A Rocky Start

Our yard wasn't all that needed a makeover

- By LYNNE HARTKE, Chandler, Arizona

The mayor of Chandler, Arizona—better known to me as my husband, Kevin—strode into the kitchen as I was putting the final touches on dinner.

“Great news,” he said, sampling the stew simmering on the stove. “The city is offering a rebate to homeowners as an incentive to replace their grass.”

“We've been talking about putting in rock and desert-friendly plants for years,” I said. “It would be nice to have a yard that uses less water.”

“Yep,” Kevin said. “This is the time to do it!”

“You mean like now?”

“Of course,” Kevin said. “Is there a problem?”

“Aren’t you heading into budget season?” Our city’s fiscal year begins each June. From experience, I knew that Kevin’s schedule would be packed with meetings throughout the spring.

“I have a window before the pace picks up,” he said. “We can make it happen.”

“Great,” I said. That worked for me. Kevin would take charge of the project. I would be his helper. The yard was his responsibility, after all, the same way grocery shopping was mine.

A few days later, armed with hoes and shovels, we decided to tackle the first step: removing the existing grass. But it proved to be an enormous undertaking. The roots of our Bermuda grass extended several feet into the ground. There was no digging it out. I took on the task of spraying the lawn with an herbicide recommended by the city, waiting, then spraying again—repeating the process over and over. There was no going forward until every blade of grass and the roots underneath were dead.

Meanwhile, I’d gone to the city’s water conservation department website and downloaded three pages of single-spaced instructions we'd have to follow to get the rebate. I’d read the list, put it away and planned to come back to it. The details were mind-numbing. Kevin, however, showed not the faintest interest in any of it. This was supposed to be his project!