OFF TOPIC UGLY lawn mowing stripes. Am I the only one?

[Richard P Wilson]

Moxiedad2001: Some of those straight rows in farmland are probably due to steering-by-satellite.

Sarge41

Some of them might be these days, but for a lot of years over here in the UK, its been a matter of pride among farmers to plough exactly straight and even furrows, controlled only by eye and skill. Anyone who doesn't is ridiculed! There are annual ploughing competitions for ditterent classes such as horse ploughing, vintage, trailed ploughs and modern which are judged on straightness and if all the vegetation has been buried. My neighbour has a shelf full of silver cups he's won in these competitions, with an old Allis Chalmers tractor.

[rmcphearson]

I think this is a throwback to the past. In the 1950's and 60' power reel mowers used a set of rollers to keep the blades at the proper height. A wheel at each rear corner would have allowed the blades to scalp a high spot in the middle. The result was that the rollers laid down the grass behind the reel and formed a stripe. Rollers were carried forward to the rotary mowers for several years. I had 2 different Bolens tractor mowers that used a full side to side set of rollers on their mower decks.

Even today professional baseball fields are mowed with machines that leave the striped pattern. For quite a few years Toro offered kits for many of their professional and home owner models to duplicate the stripes.

Yes, and the tacky stripes on golf courses has fallen out of favorite recently because someone realized that the stripes draw one’s attention to the stripes instead of the beautiful surroundings/landscapes. Augusta National is a good example. It looked like candy land years ago, made me want to puke. Now they deliberately mow so there are no stripes at all.

I have a tiny, manicured lawn of 100 sq ft. My 4year old daughter loves playing in it so much it’s amazing what a great investment it was.

[JRouche]

Out here in the "Desert-Southwest" xeriscape is the answer. BUT most want a small patch of green to break the monotony so a few square ft. of Buffalo Grass that need mowed every couple weeks by hand do the trick. :-)
...lew...

That Lew is exactly what I have . Minuse some things.
If I were to take a picture of my front yard now or tomarrow it would be an over grown patch of blue grass..

I have a very small spit of lawn. Bunch of plam trees though.. (desert)

My only grass is getting smaller. Hey, its the suburbs and water issuues.. JR