Lawn

A RESIDENT of the Philadelphia Protestant Home for the Aged on Tabor Road lets loose with a hose to give the shrubs and flowers a good watering. It was a nice change of pace for the woman, who said she had been hauling the water by hand since Memorial Day because the hose had been out of order.

"MR. JONES," the detective said pleasantly. "Thanks for coming in voluntarily to tell us what you did. " "Thanks for letting me get it off my chest," I said as his partner stared at me across his battered metal desk. "It's been killing me ever since it happened. " There was an uncomfortable silence. Maybe "killing" wasn't the word I should've used. "So, anyway," the detective said, "I'm going to read you your rights. " "Rights? I thought I was just gonna confess and be on my way. You didn't say anything about reading my rights.

In this year of national drought, when you look back on a spring of turf building and lime spreading and look out on a lawn the color of a collie with mange, think of David E. Benner. Benner's lawn in Solebury, Bucks County, is green. But he never set out a lawn sprinkler. He doesn't own a rotary spreader. And he threw away his rusted, unused lawn mower 12 years ago. Benner's lawn is moss. "Everybody's brainwashed into having a grass lawn . . . and it's ridiculous," says Benner, 59, a professor of horticulture at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown.

A slow-moving death squad is marching beneath the lush - and the not-so- lush - lawns of many Main Line homes, although it will be late August before the casualty count begins. The invasion began in March, when Japanese beetles in the larval stage came out of hibernation, ravenous after a long winter's nap. Their dietary staples are tender turf roots and the roots of young trees and shrubs. "Don't be fooled by the fact that your lawn looks nice and green now, because we have had a lot of regular rain," said Richie Valentine, retired greenskeeper for the Merion Golf Club.

Consider the myriad lawn problems of Matthew W. Strader. People expect his lawn to be a vivid green, even when the summer sun has turned every other lawn a dull brown. They expect his lawn to be free of stones, ruts and bald spots - even after they've tromped across it in their spikes, sped over it in their little carts and sliced chunks out of it with their clubs. Strader is the golf-course superintendent at Melrose Country Club, which encompasses 130 acres of rolling, tree-studded turf straddling the Tacony Creek in Melrose Park, Montgomery County.

For the first time in a decade and a half, I have the finest looking yard in the neighborhood. At last, my lawn stands out as the best among best. It has no peer. I've seen neighbors furtively cast jealous gazes at my wilting brown expanse and become instantly annoyed that their lawn isn't as dormant. These neighbors are former members of the "Green Club" - the clique which, in a bygone era, lived and died by the lushness of their chemically muscled grass. Nothing was too good, no step too tough, no dollar too frugal not to be spent on manicuring the natural carpet surrounding their home.

Sheep rustlers are back again. Ornamental lawn sheep rustlers, that is. They hit the area last week, rounding up six in Upper Gwynedd Township and three in Towamencin Township. Those fuzzy creatures with wooden legs planted in manicured turf have cropped up on suburban lawns in the last two years and along with them have come the rustlers, mostly youths playing pranks, police said. "The last time sheep were rustled in the area they turned up in a herd on the Lansdale Borough Hall lawn," said an Upper Gwynedd police dispatcher.

William Morton is worried about the little stream that runs through his front yard. Most of the farmland surrounding Morton's four-acre homesite on East Copeland Road in East Bradford will be developed soon, adding at least 120 homes to the area. "I just started thinking, they're building beautiful houses, people are going to want beautiful lawns to go with them," said Morton. "Now, what if everybody decides to use something on their grass, pesticides, chemicals. Whatever they use, it's going to end up down here in this stream, and from here it goes right into the Brandywine and people's drinking water.

It is clear to me now why the Soviet Union clings to its burdensome, ill- gotten empire in Eastern Europe - as well as its latest territory, Afghanistan. What is also coming into sharp focus is the Reagan Administration's preoccupation with "freedom" in Nicaragua, Grenada and farther-flung places, such as Angola. You see, the other day while I was mowing the lawn, which is really an underdeveloped weedy parcel within a four-acre hay field, I noticed that the "civilized" plot was progressively expanding.

It's time to give your lawn its first haircut of the season. It may also be time to buy a new lawn mower. Here are some things to consider, no matter which side of the push/electric/gasoline debate you're on. Know thyself: Do you enjoy mowing the lawn, or does it become a chore after the first few outings? Would it be worth it to hire the neighbor's kid or to contract with a service? If you like mowing or think that the exercise, even on the stickiest July day, would be helpful, then doing it yourself is the way to go. Know thy lawn: How big is your yard?

ONCE UPON a time, spring was my favorite time of year. When April turned to May, and raindrops gave way to sunshine, I was in my element, because this was the month in which all my hard work paid off. This was the time of year when my grass would start to grow. But, alas, my kids have spent the last few years destroying my yard work. Thanks to their vile habit of digging, biking and skating across the tender blades of grass that once made me the envy of the block, my lawn now resembles the Mojave Desert.

FEBRUARY is almost over, and winter will soon come to an end. Oh, sure, March might hit us with another cold day or two. We might even get a little snow. But let's be honest: February is winter's last hurrah, and when its dark frigid nights slip away, the cold will be replaced by something even worse: spring. Why do I prefer the icy-gray winter to the warm, bursting colors of spring? The answer is quite simple, really. During the winter, people stay in their houses. When spring arrives, people come out. And so do my allergies.

MOVITA Johnson-Harrell tried to get away. "The summer of 2007 . . . I turned to my husband and said: 'My sons will not become statistics on the streets of Philadelphia. It's time to go,' " Johnson-Harrell said Monday. She moved her family to Lansdowne to keep her children from the city's violent gun culture. Despite the move, in 2011, Johnson-Harrell buried her 18-year-old son, Charles Johnson. He was shot in East Germantown in his car, a victim of mistaken identity, waiting for his sister.

Playing on the lawn at the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown Wednesday were (from left) Payton Borneman, 2, of Perkasie; Milo McIntyre, 3, of Doylestown; Connor Hall, 2, of Perkasie; and Stella Freeman, 2, of Perkasie. A caption with a different version of this photograph Thursday contained incorrect identifications.

Squish the squash vine borer. The borer appears in late June/early July when the moths emerge from their cocoon stage in the ground. Although the adult squash borer is a moth, it looks more like a wasp; it has an orange body, black spots, and two sets of wings, one metallic green and one transparent. If you notice these insects circling around your summer and winter squash and pumpkin patch during the daytime, be assured that damage will follow. After mating, the moth lays its eggs at the base of the stem.

Buoyed by the success of its expanded slate of pop acts, the Mann Center for the Performing Arts is adding a second stage. The Skyline Stage and Lawn, opening at the end of July with two concerts by ethereal Icelandic band Sigur Rós, perches on a newly annexed three or four acres of Fairmount Park leased to the Mann by the city. The patch of green, where listeners will stand, is larger than the current lawn; the stage is smaller and portable. The changes are in response to an evolving relationship between musicians and fans, says Mann president and CEO Catherine M. Cahill.

LONGPORT, N.J. - Burned and tattered, the Episcopal and American flags were nonetheless set in place on either side of the makeshift altar. The wooden offering plate was damaged. The silver chalice had been dug out of the rubble by firefighters. Most of the prayer books were destroyed, but one with a few unscorched pages would constitute the Gospel reading. With both the sparkling blue waters of the bay and the badly charred historic church and tower in their view, two dozen members of the Church of the Redeemer in Longport came together Sunday morning to pray on a small lawn beside the remains of their house of worship, destroyed during the violent storm that ravaged parts of the Jersey Shore early Saturday.

Michaelann Velicky's "front-yard farm" started out modestly enough. In 2009, she planted a traditional American Indian Three Sisters garden out there — more than a dozen mounds of corn, beans, and squash — covering a 16-square-foot patch of lawn down by the road. The idea behind the ancient design is simple: The crops act like three devoted sisters, literally supporting and complementing one another. No sooner had the stuff germinated than cars began slowing — and stopping outright — in front of the house, which sits on one-third of an acre on Spring Avenue in Elkins Park, a quiet suburban neighborhood with conventional landscapes.

Tyrirk Harris, the Tacony man who riddled his neighbor with bullets in February after the man complained about Harris' dogs relieving themselves on his lawn, fired out of fear, his attorney told a Judge Tuesday. Franklin Manuel Santana, 47, was legally drunk and leveled threats when he came to Harris' front door on Torresdale Avenue between Magee Avenue and Hellerman Street on Feb. 14, defense lawyer Jack McMahon said during a preliminary hearing. Harris, 27, was minding his own business when Santana "invaded his domain, his castle," said McMahon, who argued that the most serious charge his client should face is voluntary manslaughter.

A 24-year-old Schwenksville woman was charged today with driving while drugged up after she allegedly crashed through a fence, critically injuring a man mowing his lawn. Authorities say Megan Marie Rossi had consumed a cocktail of prescription drugs before driving her 2005 Buick Rendezvous on Laver Road in the Schwenksville section of Limerick Township about 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 6. Investigators found that Rossi was on the east side of the road and approaching a driveway on the unit block when her SUV rammed through a split-rail fence and onto a lawn, striking a man riding a mower.