Las Vegans among those devoted to maintaining pristine lawns

Kimberley McGee

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2000 | 9:12 a.m.

It's a war of the soul. It's an attack against the elements.

And it's a national obsession: lawn care.

Last year $8.9 billion was spent on do-it-yourself lawn care by 43 percent of American homeowners, according to a Gallup Poll for the Professional Lawn Care Association of America.

Some homeowners -- or yard owners -- spend hours each week, even every day, examining, pruning and tinkering with their lawns in a private battle for beauty, order and balance.

To some it's merely a yard. To others it's a personal statement.

Some hints that a loved one or neighbor might be obsessed with their lawns: They are frequently preoccupied with the PH balance of their grass; the level of their sprinkler heads above the grass is measured and the water evenly distributed; plants are monitored, and any unexplained dead patches are a personal affront; and they have a detailed argument for the perfect way to mow a lawn -- criss-cross or back and forth.

Business and family man Butch Condon falls into this category.

On the outside Condon may look like a typical harried father of four living in suburban Las Vegas. But when he pulls into the driveway and loosens his tie, the only pressure bothering him is the water pressure on his wife's roses.

"No one thought it could be done," he said of the tall, healthy plants with bobbing blooms. "I told them I could" do it.

He had grown up in New York most of his life and moved into a Northwest Las Vegas home three years ago. The house was perfect -- but the yard was nonexistent, to Condon at least. The large lot of land had drought-resistant trees and decorative rock, front and back.

Although Condon adheres to the Las Vegas Valley Water District's rules, watering his lawn between 2-5 a.m., he just couldn't live in a home without a glistening pathway of green that leads to his front door.

"Desert landscaping just says you're lazy," he said. "A nice-looking lawn says, 'This guy takes care of things.' "

Special grass

A perfectly manicured lawn makes the owner feel they are one up on their neighbors, and is an expression of themselves to the world at large, said Dr. Ward Swallow, at the Mountainview Behavioral Healthcare, Inc. & Associates in Las Vegas.

"Their frame of reference is that having a beautiful lawn means they are special," he said. "It's a bit of exhibitionism."

It's not much different than the person who spends the weekend fiddling with cars or other pet projects around the house.

"It not only shows a pride of ownership, but a sense of individuality," Swallow said. "The lawn becomes representative of us."

A lot of Las Vegans are transplants from regions of the country where a house without a lawn is hard to imagine. Upon arrival they surround their stuccoed homes with the familiar green lawns of their childhood.

"(Many) people feel, even in the desert, that a home is not a home without a lawn," he said.

Condon agreed. The original trees and rocks were donated to neighbors, although he kept a pine that reminded him of the trees he had grown up with. He planted grass -- front and back -- and created flower beds and an area for a garden fountain.

Along with wife Corie, he changes out the flowers seasonally and allows no blossoms to droop -- not on his watch.

A good-looking yard is indicative of what lies beyond the lush lawn and the front door.

"I believe the yard is what makes your house," Condon said. "Your yard is what makes people notice your house."

A good yard is a sense of accomplishment. It's the one thing, Condon said, where he feels he truly has a finished product of which to be proud.

"It's peaceful," Condon said. "You can think out here. No one tells you what to do in your yard."

The grass may provide beauty and cool comfort to bare feet, but Condon is the provider for his lawn, which needs him to feed, water and maintain its silky stalks in the desert climate.

"It can't survive on its own out here," Condon said, "It's dependent on you."

**But who has who?**

Brown out

Condon is constantly gripped in the throes of battle with his lawn. If a brown spot larger than three inches in diameter dares to creep across his lawn, he cuts it out, drives to the nursery to buy a foot-long piece of sod and replaces the circle of dead grass. He can become misty speaking of these moments in the war to keep the lawn green.

"I have a spot now that won't, no matter how much I water it, it just won't turn green," Condon said. "I get up in the morning and it's still there -- brown."

Condon commiserates regularly with neighbors, one of whom is a professional landscaper for a Strip property, about what and how much to feed a lawn for a perfect shade of dark green, pruning styles and design ideas among other foliage facts.

"It's nice to live in a neighborhood where people help you," Condon said.

He recalled a neighbor who had repaired a broken sprinkler head that was gushing water into the street while the entire Condon family was on vacation.

"I'd do the same for him," Condon said.

Christine Walters is one of Condon's many neighbors who trades inside information on what fertilizer worked for them this year, or whose roses blossomed beautifully last spring.

Born in Las Vegas, Walters' first introduction to the responsibilities and rewards of yardwork came as a little girl working side by side with her father on their half-acre lot near Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard.

"My father was very patient with me and explained everything he was doing," she said. "I helped him do everything -- planting and home projects."

She remembers when Ted Binion's infamous property on Palomino Lane was a vacant piece of land. She and her cousins built a fort there one summer, clearing the brush to make the hastily made structure more attractive in the weed-choked lot.

Walters, a mother of two, has lived in her northwest home a little over two years and her yard is immaculate. Although her house is clean and orderly, it is still a work in progress, she said.

"I'd rather work in my yard than work in my house," she said.

Walters works three hours a week in the yard, she said, for regular mowing and weed whacking -- but that's just the maintenance. She spends a few hours each day removing rocks and weeds from her flowerbeds and the sidewalk that wraps around her house on the corner.

Walters determined to see green where there once was none. When she first moved into the two-story home, her front yard was completely rock, which she quickly had hauled to the dump.

"I hate rock with a passion," she said. "Rock only looks good for a month or so and then people walk on it and it goes onto the sidewalk or it looks dirty and weeds grow up through it."

So Walters built a wall -- just a small wall that rounded the front yard. She filled up the slope of her yard with dirt so that the lawn would be level. She then put in sprinklers and finished the new lawn with a fine carpet of sod and regular feedings to make it grow green and gorgeous.

The bane of Walters' existence continued to plague her, though: Her neighbors had rocks. These rocks were on a slope. That slope headed right for her lawn, so she built another small wall.

Slowly Walters is ridding her yard of any rocks. A thin strip of unwanted, rocky desert landscaping still takes up a part of Walters' lawn. But she has a plan.

"I throw some in the trash each week to where it's not too heavy for the garbage men," she said.

If life begins to feel out of control, Walters heads straight for the cool dirt outside, where she will spend up to six hours a day cleaning out nearly perfect flower beds and scouring bushes and trees for any dead leaves.

The lust for a lovely lawn is a reflection of what is important to her. An unkempt yard, she said, is a sure sign of laziness or complete disregard for the property.

"It bothers me because if you own a home, or if you are just living somewhere, you should take pride in your home, your yard," she said. "It's a reflection of who you are."

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