Lawn of the Dead

THE REAL ESTATE VIEW BOOK in the back of a Plaistow pizza shop made the to-be-built split Cape home appear to be exactly what we were looking for—it fit our budget, it allowed for expansion in the future, and it all sat on a perfectly manicured patch of emerald green.

Lies. Not all of it—I’m sitting in that house right now, and it’s keeping the wind off me just fine. Just the part about dropping it all on a glorious, two-acre patch of verdant meadow.

The key phrase in the descriptive abstract was “to-be-built,” which means when we bought our home in the mid-’90s, what we were actually mortgaging was a patch of woods along a twisting country road in a rural southern New Hampshire town. There was no house, yet, and there certainly was no lawn. Not yet.

But eventually, there was a house. On a warm July morning, just months after spotting our future in the pizza-shop book, we signed on many lines and were handed the keys to a brand new home. It sat on a hill, looking exactly like the facsimile image, except for one detail: the lawn of our dreams would need time to grow. For now, the house sat atop a dirt pile with hay strewn across it, which, we were told, would protect the grass seed from birds. Give it a little time. It will grow, they said.

Also lies. First, a torrential rainstorm welcomed us to our new home, and washed all the hay and grass seed down the hill into the gravel driveway. And that’s where it took root.

Ever try to punch a lawn in the face? You can’t bully a lawn into existing, and you can’t pay it to grow. We invested in a heavy metal tractor, and we’d seed and water and fertilize, but the best we’d get were small, patchy crescents of grass that never seemed to join with their nearby malformed cousins to become anything resembling the putting green we envisioned.

We gave one of those lawn services a try, but they pretty much spray-painted the existing scrub green and went on their way. We fought with the yard every summer, only retreating when winter came and snow would cover our failure, mercifully putting it out of sight for a few months. Yet, inevitably, spring would arrive— all arrogant and warm—with a reminder that the battle would again be joined anew.

This went on until, one year, I glanced out the window and saw that where the snow had melted, raised lines twisted back and forth as if someone’s finger had traced long, looping channels into the ground. The more the snow melted, the more tunnels were revealed, scarring the gray landscape. That’s another important detail—it wasn’t the expected brown, patchy dormant growth rising up to mock us once again. What I saw was a sickly gray, devoid of any life-affirming chlorophyll whatsoever. It lay there in colorless, flaking layers. I glared at it. It continued to be a not-lawn.

We figured there was only one way to resurrect our zombie field, and that was to engage a pro. He took samples, looked under the ground’s papery surface, revealed we had moles and ants, and showed us that the top layer of soil had been scraped away when the house was built, leaving us with a thin skin obscuring sand below. But, he had a plan to make sure we had “the nicest lawn on this whole street.” We knew he meant business when, one morning, massive, prehistoriclooking machinery was rumbling back and forth, pummeling what was there and showing it who was boss. I felt a sense of schadenfreude watching a once-stubborn opponent humbled.

Add the thick layer of new, dark topsoil, an irrigation system and a prescribed plan of lawn care, and the great rebirth began. One morning, a barely perceptible, gauzy green— almost a haze—began to insinuate itself atop the dark soil. A few days later, new growth. A month later, we were wading through the lush, healthy grass we first saw in the listing years ago.

Here’s the thing, though—the growing grass won’t stop now. I could mow that lawn every other day, and it would still seem untamed a few hours later. We mow and mow and mow. We made a Faustian bargain with our lawn guy, and payment comes due. Like, every few days. Forever.

A lesson to that younger, would-be homeowner all those years ago who dreamed of standing in the middle of a picturesque, perfectly green lawn: Be careful what you wish for. NHH

By Bill Burke | Illustration by Carolyn Vibbert