Meditating on Grass

Imagine surgical striking weeds on this. In the sun.

I returned to Japan from Hong Kong a few days ago. I can report that it’s hot there, and it’s hot here. There might be a slight difference in the type of hot, but suffice to say both involve drips of sweat down the back and bug bites night and day. Summer blows in Asia.

I was thinking about writing of my (blessed!) return to Frog’s Glen—a kind of no-place-like-home monologue—but who needs to read one of those again?

This morning however it finally came to me. As I sat on our back porch overlooking the garden we continue to build each day, I knew what I actually wanted to write about.

When we set out to design and build Frog’s garden, Toru had only a few thoughts—mostly specific local Japanese plant requests—and all were just fine with me.

But worryingly he also kept saying that we needed a lawn. “It’ll be great for the dog,” or something like that.

The dog he is referring to is Terashima-kun, a whippet. Not a hyped out Jack Russell. Whippets spend 95% of their lives on sofas. And Tera is a messed-up rescue to boot—the guy grew up in a metal box somewhere and still doesn’t even get what a toy is. He lays on the deck, licks his dick, and occasionally looks at the grass—he has never once run around on it.

Ah, grass. For me, an escaped suburban Californian, there really couldn’t be any garden choice more prosaic. Well, a huge bank of what we called ice plant when I was a kid would be even more so, but lawn is truly channeling the burbs.

I mumbled about difficulty, water, care, and anything else I could think of, but considering the kid had so few “garden musts” (he normally carries lists of hundreds of demands for any project) I knew I was not getting out of the lawn.

Be fair, I thought. Toru literally designed Frog’s Glen and almost independently managed a year’s worth of planning meetings and negotiations with the builders. He should have his damn lawn.

I started to do some YouTube research. In case you don’t know, or should you also be thinking about laying some turf, there’s an entire netherworld out there of Lawn Gurus eager to tell you how to soil prep, PH adjust, ground level, plumb, plant, feed, mow, weed, maintain, and repair grass.

While I associate lawns with middle-class suburban housing tracts of Los Angeles County, Japan actually does have a long history of bringing grass into garden design. We tend to think of a Japanese garden composed of gravels, rocks, bamboo, and manicured pines and azaleas, but if you really think about it, a patch of beautifully maintained grass is often an element as well. The country has about 50 domestic varieties specially bred for local weather and to hold back prevalent weeds and pests, so I knew that when we finally came to purchase seed or turf we would choose a Japanese strain.

You don’t need to hear the stories of us (and Toru’s sister) prepping this old, rocky, long-fallow rice paddy for lawn installation for three weeks nor about how we laid, watered, and fed the turf in early Spring. Search on YouTube for things like “Why did I ever” and “lay lawn” for a thousand videos that will walk you through the nightmare.

Let’s just say the job got done. And I think well. The grass is deep emerald and growing like gangbusters.

But why this morning did I think to write about this one element of Frog’s Glen? As I sat on our deck resting with coffee after having deep-watered, Toru was in the sunshine doing the Japanese Haunch Squat clipping weeds out of the grass one by one. While we do use some targeted herbicides on a few extra pesky weed types, Toru found out (thank you, Japanese YouTube) that clipping weeds one by one just below the soil surface will kill weeds permanently.

As I watched him, I thought only here on this weird island.

Clip! One down and only 850 more to go. He methodically worked, totally focused on surgical strike perfection. Clip! Two down and only 849 more to go.

Hey what am I going to do, criticize? Not only is this guy in the sun hand-perfecting grass, but he’s taking a ton of responsibility for having chose a lawn, which in my world would have been wood chips and gravel paths.

And “his lawn” looks great, I have to admit.

Japanese grass varieties are called “warm weather,” because in the winter they go fully brown and dormant. It’s actually a fantastic look for the garden overall so I’m looking forward to those cold Japanese mornings seeing the tan lawn framed by winter-strong bushes and shrubs. It’s the escaped Californian in me—I’m just a big sucker for four real seasons now.

Tell me

Have you ever laid turf? Are you glad you did? Does your dog run? Tell me in the comments. If you’re nice, I may let you know what a neighbor lady just yesterday said about the Super Mega American-Made Soaker Sprinkler I use on Frog’s Glen. (She wants one.)