"A Sod Story"

By Jerry Zezima

I have gone to seed. Unfortunately, so has my grass.

The problem is that it won’t grow, especially in the front yard, where a giant oak tree throws shade at a lawn I have tried for years to make green and lush. Instead, I recently made myself green (with envy at my neighbors’ lawns) and lush (because I gulped down a beer after a hot afternoon of getting down and dirty on a patch of earth that looks like it was manicured with a flamethrower).

Specifically, I dropped lots of “sun and shade” grass seed on areas of the yard where grass won’t grow in either sun or shade. My wife, Sue, who has a green thumb (I told her to see a dermatologist), did the same in the backyard, which looks better but still has spots that resemble the shaved head of Curly of the Three Stooges.

“Soil will help,” said Sue, who got some dirt from the pots of her potted plants, which were no longer in the pots.

“What happened to the plants?” I asked.

“They died,” Sue answered.

Still, we spread the soil over several bare patches and covered it with blue grass seed.

“Maybe we’ll get Kentucky bluegrass,” I said, noting that we now had New York brown grass.

Then I filled a watering can with gin (no, I mean water) and sprinkled the soil and seeds. The next morning, I turned on the sprinklers, which did a better job. So did Mother Nature, who made it rain the following day.

Nonetheless, I was afraid that the grass wouldn’t come up for weeks, if at all, keeping our property looking like the Death Valley of the neighborhood.

So I went to a home improvement store and spoke with a friendly manager named Casey, who suggested that I forget about natural grass and put down unnatural grass.

That’s right: artificial turf.

“You won’t have to water it and you won’t have to cut it,” he told me.

“Will I have to paint yard markers on it?” I asked.

“Only if you want to play football,” Casey said.

I wasn’t about to give up on growing grass, so I asked Casey what I should do.

“Put down lime,” he suggested.

“Like the kind used in cocktails?” I asked.

“No,” Casey replied. “But you might enjoy one after a day of yard work.”

“What shouldn’t I do?” I wondered.

“Don’t spread fertilizer,” Casey said.

“I’ve been known to spread fertilizer wherever I go,” I admitted.

“I can see that,” said Casey.

I told him that I have a lawn service, which hasn’t been too successful in getting grass to grow, and that I also have a landscaper who has an easy job because there isn’t much grass to cut.

“I keep getting conflicting advice,” I said. “I don’t know when to drop seed, when to water or when to spread fertilizer. Now I don’t even know when to put lime in my cocktails.”

“You can drop seed anytime,” Casey said. “And you should water the grass every day.”

“What about cocktails?” I asked.

“Wait until 5 o’clock,” Casey said.

A few days later, I was visited by Wayne, from the lawn service, who told me it’s best to drop seed in the fall and that I should water the grass only twice a week.

“Otherwise,” he said, “you’ll overwater and weeds will grow. You don’t want to feed the weed.”

Wayne had come by to put down weed killer but said he wouldn’t do that because he saw that I had already dropped seed and the weed killer would also kill the new grass.

“Instead, I’ll spread fertilizer,” he said.

“I thought fertilizing in the spring was bad,” I said.

“It is,” Wayne replied. “But I’m using starter fertilizer.”

“Is there finishing fertilizer?” I wondered.

“Yes,” said Wayne. “It’s used in the fall.”

Disregarding all advice, Sue and I have been faithfully watering the seeds every day and running the sprinklers every other day. Miraculously, little green blades are coming up.

“Looks like we won’t have to get artificial turf,” I said. “But trying to improve our lawn is a pain in the grass.”

Copyright 2023 by Jerry Zezima