You see a lawn that needs help, I see a happy vibrant niche polyculture...

This is our lawn. Well, it's not all of our lawn, there are places where the lawn is really lush, deep green and thriving. This is what our lawn looks like if it's only grass. Our front lawn, which is sloped, gets all day sun, and I mean ALL DAY SUN. Before we lived here the lawn was not taken care of, for years and years, it was entirely dead when we moved in, besides being lumpy and patchy. We watered, made some lovely compost tea for fertilizer, let the grass grow long to hopefully reseed itself, yet it was all to no avail. That grass is trashed. The only areas of grass that are doing well are living in relative harmony with what most people would call weeds. Here's an example,

Notice how lush everything is in this picture? The grass, looking very healthy, growing right along with prostrate spurge. Spotted Spurge, though labeled a common weed, is very useful in learning not only about the state of the lawn, but also the state of the soil. Spurge is considered an indicator plant when lawns are concerned. It tells you that the soil is too compact, arid, and that the grass was obviously very patchy and unhealthy before the spurge germinated.

So what does someone like me, who honestly couldn't care less about the grass itself, learn from the growth of the spurge? Well for one, the fact that it thrives in soil that is too compacted tell me that it has a lovely tap root that is great for breaking up soil, natures way of aerating the soil. It also tell me that it must bring valuable nutrients to the top of the soil, mainly because of the health of the grass around it, but also because that's what taproots are for, bringing nutrients up from deep underground. Last it tells me that there is more water getting down into the soil, this is from the taproots themselves, since they go deeper than the shallow roots of the grass, the water has a place to flow down into and essentially back up from those deep soil spots. Though having the spurge may not be desirable to most people when it's in the lawn, my landlady, for one, does not like it, it is desirable to know it's capabilities in other areas of the yard. I think that the grass is much healthier in the areas that it's sharing space with other plants, here's another example,

Look at that, healthy grass, spurge and cilantro all growing together quite happily. This is where, what I would call a niche polyculture is growing. I call it this because there are a few varieties of plants, all of whom essentially occupy the same niche, lowing growing, slender annuals. I know cilantro to be edible, most grass seeds are, but the milky white sap the spurge exudes may eliminate it's ability to be consumed; I don't know this for a fact, it just seems to make sense. These three plants, growing together, are doing better than a monoculture of any one of them. The grass is still growing, and it's essentially healing itself, with a little extra help.

Sadly my landlady was here yesterday and she was not such a big fan of the spurge as myself. Here's the essence of our conversation,

LL: Are those weeds in the lawn?

Me: No way, they are a native species that specialize in nutrient replacement and water retention in the     soil.

LL: Are you sure they aren't weeds? Have you tried using an herbicide on them?

Me: *shudder* umm no, I was just pulling them out by hand for a bit but I think the lawn is doing much better everywhere it's growing. Don't you think it's looks greener in those spots?

LL: Well yes, but my lawn is just lawn and it looks the best. I'm really not sure about all that plant, I think it's a weed, I'm going to look into it.

Me: ok, just let me know.

And then she left. I know she is going to come back and tell me to get rid of it, which is very sad, more so since the lawn is just going to go back to being thrashed without it. I went out today to go and pull some of the spurge up, from the front yard at least, and it started raining. A sign from mother nature to leave her perfect yard alone? Perhaps, but when it does come up, I know there's lots of nutrient mulch to be had.