HubMob Topic Of The Week: How to Build a Birdhouse with a Shovel

Believe it or not, the subject of the well-manicured lawn and its place in the home landscape has been controversial for many, many years.

As far back as the early 1700s, European landscape designers were spouting the aesthetic virtues of lawns to the landed gentry. Why? Because that's what the rich folk wanted to hear! (You don't get rich people to pay you big bucks by telling them crazy things like: "Plant corn. You can eat it." No, you start with big impractical things and make sure they know that all their neighbors already have all of them.)

Promoting lawns never failed to get these 18th century guys landscaping work because 1) lawns show off castles and gigantical manor homes beautifully by framing them in a soothing sea of green, 2) if you live in a gigantical manor house surrounded by a soothing sea of green then the whole world knows (without you having to say so) that you are so obscenely wealthy you can afford to not grow food on your property, and finally 3) lawns were labor intensive and as such only practical for people with large enough wads of money to employ a staff of gardeners and caretakers and landscape philosophers.

In other words, a lawn was a status symbol, marking the owner as a bonafide member of the ruling class. Aristocrats had lawns. Peasants had chickens and potato fields. The twain did not meet.

Before the Industrial Revolution, most American homes did not have lawns. The typical front yard consisted of a patch of hard dirt and maybe a small cottage flower garden. Whatever land was out back was used to grow vegetables, fruit trees, and a chicken or two. After America won its independence, visitors to the States brought back stories of a nation of yokels with yard birds, while American diplomats to Europe came back with serious lawn envy.

So, not to be outdone, American rich people planted lawns too. Even the White House got a lawn.

Then, in 1870, Elwood McGuire of Richmond, IN, invented the push mower--making it possible for the first time in history for ordinary working people to cultivate and care for a lawn of their very own. The invention was a wild success, and an entire industry grew up overnight around grass seed, fertilizers, crabgrass killers and insecticides, mowers and lawn equipment, and assorted turf experts and lawn services. By the 1950s the suburban lawn was inbued with a status similar to the lawns of aristocratic 17th century Europe: A well-kept lawn around a suburban tract home signalled to the rest of the United States that the owner was a successful member of the new and affluent middle class.

Aristocracy, in American hands, went mainstream. People loved it.

But sometime in the early to mid-70s, American dreams of Suburbia began to go all surreal and woozy. By the 1990s director Tim Burton was actively mocking the whole scene in the wildly popular film Edward Scissorhands, suburban housewives were being turned into droids in The Stepford Wives, and suburban dads were being eaten alive by sales sharks in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Suddenly suburbia had become declasse and more than a little bit creepy. Hippies were hitting middle age at about this same time and were finally coming into enough money to do hippie things to their own suburban lawns--like tearing them up completely in favor of wildflowers, buffalo grass, vegetable gardens and home grown hemp. Some people bought goats.

Today we've come full circle on the topic of lawns and status, with the hottest new trend involving professionally installed and maintained vegetable plots in Manhattan, something that NY food author and columnist Corby Kummer has labeled, "The highest form of luxury..." but others have snarkily dismissed as ecological snobbery, 'green chic', or "the $64 tomato."

Considering the current price of real estate in Manhattan, $64 might not cover that tomato. But-- your financial ability to grow it? Priceless!

Here is my somewhat-related question to you, dear Hubfellows:

As a nation, do we really have to perpetuate this gardening snottery? Can't we transcend this classist haute gardenne? Can't we all just get along? What ever happened to just enjoying your own time at your own home? Isn't it time to knock the perfact lawn off of its aristocratic pedestal?

If you are one of those people who actually enjoys mowing your lawn and spreading chemicals several times a year and obsessing over webworms and eyeing your neighbor's weedwacker like a it was a new form of subatomic weapon in an escalating neighborhood arms race, well, OK, don't let me rain on your parade. Get out those manicure scissors and just keep on pumping that phosphorus into the public water table until we all glow in the dark. I'm not fussy. And it would be kind of fun at Halloween.

But if you want to have some real fun, why not minimize your lawn and plant some cool shrubs and trees that will bring beautiful birds and wildlife into your yard instead? Wouldn't that be great for your kids and your grandkids?

Then, if times get really rough you can shoot those critters and eat them!

The wildlife, I mean.

Birds like fruit, seeds, caterpillars, and water, not necessarily in that order.

So if you want to bring birds into your yard, you have to plant things that feed birds. For example, if you have a dry patch of ground in full baking sun you might want to plant some perennial wildflowers that attract caterpillars.

Aesclepious tuberosa (butterfly weed) is a cultivar of milkweed that monarch caterpillars love to munch on, and later, when they become monarch butterflies, they will flit happily around the brilliant orange blossoms until some crested titmouse swoops down and digests them. Watching this kind of bucolic carnage is really good for kids, and the butterfly weed is indestructible once established. Other perennial plants that butterflies (and caterpillars, which are really just baby butteflies) like are Monarda, Buddleia (or 'butterfly bush'), lantana (annual in the northern U.S.), salvia, and veronica.

The American Cranberry Viburnum is a beautiful deciduous shrub that is loaded in the late summer and autumn with bright red, non-poisonous berries that birds love. The berries cling to the shrub all winter, adding color against the snow and giving you an instant bird feeder that you don't have to maintain. Another tree every home should have somewhere on the lot is the spring flowering Juneberry, also known as a Serviceberry or Shadblow. The clouds of white blossoms in late spring are gorgeous, and after that the tree is loaded with bluish-purple edible berries that never hit the ground because birds love them so much. Both of these shrubs are easy to grow, native to the U.S, and hard to kill.

Some perenniel plants form seed heads that bring desirable and entertaining birds into your yard in late summer and autumn. These include Rudbeckia ('black-eyed susans'), coneflowers both yellow and purple (echinacea), sunflowers of all types, and decorative perennial grasses like switchgrass and fountain grass. If you plant any of these, do not cut them back until early spring, since the remains of the plant will protrude through the snow and you can watch birds feed on the seed heads all winter long.

Finally, if you want to bring birds into your yard, include a water feature. This can be as simple as a clay dish or saucer that you fill with water and keep in the garden (just lay it right on the ground), all the way up to a designer bird bath or a professionally installed pond stocked with expensive Japanese koi. If you go the pond route with the expensive koi, you will also attract beautiful blue herons and other large fishing birds of prey, who will swoop down and eat those tasty expensive fish while your spouse screams in horror at the lost money.

You don't have to run out and kill your entire lawn so you can start all over with a blank slate. What you can do instead is just look around your property for areas you aren't using and are kind of 'dead' so far as interest and beauty goes. I like to have some lawn, but also lots of beds and shrubs that 'frame ' the lawn and even create indoor rooms and various areas to hang out and watch nature.

You can start by planting a few shrubs in corners of your yard. Choose locations that are visible from a window so you can see the birds visit on cold winter afternoons. Lift the sod at least six feet out from the mature plant circumference (not the size of the shrub at purchase) and follow some good planting instructions, then mulch well and water plenty the first year. Most shrubs will also appreciate a dousing three or four times with root stimulator, available at any retail garden center and not damaging to the environment.

Once you doscover how easy that project was, you can look for another place to plant perennials and install a small bird bath. Curve your bed, and again, don't make it too narrow. Six feet out is a minimum width. Six by twelve feet is a good starting size. You can always add more garden by lifting more sod later. Plant perennials that are hard to kill the first time you try this. Any kind of daisy or coneflower will spread rapidly and tolerate neglect, and the birds will appreciate the seeds and your efforts. They also make great cut flowers. Try coreopis, salvia, and veronica too.

If you live in a part of the U.S. that is located in zone 6 or warmer, consider planting buffalo grass instead of a conventional lawn. This hardy prairie grass stops growing at just a hair above where you want a lawn to be, is incredibly drought tolerant, and stays dark green and thick enough to crowd out weeds. Yes Virginia, you heard me correctly--There really is a lawn you don't have to mow or water or douse with chemicals. It doesn't get much easier than that .

Wildflower meadows are also wildly popular in some parts of the U.S. Keep in mind that there is an initial expense (and it isn't cheap), and also, you will have to either replant every three to five years or burn the meadow to the ground every other year to maintain all the wild plants. If you plant only once, in about three years you will have only a few yellow flowers left, since many, many wildflowers (especially the blues and pinks and reds) require regular abuse (abrasion and fire) in order to resprout. But wow, are these meadows gorgeous or what? If you have the cash and the inclination, give it a try.

Finally, if you live in a part of the country where water is scarce, consider a no-grass xeriscape. This trend is so hot (literally!) that if you just hung out a sign and had no experience whatsoever, you could be working 24/7 within a day or two (until you honk someone off by breaking a gasline or something). There are lots of great design and how-to books on xeriscaping, and a well-planned xeriscape will definitely win you bragging rights amongst your ecologically minded friends. Plus, xeriscapes are truly lovely and truly low to no-maintenance.

So that's my contribution to Hub Mob this week. Hope it was helpful or at least good for a laugh. Winter is coming, (at least it is coming up here in Michigan), and I don't know about you, but one of my favorite winter activities is daydreaming about all the things I might plant come spring (but probably won't).

So I'm off the library for daydream fodder.

Have fun! And keep on hubbing. Or mobbing.