears.
Something I miss about living in a cold place is that you really appreciate the warm days. Up here in the Tropical North you can happily go a year without lying out in the sun getting eaten alive by ants and mozzies, having your picnic lunch stolen by large feral lizards, snakes slithering silently through the surounds… I love it here, really 
I think TV Time is right. People mow lawns for much the same reason they garden and spruce up the outside of their houses. It looks good. It’s satisfying to work hard and make things look nice and appear the way you want them to appear.
I like doing that stuff. It’s fun, it’s relaxing, and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. A well kept yard looks good and improves the appearance of your house. It’s nice to have things arranged the way you want them.