Not Turf Grass

An old friend just emailed to say she went to my blog because she needs all the gardening help she can get. In that spirit, here's a practical entry on "turf grass."
Here in the Midwest, our environment (I'm like a broken record) is closer to Siberia than England. Given global warming, we don't even have the snow cover anymore, but we do have wild swings in temperature and go from drought one summer to torrential downpours the next. Turf grass thrives where the temperature is moderate, has some cloud cover, gets lots of moisture. In the UK, they appear to be comfortable with wildflowers/and or weeds growing amidst the grass. Here, we are puritans. Some green grass evangelists seems to favor taxing the environment and poisoning children & dogs over tolerating a few weeds in the grass. Well, arrogance, not tolerance, is our national behavior these days anyway. My response is to encourage people, as much as possible, to eliminate as much turf grass as possible. People with small children want the grass for the kids to play on, but they often treat the grass with way too many chemicals and so, what's the trade off? The turf grass industry has miseducated consumers into believing that we need to fertilize our lawns many more times than necessary. Consequently, all that extra fertilizer (high in Nitrogen) goes into our water system. If you are intent on having turf grass, only fertilize once a year (end of August is best), mow high (about 3 inches) and leave the clippings to decompose after mowing. Turf grass wants lots of sun, so if it is under a tree, it's not worth it: the tree roots will win all the competition.
If you want to learn more, check out Soil Food Web. Basically, turf grass and trees want different biology (microscopic critters) in their home soil: bacterial for the grass, fungal for the trees. The more we plant in plant communities, the better for human communities.