While all you Europhiles are channeling your inner King Charles, I'll be embracing my American roots and going full blown native prairie. Until the city comes and mows it for me that is. I'm getting older, but not old enough yet to obsess about a brown lawn when we're on the verge of a drought.
"The American obsession with a close-cut patch of green has its roots in 17th-century Europe. Castles in France and England at the time were guarded by men whose vision couldn’t be obstructed by wild shrubbery in case anybody decided to lay siege, so grazing animals were used to trim unruly vegetation. Since these castles belonged to the wealthiest landowners, a smooth property became a status symbol, and that mentality has carried over into the modern-day American suburb. All that time you spend mowing and raking and weeding? Blame it on the landscape lust of some disenfranchised peasants."
