Layman's Guide to Lawncare
by Dwayne Dykes

A few helpful hints, definitions etc. to aid in your quest for the perfect lawn. Exerpted from Dewayne's Practical Guide to Gardening, available at a bookstore near you if I ever get around to publishing it.

Plant identification:

Healthy, happy green plants - These would be weeds. Learn to like them, they are the only naturally occurring forms of flora in your lawn.

Sickly, brownish yellow crunchy stuff - This would be your grass. You should nurture it, love it, long for it. It is necessary that you spend large sums of money on chemical and organic fertilizers to keep it from disappearing. Remember, you are trying to force grass to grow in a totally unnatural environment - your lawn. Try reading to it, playing music for it, singing to it. Pet it often. In the summer months it would appreciate it if you would shade it from the hot midday sun. A whole lawn retractable awning will suffice for this purpose. Sprinkle it lovingly with water. If your water bill does not exceed $150 you are not watering enough.

Other not quite brown, but not quite green stuff - this is known as clover. It is the only thing that will happily relocate to your lawn. It is useful because it can actually reclaim land that the weeds have claimed for their own. Much like the United Nations, it is not a pretty thing, but it is the only available compromise.

Kind of greenish things with brown wads on top that grow in the mulch bed - these are known as flowers. Always keep the little plastic things that come stuck in the pots so you can readily identify them and will have a picture so you will know what they would look like if grown by someone else.

Some items you will need for your lawn:

Riding lawn mower - impressive and very expensive machine designed to last forever because it never runs and therefore never leaves your garage.

Push lawn mower - sweat machine designed by a sadistic bastard. Used only because the rider never starts. Never wants to work either. When it does work it does not work well. Always breaks just before you finish mowing.

Socket wrench - Item used to round the heads of the bolts holding on the part of the mower that is broken.

Hammer, cold chisel and vise grips - the only way to remove the broken part. Often used in conjunction with a side grinder.

First aid kit - used to repair yourself after you repair the lawn mower.

String trimmer - device that throws weed juice, rocks and sticks at you just before breaking. Also makes you stink really bad.

Broadcast type fertilize spreader - device used for killing part of your lawn while creating interesting stripe patterns on the rest.

Solutions defined:

The magic juice sprayer truck - your only hope of having a nice lawn. Beware though, it's like Rogain. Once you start you can't stop or you will lose all that new growth and more. If you start you are committing to continuous outlays of heavy cash.

Five gallons of Roundup - a good start.

Mulch - a wonderful substance which, when combined with landscape fabric and used heavily, can greatly reduce that area of your lawn in which you are vainly attempting to grow grass. This limits your mowing time, fertilization costs and headaches.

Rock gardens - similar to mulch. It should be noted that the two can be combined to cover the entire lawn. This reduces maintenance to an annual retopping of the mulch and an occasional aerial spraying of roundup. A helicopter would work well for this and you can get your license and do it yourself now that you don't have to mow twice a week and aren't shelling out $600 a month to maintain your lawn.