Weeds or White Flowers?

I'm about to go out and mow my lawn for the last time this season. And this memorable moment has caused me to reflect on this past summer with my lawn. We've come to some agreements.

There are many weeds in my lawn. When I keep it mowed down, they aren't as noticeable. I've actually been able to remove most of the dandelions, which was very fun and satisfying. But the morning glory has certainly done very well in my yard.

We don't have a sprinkling system, nor do we have our own lawn mower. I manually water the lawn with a sprinkler, moving it every 20 minutes. Then the lawn grows...and the morning glory flourishes. I have to borrow my dad's lawn mower, which isn't always readily available, so the lawn will often go weeks without a good trim. During this time, those pretty white flowers of morning glory just bloom quite happily.

I did try fighting them the first year I moved into my house, about 3 years ago. I sprayed, pulled and sprayed again. Of course this is a plant that has its roots sunk to China, so there's no getting rid of it. The best I could do, I decided, was to keep the lawn down, so the flowers couldn't spread more. But alas, because the lawn mower isn't always available, there have been a number of times where the lawn is literally overrun with long, creeping, vines and pretty white flowers. Fighting them did no good. Keeping them mowed back was inconsistent, so one day, as I drove into the driveway, cringing as I passed my yard with its marvelously blooming flowers, and dying grass (I thought maybe if I stopped watering I could kill the weeds. Nope. I killed the grass most effectively, but the weeds seem to do very well with limited water) that I might as well admit defeat. Suddenly those white flowers were not an ugly weed or a prolific problem, they were beautiful. No one else in the neighborhood had such a pretty white lawn...

Since that time, the lawn and I have this agreement: I mow when I can. I keep it watered the best I can. As much of the grass as can grow I will tend and nurture, and when those white flowers start blooming across the lawn, I simply admire their beauty...until I can mow them down.

So today is my mow day. There are no white flowers growing today. They've reached their peak, and have now gone dormant. So I can pretend I have an immaculate lawn all winter and even the beginning of next spring, when again, I will have the opportunity to admire those little white flowers.

- Chel