One last post on the lawn tangent...

Hello, my name is Scott Perkins and I basically hate lawns. I know that sounds irrational, but it's true. I hate them. Green swaths of stuff that makes me sneeze but I have to mow it anyway. Water it, feed it, de-mossify it... and all the while I'm riding the Benedryl dragon. Today I am proud to say that I have approximately 25% less lawn to annoy me than I did on Monday. A minor victory but only one battle in the larger war on the American lawn. Getting rid of your lawn isn't easy, but as it happens, I have a twelve-step plan to help you get through it...

1. Convince yourself that you don't need a lawn.
2. Convince your spouse that you don't really need a lawn.
3. Realize that you need to decide what to do with all this bare ground you'll create (trip to garden store and local bookstore ensues).
4. Draw up an elaborate plan involving winding stone paths, raised beds and the sort of mature plantings that take decades to evolve on their own. Present these to your spouse.
5. Revise plans when your spouse wisely points out that you're not a Rockefeller and don't have any experience as a stonemason.
6. Remove part of the lawn and realize how pernicious grass really is.
7. Finish about1/4 of the project and find other pressing things to do.
8. Wait until you forget how pernicious grass really is (this may take some time, it took me two years).
9. Buy tool to make pernicious grass removal easier and boldly set forth to remove your pesky lawn.
10. Realize that new tool sucks and go buy a decent shovel and a large bottle of Advil.
11. Get really mad at the pernicious, evil, weedy little parasites that we laughingly call "grass" and vow to go outside and come back in your wheelbarrow or not at all.
12. Plant things that aren't grass and step back to take your Advil and ponder the next phase in your campaign, for there are lawns yet to be conquered...