While house hunting during the past few months, I asked the owner of any
house that was of interest whether they used chemicals on their lawns.
Thinking back to the owners with the nicest lawns, the answer was "no" about
50% of the time. Makes you wonder why some people bother.

At least a half dozen times between April and October, our local paper runs
articles in which it interviews people from the Cornell Cooperative
Extension. These people explain that the vast majority of lawns are cut at
the wrong height, and that adjusting to the correct height will produce
EXTREMELY happy results in a lawn that doesn't have any major problems. It
seems very few people read these articles.

It's all silly anyway. We inherited the lawn tradition from the British, who
have much better growing conditions (cooler, more moisture). In many areas
of this country, the stuff would die or be crowded out by plants which
actually belong there, unless we continued spending inordinate amounts of
time coddling and mowing and weeding and feeding.

"Kurt Tappe" wrote in message
news:2004072413081516807%ktappe@NOvoicenetSPAMcom. ..
I live in a townhouse with a lawn that is connected to the neighbors on
either side of me. I know for a fact that these neighbors perform no
lawn care other than occasional mowing. I, on the other hand, put down
weed & feed twice a year, overseed, and apply lime when necessary.

So guess whose lawn has been taken over by crabgrass?

The infestation literally stops at the property line. My (former) lawn
is 90% crabgrass while my negiligent neighbors have attractive grass.

The obvious conclusion is that my efforts are somehow causing/allowing
the crabgrass to flourish. I wait until the lawn is pretty high to
mow--no scalping is taking place. I have not put pre-emergents
down...but neither did the neighbors. Could the weed & feed be
weakening the grass enough that the (apparently immune) crabgrass can
take hold? If so does this mean the whole weed & feed concept is a
farce?

Thanks for thoughts,
-Kurt