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The Forum > Article Comments > Save our lawns > Comments

Save our lawns : Comments

By Valerie Yule, published 8/12/2016

Lawns reflect a 200-year-old Romantic dream of fusing ourselves with nature. Yet that very dream now poses a major threat to the nature it so lovingly celebrates.

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I like lawns, or a nice open space, to play cricket, throw a stick for the dog, sit under a shady mango tree, (the coolest spot) while watching the grandkids play tag, hide and seek, pirates and dragons, the goodies and baddies.

Hand Mowers? Great exercise for the elderly and infirm, during one of our interminable heat waves.

Valerie, what works in the old dart doesn't necessarily transfer to the antipodes. Hand mowers don't like stones and repairing reels can be really expensive? Pardon the really bad pun?

And lawns would probably still be OK, if they used recycled water exclusively!

I haven't watered my grass ever, but leave it a little long, (highest possible mower setting) to allow the overnight dew and occassional rain to soak in. And the only green yard in the street during the last drought.

Longer grass also discourages broadleaf weeds like bindi, which can be controlled by walking on them when frosted. I call it the chemical free crunch method.

During summer, I stay off the grass, given what it might be hiding or protecting.

There are plenty of electric mowers for busy folk with kids, the latter the only ones, all to often these days, with any time on their hands? And semi silent buz whirr, less unneighborly, when using the early morning cool to get the outside jobs done.
Ah, memories!

Little pot-a-roos, nibble nicely and if you follow their leavings, with a weed wiper? In a couple of years all that will remain is palatable grass never needing to be mown? Hopefully, occasionally?

Four legged mowers apparently do the job well enough for our Taswegian and Kiwi cousins.

Their calling cards can be a bit of a nuisance, unless they're vacuumed by the occassional rotary mower, with the stones and the grass, to become very useful, water saving, nutrient rich garden mulch.

That said, ground cover and paving stones work for many?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 8 December 2016 2:49:54 PM
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Bunnings have a lovely product in plastic hedge and will do a plastic swimming pool using no chlorine or pumps. Plastic labrador and gazebo with plastic wine bottles on emerald turf in mid-summer. Poms these days are rather plastic and it all uses fossil fuel. So yeah let it grow , save oil and smell the waving fields of lawn.
Posted by nicknamenick, Thursday, 8 December 2016 4:04:01 PM
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One of the many things that I love about Melbourne
is its greenery and parks. However, with local
councils allowing more and more high-rise buildings,
the greenery is being replaced by concrete.

Ogden Nash said it so well, many years ago when he wrote:

"I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as
a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see
a tree at all."
Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 8 December 2016 4:20:13 PM
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There's no orangutans in the palm oil trees of Borneo but there is in Trump Tower. He may be sculpted in the Black Hills of Dakota like the other Mr Presidents among the Ponderosa Pine. Or on billboards along the Great Wall among the Saguaro Cactus where he grows long and untrimmed.
Posted by nicknamenick, Thursday, 8 December 2016 6:03:14 PM
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FOXY, great to see you back. Hope you are well.

Valerie, careful there, people will be suing you for their injuries if you keep this up.

However as I love work, or at least watching it, so you are welcome to bring your push mower up here, to play around on my 1&1/2 acre house paddock. I even have a 80 year old motor powered cylinder mower. It does a magnificent job, if you use it after the ride on mower. It has no chance on lawn longer than an inch.

Having actually had to use an old cylinder mower on our quarter acre block as a kid, I believe any kid forced to use one today, would have a good case for cruelty against their parents. Todays kids are no where near as tough as we were.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 8 December 2016 6:44:52 PM
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Dear Hassie,

Thank You. It's good to be back.

Missed you.

I'm still a "work in progress," but I'm
slowly learning to cope both with my own health
issues and those of my mum's.

Thank You for caring.
Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 8 December 2016 7:18:13 PM
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I don't mow lawns; I've got a life!
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 9 December 2016 6:50:07 AM
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Around here the snakes seem quite laid back. There's a resident black which wanders around and I follow it across open grass at a slow walk. I tugged its tail and it moved under its log. So it's semi-tame and takes a while to even notice me. Then we had a brown in the upstairs bedroom while my wife was there. It watched while I pushed down with a spade as i lack confidence in carrying browns outside.
Posted by nicknamenick, Friday, 9 December 2016 8:04:20 AM
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NNN...
Black snakes are attracted to milk, whereas brown snakes are not. The result is that brown snakes are difficult to trap safely.
In case your interested!
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 9 December 2016 9:36:26 AM
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Milk ? No generally I would grab it firmly and bite its neck
Posted by nicknamenick, Friday, 9 December 2016 2:22:08 PM
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//Milk ? No generally I would grab it firmly and bite its neck//

Why not just tell it to bugger off in Parseltongue?
Posted by Toni Lavis, Friday, 9 December 2016 7:32:51 PM
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You sound like our outside cat Nick, it regularly presents us with half eaten snakes.

Last year we lost 2 dogs, one to an eastern brown, & the other to a yellow belly black. Seriously dangerous snakes get short shift around here these days, but the green tree snakes living in the hay shed are welcome friends.

Of course it makes great sense to produce lots of CO2 fertiliser for your grass while cutting it. Depriving it of this great lawn food is simply mean.
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 10 December 2016 12:20:59 AM
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Parseltongue is not on, snakes have no ears. Sign language Auslan is good , the Soccer eye-gouge finger means "snake" , followed by 2 fingers .
As a kid I heard that some fence builders camped out and one saw a snake at dawn climb into his mate's bush-bed. A smoky fire under the bed brought the snake out without the sleeper waking up.
Posted by nicknamenick, Saturday, 10 December 2016 7:53:04 AM
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//Parseltongue is not on, snakes have no ears.//

That's OK, it's magic.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Saturday, 10 December 2016 8:00:26 AM
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The krios knife is magic:
"The knife also gained social signicance, because it became associated with various traditions and customs, and even metaphysical value, as a way of protecting man from demons since beliefs bestow magical and supernatural powers on it. Even today, Cretan knife is offered as a gift at weddings and baptisms."

The Magic Crocodile and Other Folktales from Indonesia
https://books.google.com.au/books?isbn=0824816544
Alice M. Terada, ‎Charlene K. Smoyer - 1994 - ‎Fiction
Kris or Keris A man's kris, his dagger, is believed to represent him, thus giving ... Some are believed to have the power to talk, fly, turn into a snake,..
-
The Cretan magic krios possibly became the magic kris which is carved on Indonesian temples from 1000 years ago. The Toorale skull at Bourke has a sword-cut not caused by a mulga wood blade and is dated late 1200s . Maybe a kris sword done it.
Posted by nicknamenick, Saturday, 10 December 2016 11:45:09 AM
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I've got a pocket handkerchief lawn and can actually cut it with long-armed clippers in about 2 hours. But my back and forearms are useless for the next few days.

I'd love to buy a non-fuel hand mower. Where can you buy one these days? I did an online check of mower retailers before posting this and could only find fuel-powered hand mowers.
Posted by Killarney, Sunday, 11 December 2016 4:41:46 AM
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//I'd love to buy a non-fuel hand mower. Where can you buy one these days?//

From a livestock supplier? A goat will keep your lawn nice and trim... plus you get a goat.

But seriously: Bunnings. And online, I just did a search for electric mowers - there's heaps. With a small lawn you can probably get away with one that has a cord, which tend to be cheaper. If not, the cordless ones will certainly be sufficient for your modest needs.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Sunday, 11 December 2016 8:00:26 AM
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Buy a scythe in Australia
www.scythes.com.au/
Purveyors of fine scythes and accessories. ... A scythe is one of those tools to which a worker can form a bond; patience may be required to become acquainted ...
Posted by nicknamenick, Sunday, 11 December 2016 8:57:06 AM
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Hi Toni

I checked out Bunnings and there actually is a non-electric, non-fuel hand push mower available. I won't give it a plug, as you can easily find it, but it's less than $70.

Alas, I live in Ireland, so I can't get to Bunnings in the near future. But I'll make some phone calls and see if anyone might stock something like it here. If not, I'll blame it on the EU.
Posted by Killarney, Sunday, 11 December 2016 9:00:58 AM
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Forgotten Horses Ireland – Improving the welfare of abandoned horses
forgottenhorses.com/
Skydive 2016…It's back! Do Something truly Amazing! Do Something you will never Forget! And Do Something for Charity all rolled into one. Join us for our ...
Posted by nicknamenick, Sunday, 11 December 2016 9:04:51 AM
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Valerie, Team ikOala <team@newsletter.ikoala.com.au>, are selling a German engineered push mower on line right now.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 13 December 2016 11:52:29 AM
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