Making The Grass Greener On Your Side

While the lazy days of summer are growing shorter, Americans are refusing to let go for a few weeks more.

We're a nation, on vacation — a time we ask ourselves, what would really be fun right now? Perhaps boating, a round of golf, or how about mowing the front lawn, asks CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.

"It gets mowed twice a week," Mike Walls says of his lawn.

In Hilliard, Ohio, Walls, and his wife, Jenny, are self-described lawn fanatics. For some people, working in the yard is therapy. For the Walls, it's a sign they may need therapy.

"He's obsessive with the yard and the grass and the lines being straight and the edging and then I like the gardening and the flowers," Jenny says.

By one estimate there are 58 million lawn-owners in the country, turning what was simple maintenance into a national pastime.

"It's been known to be contagious, though, and we don't think that's a bad thing. Our neighbors see us mowing and they come over and ask us how we get the lawn like this," Mike says.

Mike has even been known to mow in the rain.

Mike admits that he becomes irked when neighbors fail to keep their lawns mowed.

"I have a tendency to wander aimlessly down the road a little ways and do another person's lawn because of that," he says.

Professor Ted Steinberg studies the environment's role in American history.

"I have etched into my mind — really burned into my mind — this memory of my father mowing, watering, fertilizing. He used to set up the sprinkler in such a way so that every single blade of grass would get some water," Steinberg says.

In the postcard perfect community of Shaker Heights, Ohio, he found the perfect subject for his next book — right out his own front door.

"I took a walk in the neighborhood and I just couldn't believe my eyes. The lawns of some of my neighbors made the perfect lawns of my Long Island past look like a bunch of beat up old cow pastures. I thought to myself, 'What's up with this,'" Steinberg says.

That curiosity turned into "American Green: The Obsessive Quest For The Perfect Lawn."

"There are anywhere between 25 and 40 million acres of turf in the U.S., which is an area about the size of Kentucky — perhaps as large as Florida. So I would say yes, it's a deeply entrenched American institution," he says.

An American institution, though not an American invention.

"The word lawn goes back to the 16th century. It comes from the old English for an open space or glade," Steinberg says.

In Elizabethan England, lawns were the exclusive playgrounds of the rich.

By the 18th century, at least, lawns, could be found on the grounds of those who were wealthy enough to afford people to mow them using hand tools, scythes and things of that nature.

Our forefathers transplanted the concept to the new world.

"Washington and Jefferson had lawns. Although my guess is they probably weren't perfect lawns the way we think of them — the lawn today: weed free, super green, expanse," Steinberg says.

That kind of lawn is a distinctly modern invention and now a $40 billion a year industry born with suburbia.

"Between 1947 and 1951, the Levitts built 17,000 new homes in Levittown. And this was something that was repeated, literally, across the nation as large scale builders put in subdivision after subdivision," Steinberg says.

Today, your lawn makes a statement about whether your life has curb appeal. Pride's on the line and in the lawn. If this were just about appearances, it would all be harmless enough, but ironically, Steinberg says, sometimes what's green is actually bad for the environment.

Regarding turf grass, Steinberg says, it needs on average one to two inches of water per week. Which even on a small lawn could add up to something around 10,000 gallons of water per summer.

Also, Steinberg says, "the EPA does not investigate the use of these chemicals. And the mixtures that are commonly used in various lawn care products. So there's some question — absolutely — as to the safety of these products.

So what's driving our power-mower to perfection? How did lawns go from humble ground cover to status symbol?

Some say you can trace this new national pastime to our traditional one.

At Fenway Park, Boston truly becomes, "Emerald City."
"I think you have one opportunity to make a first impression, whether you're a home owner, a corporate lawn space, or certainly Fenway Park, and so when someone sees it for the first time, you really have to have that wow factor," David Mellor, the head groundskeeper, says.

For two decades, Mellor has groomed baseball diamonds and golf courses. He's also written a book, "Picture Perfect," about how you too can have a front yard with that "wow" factor.

But homeowners shouldn't feel pressured. The perfect lawn, Mellor says, doesn't have to be perfect.

"You know it doesn't have to be weed-free. I remember when I wanted to have the perfect lawn, not a weed in it, perfectly manicured. Then I had two daughters who taught me through their eyes how beautiful clover flowers are, to make necklaces out of, how beautiful, in their eyes, dandelions were and I realized then, you know what, that's what lawns are all about," Mellor says.

Back in Hilliard Ohio, lawn fanatics Mike and Jenny walls watching their granddaughter Ella, would probably agree. But they're still proud to have the nicest lawn on the block.

"There's a phrase that the grass is always greener on the other side of the street," Mike says, adding, "but in this case, probably not."