It Is Green

Some kind of grass. That’s all I know, unplanted, unwanted, uncultivated but outgrowing the rest of my lawn—and spreading. My mower guy drives away and this stuff starts in. By evening it’s sticking up an inch above the other grass. By the next week it’s twelve inches tall, waving in the breeze. And I am not kidding.

So far it has been identified as quack grass, tall fescue, common something or other, and nut sedge—and all by the lawn experts, one telling me that the other probably doesn’t really know.

There’s my lawn mower guy, the owner of the company, in fact. He said, “It’s not tall fescue, it’s quack grass. Go up to Zamzow’s and get a quack grass treatment.” Okay, I thought, a little exasperated, I can do that. Later, after he finished mowing, he said, “Carol, call your Emerald Lawn people. They should be treating for that already or at least should have something on the truck to take care of it. Just tell them it’s quack grass.” Good idea, I thought.

But, over the phone, the Emerald Lawn girl said, “Well, you chose not to have the mid-spring treatment. That probably would have taken care of it.” Oh great. Whatever the heck it is, it’s my fault.

I said, “Well, you may remember, I did that because we had a dog at the time and no grass in the back yard to treat. Besides, my lawn mower guy says it’s not tall fescue but quack grass.”

“Well,” she said (the snippy little thing), “I’m sure Dave knows more about it than your lawn mower guy.”

Dave is the one who last year called it tall fescue.

“But my lawn mower guy is the owner of the company,” I said. “He’s seen a lot of grass.”

“No,” she said. “Dave would know.”

“Okay. Ask Dave to call me, please,” I said.

Two weeks passed, and Dave never called. Meanwhile, the stuff is out there . . . growing. Finally, a few days ago, the Emerald Lawn guy, name of Keith, sprayed something down (I wish I had been home) and left a note. “Carol,” the note read, “I didn’t find any crab grass, but I found and treated the nut sedge. Don’t water for four hours.”

Crab grass. Who said anything about crab grass? I know it isn’t crab grass.

So, did the Emerald Lawn girl—who knew everything—write crab grass instead of quack grass? Or didn’t she write anything? Does Keith know what he’s talking about? Whatever. Either they got it wrong or they got it right, and I still don’t know what the heck it is, but I know it grows. And it’s still out there. So I must conclude that Keith’s treatment of it—nut sedge or whatever it is—was very kind treatment, indeed, because the stuff is flourishing. Silly me. I thought "treatment" meant the stuff would be dead. Dead, however, is not the word for it, no, not the right word at all. Thrive. That word comes to mind. Threatening. That word also comes to mind as I find new patches of it throughout the lawn.

And I haven’t even mentioned the gardening lady who writes for the local paper. I emailed her about it. She wrote back, “Who told you it was tall fescue?” (Should I feel defensive?) She said it was probably not tall fescue; it was most likely common . . . I really don’t remember. She said to put some Roundup in a small bottle with a sponge top and swab each blade of the whatever by hand. Is she kidding? She needs to come out here. Then we can talk about swabbing.

If my husband were here, it would all be different. He would be my lawn mower guy, as he always was. Which is not to say he would know what the stuff is, but he might. Maybe he would put down a little weed and feed, and that might do the trick. But even if he didn’t know, my concern about this whole matter would be filtered. I would do my worrying, my fussing, my complaining to him. Maybe I would mention it too often. Maybe I would become slightly unreasonable, expecting him to just take care of it so that one day I’d walk out to the front lawn and the stuff would be gone.

But he’s not here, and the trouble with that extends well beyond whatever is uglying up my lawn. All things, it seems to me, were less difficult than they are now. Whatever it was, whatever we had to deal with, if he couldn’t fix it, at least he was here at the end of the day. And that fixed a lot of things.