American Mower!

I do not get on my environmental high horse very often.  While I do not always like how Americans treat Creation, either publicly or privately owned, I recognize the fact that in America we have the freedom to do what we want on our property.

With that said, America's obsession with mowing is about to drive me insane.  I am fully expecting the next big popular reality television show will be called, "American Mower".  The object of the show will be to use a stock, push or riding mower to mow the largest amount of space in a given time or to mow through a section of lush beautiful wildflowers without bogging down and stalling.

Pictured above is Glade Mallow, Napaea dioica, a relatively rare plant in Ohio.  This patch of Glade Mallow happens to be at the entrance to the village of Sugar Grove from US33.  It grows on either side of the entrance into town, or shall I say it use to.  I had noticed the plant there for several years, but just this year, with the One Thousand Flowers project, did I take the time to pull off to examine it more closely.

Now, Glade Mallow can only be see on the south side of the entrance road into Sugar Grove, because the highway department opted to mow down the entire population on the north side of the road.  I have experienced this multiple times during my big wildflower year.  One day seeing a plant growing, arranging my schedule such that I can go back to take photos, only to find that the plant in question has been mowed down in the meantime.

I can understand that mowing is required for safety reasons.  But I have seen examples of this mowing extending a full 100 feet away from the road.  Isn't this a bit extreme?  How many rare plant populations have been wiped out by over-zealous lawn mowers?

One thing I have decided is that some people mow out of boredom.  I see private citizens mowing roadsides, well away from their homes, blank looks on their faces, and I have to think it is because they have nothing else to do.  Once upon a time I lived in Indiana, and a common joke I would tell was that one could drive a golf ball from Muncie to Richmond without ever going in the rough!  Maybe these people think they are beautifying the roadside.  Personally, I find flowers far prettier than half-inch tall grass.

Roadsides provide a unique habitat, because they are periodically disturbed.  And while I can appreciate that we do not want deer, moose, or elk habitat directly next to the road, what is wrong with insect habitat within 100 feet of the road?  I have seen wonderful monarch butterfly habitat, several feet from the road, destroyed due to the mowing of beautiful patches of milkweed at the peak of bloom.

Cochise County, Arizona takes the mowing obsession to a whole new level.  Rather than mowing roadsides, they blade the roadsides.  Several years ago I discovered Yerba de Zizotes, Asclepias oenotheroides, growing along a roadside in eastern Cochise County.  At the time, it was the only known population of this milkweed in Arizona.  I counted nearly 40 plants along this roadside.  When I returned five years later, the number of plants had been reduced to zero.

In part, this is why projects like One Thousand Flowers, annual butterfly counts, mothapaloozas, etc, are so important.  We are destroying habitat, both locally and globally, at alarming rates.  It is important to have a record of what we are destroying, so that perhaps hearts can be changed before plants and animals disappear from our state forever.