12-12-12 HOW TO CARE FOR GRASS, TREES AND SHRUBS
Today the subject is “Grass.” This subject you’ll be able to easily understand. Properly done, taking care of your grass involves little time or money.
DON’T’S
*You don’t need to buy fertilizer because enough Nitrogen (N2), which is the element that makes grass green, comes from rain in most areas of the United States. *You don’t need to aerate. Instead let the night crawlers do the aerating. *You don’t need to water too often. This forces roots of the grass to grows long and strong in search of water
It saves money, time and stress by not fertilizing, sprinkling crab grass additives, hiring people, storage costs, buying equipment, transportation costs, aerating so and so forth. If you do, I mean don’t do any of these things your lawn will look professionally taken care of. Course, a bazillion people who make money selling you this stuff such as John Deere, Caterpillar, garden suppliers, politicians, newspaper advertisers, and so on, prefer you not to think this way.
DO’S
Oh, you'll need a lawn mower. The type of lawn mower most people prefer has the horizontal circular blade. *Do set the cutter bar about four inches off of the ground. The reason is if the grass is allowed to grow about four inches tall, and you won't have dandelions and other weeds to contend with. *Cut and water only as needed. Let the cuttings mulch the lawn.
Next let’s talk about weed eaters. I’m reminded of this subject as I am watching the yard care crew that is cutting the grass at my condo, while I write. They are killing the trees with their weed eaters. They are, cutting the bark off the base of the trees at the same time as they cut the grass around the trees. The younger the tree the more the damage and the more likely to slow the growth or in a worst case scenario the death of the tree, especially in a dry year. No shade for the tenants and home owners. The big surprise is the federal government gives green money to weed eater users to do all this killing.
The Weed Eater was invented by a man by the name of George Ballas. He got his big idea after a poisonous snake bit a worker who was trimming his lawn with shears. In 1975 George showed off his Weed Eater, a popcorn can rigged up with some wires. It made a helluva noise. He died last Saturday or maybe it was Sunday at age the age of eighty-five.
He was a dance instructor, developer, and inventor and marketer who built hotels, patented an adjustable table and marketed an early portable phone. But it was the Weed Eater—of which he invented both the concept and the name that made him a fortune while sparking a revolution in lawn care. He introduced the device in the early 1970 and by 1976 was selling $50 million dollars’ worth of them annually.
The son of Greek immigrants who ran a restaurant in northern Louisiana, Mr. Ballas served in the Air Force during World War II and the Korean War. After getting out of the service, he married Maria Louisa Marulanda, a dance instructor whom he met when she taught him the tango. She had appeared in films, including the 1949 western "Rio Grande,” and the couple went on to give performances together. Mr. Ballas went into the dance business, managing several Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire studios. His son, Corky Ballas, became a professional dancer, and his grandson, Mark Ballas, has appeared on seven seasons of "Dancing with the Stars," including partnering with Bristol Palin in season eleven. In the late 1960s, George opened “Dance City USA” in an unused cinema in Houston, boasting that the 43,000-square-foot dance studio was the largest in the world. He called it a supermarket of babes, booze and big bands all under one roof.
With his lawn business thriving, Mr. Ballas wanted his lawn—all three acres of it—to look good. His search for an alternative to time- and labor-intensive shears gained urgency when a worker he had hired was hospitalized after being bitten by a copperhead. Mr. Ballas said the idea for the Weed Eater came to him while he was in a car wash, contemplating the big rotating bristles that cleaned hard-to-reach corners yet somehow didn't scratch the finish. Drawing from that inspiration, he rigged up an old popcorn can with some wires and hooked it to a rotating edger, and the first string trimmer was born, but it ripped up the turf and tore away the grass," Mr. Ballas told the New York Times in 1977. He hired an engineer to design new models that substituted monofilament fishing line for wire and ran on electricity and gas. He dubbed it "Weed Eater" and held several patents on it. When Mr. Ballas failed to find a company interested in distributing the device, he decided to sell it himself. He gave each new model a pet name—the first was a "Weedie" and the second a "Clippie"—and designed logos for each based on portraits of his children with unruly, grass-like hair. He used a high-visibility ad campaign, including spots on the Super Bowl and a sponsorship role in the 1977 David Frost interviews of former President Richard Nixon. In 1977, Mr. Ballas sold Weed Eater Inc. to Emerson Electric Co. for an undisclosed sum that his daughter, Winnie Jamaal, called a largely fortune. Mr. Ballas also taught entrepreneurship at Rice University in Houston. He continued to tinker with new inventions, and at one point marketed football-helmet-sized portable phone that found few takers.
“A Weed Eater," Mr. Ballas told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1998, "comes along once in a lifetime." Any questions you can email me, ask the yard and garden “We Can Help” section of Home Depot, or Abigail Van Buren.
KARL WALLACE
To read more Karl Wallace stories go to: karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
