Is the Era Over for Sacramento Front Lawns?

Are front lawns in Sacramento over? Experts are saying that the era of the lawn in the West has seen better days. Some cities in the Southwest have front yard ordinances that prohibit lawns all together. Lawns are a pain-in-the-butt to maintain. I became so busy in real estate over the years that I no longer have time to mow our front lawn, so we hired a gardener. Then, after staring at the crabgrass and all the other crap that has inched into our 1/4 acre of grassy paradise over a few decades, we decided to kill it all, spray RoundUp everywhere, and put in a brand new lawn, specifically designed to be drought tolerant.

Except our gardener, with his fancy riding mower that he just bought, transfers seeds and bits of other neglected lawns into our pristine environment. In days of extreme heat, I can practically watch the weeds grow and spread. Crabgrass especially. The stuff nightmares are made from. The only way to get rid of the crabgrass is to grab a spade and dig them up myself. Which turns me into fanatical lawn woman — which I don’t want to be.

In fact, as I’ve been reading books about moving to the Big Island on Hawaii, a lawn filled with big ol’ piles of lava seems a better choice to me. I know you probably can’t imagine why a person of relatively sound mind would want a yard to look like the day the Earth blew up after a nuclear holocaust, like in the movie Tank Girl, but there are good reasons for it:

• Reason #1, you don’t have to water it.
• Reason #2, you don’t have to mow it.
• Reason #3, you don’t have to spray chemicals and pesticides.

Lava rock just sits there. True, it doesn’t support the vegetation that people move to Hawaii to gaze upon such as palm trees and exotic anthuriums, but it’s maintenance free. It would be almost like living in Las Vegas, with an ocean but without the casinos and extreme heat. You might not know this, but because the weather and soil conditions in Hawaii can cause trees to grow 10 feet a year, you might have to mow your lawn 2 to 3 times a week!

I was thinking about that when I looked at a lawn in Roseville this weekend. I’m listing more homes in Roseville. It was crabgrass city. In fact, if one dug up all of the crabgrass, I don’t think there would be any lawn left. It would be dirt. The seller asked if it was worth replacing the lawn. Well, in that price range, probably not, because although a new lawn would make the house sell faster, the cost would not be returned 100%. So, look for a new listing, a home in Roseville, to come on the market later this week. Just don’t spend any time staring at the lawn, OK?

Here is a link to read up on Sacramento front lawn ordinances: what you can and cannot do to your Sacramento front lawns in the city. These ordinances do not apply to Roseville.