LAWNS, WEEDS, HISTORY: On a beautifully sunny day in Bradford, Jerry Oliphant stopped in to drop the following reminder:

“To those who poison their lawns, remember that herbicides and pesticides used do not know the difference between the “bad bugs” and the butterflies or bees. All of them are being killed.”

We took the note and wondered a little about lawns and how they got to this point — spraying for bugs and trying to de-weed until only green grass grows — so we did a little research and found out a few interesting tidbits to share. Not much on pesticides, but lots about lawns.

The American lawn was not always as manicured as we see it today. According to many sources, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about longing for the “more natural front yard, rich in varieties of weeds, nettles, clovers, and dandelions,” as he was visiting London and disgusted with the “pretentious” lawns he saw on his journey.

Greek gardens, way back in 400 B.C., were a mix of green grasses and weeds, alongside wildflowers. Their lawns were intentionally small and manageable. They hand-watered them and tended to them carefully.

For hundreds of years, lawns were not cut. Walt Whitman wrote about “the beautiful uncut hair of graves.” And then, the lawnmower was invented. The first one, by Edwin Budding, an Englishman, in 1830. An American Army Colonel improved on the lawnmower in 1919. Edwin George produced the first gas powered lawn mower, which is what led to the manicured lawns we see today. Turf Builder and Weed and Feed followed close behind the mowers; 1928 and 1946, respectively.

Today there are city and town ordinances directing how high grass is allowed to be before receiving a citation.