On Suburban Pressures & Shitty Gardening

It is barely the first weekend in May, and the bulk of my neighborhood has already mowed their lawns twice and pillaged the local gardening supply shops for all manner of mulches, perennials and quasi-legal pesticides. It should be noted that the bulk of my neighborhood comprises retirees, empty-nesters, icy housewives and their neutered husbands - none of whom are likely to even give a cursory, acknowledging head nod while passing, let alone give a guy a hint on how best to groom a lawn. What I'm trying to say is (i) these people either have or make a lot of time to dedicate to their home and its surroundings, and (ii) they are not the friendliest bunch.

Alternatively, the homes not populated by those listed above are pretty easy to spot, being the ones barely visible through the jungle of blinding dandelions. Their gardens are haphazardly assembled, barely weeded, and y'know, TOTALLY uncomplimentary to the community at large. While I am firmly in the latter of these two groups, judging eyes and unspoken peer pressures have me trying to present our property as if we were of the former - half-assedly I should add, as I have neither the free time nor the money to spend on these things.

Witness: me, last night, on my hands and knees in the front yard, dragging a "hand rake" (I don't know what these crazy gardening tools are actually called) over the dried and rocky garden soil in lieu of actually weeding it. Improvising! A thin layer of black pine mulch (as opposed to the suburban standard red cedar mulch, which I actually had intended to buy) was then spread over the garden, barely serving to hide the "hand tilled" mess of upturned weeds and grass and stones. From the road, it looks passable; up close, less so. There are many tricks involved in gardening that I have not made the effort to become privy to - I'm sure this is evident to the aforementioned list of dedicated trophy gardeners and pressurers of insecure home owners, but hopefully we get pity points for effort.

Why, oh why, do I care about these things?