(So if you think this is going to be about how to get that lawn green and gorgeous for the upcoming Summer you might as well just log off now. :)

 The typical large swath of mono culture we call lawns need to be phased out of our landscapes - the sooner the better.
Here's why:

It's the first kind of dry and kind of sunny Sunday in a LONG time here in the Seattle area and with that comes the inevitable first deafening noises of the lawn mowers and grass trimmers getting brushed off and fired up.
It's Spring - birds are singing everywhere, it's a Sunday and all the peace that is supposed to be a Sunday in America is shattered all afternoon with the sounds of gas guzzling, emissions producing, oil burning lawn mowers and the like.
You cant throw the windows open to let in the fresh Spring air because the baby and the dog are scared by the noise, your huband is having an allergy attack and the smell of your neighbors unmaintained lawn mower emissons are making you sick. It's literally crazy isnt it? Seriously people why do we do this to ourselves? Can you imagine living in a neighborhood where there was no lawn mower noises ever? Just the sounds of birds, kids playing, and the soft swish swish of someone using thier pruners as they cut flowers for the table?

DId you ever stop to wonder why we have lawns anyway?
 I mean besides having a place for the dog to poop, the kids to play the occasional game of football and that perfect lawn party you think your going to have one day?
You gonna say it's because it's a lot easier to maintain than a "garden" or a 'landscape". Run those numbers.....trust me, you would be shocked. You have to use gas and oil - chemicals  - fertilizers - never mind the water bill to maintain a lawn. 
Even if you let it go brown in the Summer like a lot of us do here in Seattle to save water you still have to mow it sometimes!
  A properly planted and managed landscape would need NONE of those things once established .

As far as the football games and lawn parties - the community park has the best football grounds, we already pay our taxes to keep that grass maintained so why not use it? At home a flagstone patio or decks surrounded by garden you just may find is a much more peaceful and private respite for you to relax. Dogs will go when they gotta go - figure a place into your landscape for the dog and instead of grass have wood chips or gravel. Clean permeanble ground cover such as wood chips or gravel will mean less fleas and muddy paws too. And it's your dog or cat that gets all that fertilizer, weed spray, etc. you put on the lawn on it's paws, which it licks off, and spreads all over your floors before it does. So really no lawn is a  win win for the better health for your pets and kids too.

Did you ever wonder where the landscape idea for a lawn came from?
It started around the end of the 17th Century when landowners, aristocracy and gentry, owned enough land that they didnt need all of it for food production or grazing area for livestock.
To keep a long history short; If you were really rich you could show that fact off by having fast amounts of land that were cultivated only as lawn so you could stride about with your friends on it, waving a fan in front of your face and talking about how rich you were. (Think Marie Antoinette saying 'Let them have lawn" instead of cake.....kinda irritating when your starving and the good land is being used as a Lawn.)
 
Our Forefathers eventually got around to implementing this principle too once things had settled down and we didnt need every square inch for farming..........The lawns reach right up to the front door at Monticello.........and then of course with the coming of the great equalizer - the suburbs - the lawn became a standard for all that is good and right, right?  A perfect green lawn became a reflection of who you were and how you took care of your own little castle (good old Dad, sweating it out every weekend) but I am really thinking why bother !? He would rather be doing a million other things and it's just such a sad little left over from a day long past. Time to let go and say yes to backyard wildlife sanctuaries, pollinator habitats, ground water cleaning rain gardens and very low to no maintenance native plantings instead of all that lawn, right?

If you just HAVE to have some lawn then maybe go down to a small patch - 15x15 feet or so -  get a push mower, don't use any stuff on it and let it go dormant in the Summer, which is it's natural time to do so, which will also mean you don't have to water it in the heat of Summer......course it will be all brown and dead then sooooooo.......(why bother?) 

So no......no info here on what to do to get that lawn going for the new season......but if you want some help getting rid of it and coming over to the Force, my email is on the contact page. :) (

 Happy Spring! - There are good deals on ear plugs at the Rite Aid by the way.....