When did all this nonsense about curb appeal begin? First impression of a home and all that? When did people lose the ability to walk into a home and envision possibilities, instead of having it staged to fill in their obvious lack of creativity?
Yesterday, we re-seeded a section of our front lawn. I use the term lawn very capriciously. It was more a patch of dirt with a variety of bare spots, weeds, and dandelions. In order to present prospective home-buyers with a good first impression, we made the decision to level, re-seed, add a bit of manure (love it), fence off the dogs and see what happens. We were gifted with a few inches of very wet snow overnight! Perfect!
Lawns. Personally, I believe they are the scourge of western civilization. People fertilize them and lay down poison to keep out the dandelions…all of that poison runs off into the water systems. Children play on that poison. People spend copious amounts of money on sod, lawn mowers, edgers, weed whackers, landscaping (hired lawn mowers), lawn food, et cetera. Why? To have the neatest, greenest patch of green on the block? To keep the HOA happy? Don’t get me started about HOA’s.
The photo accompanying this rant offers a view of the curb appeal that drew us in to this property. That’s curb appeal. I will not lay down poison. I will pull out noxious weeds and I do not consider a dandelion a noxious weed. I will encourage native plants to flourish. If I need a “lawn” on which to play croquet or badminton, I will mow a bit of area and let the games begin.
Imagination…it’s a wonderful thing.