Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns - Michael Pollan

In the beginning of the essay, Pollan begins to talk about the importance placed on lawns in America. I never before noticed this importance. Visiting England, I discovered what grass and landscaping really means. Outside of my dormitory was a large field of grass. It was the softest grass I have ever felt in my life. It was velvet. The British treat their grass better than most people treat their children. It is watered every morning for at least two hours and they even designate "lawn hours." "Lawn hours" is when the student is allowed to set foot on the lawn: "1pm-11pm" at Brasenose College in Oxford. If you are caught using the lawn outside of these specified hours, you are fined a ridiculous amount. When I visited the Wimbledon Tennis Center, the museum has devoted a large section to grass: maintenance and growth habits of grass. But I realized that Pollan was talking about individual lawns, not those owned by parks, churches, or schools. He was talking about the American "democratized" lawn. When I was fourteen, my family moved back to the suburbs after living in the city. We bought a house in a "cul-de-sac," the part of the neighborhood that resides around a circular patch of grass. I find it interesting that we would take unspoken turns to mow this piece of green; we didn't have sign up sheets or assigned times per neighbor. It was as though the cul-de-sac was a social identity factor. It represented our street in a way that nothing else did, so we knew what we had to do once it became unruly. We even had a "dissident" on our street. He was there when I moved in and he is still there now that I'm in college. Neighbors have called the Health Department on him, but to no avail. I agree with Pollan that people should not have to be pulled into this "lawn cult," if you will, but I think that it has a lot more to do with aesthetics than just the unified lawn. My father has a fish pond fully equipped with Koi fish, fountains, and lilypads in our front lawn and no one complains to this diversion. But our "dissident" neighbor gets the Health Department on his back because front lawn is not considered to be pleasing to the eye.