Freshly cut grass doesn’t just smell like grass. It is the scent of spring, of a football match just about to begin, or of a sunny Saturday morning at the home turf. So open your nostrils tip your head back and take a deep breath of grass scent and enjoy it!
Many people prefer the natural scents than artificial ones. Along with freshly cut grass the smell of freshly baked bread and coffee percolating is more appealing to many than perfume.
In Britain studies have been made of the most popular scents. Here the smell of freshly cut grass is on the top of the Top 10 list. It is believed that scents are associated with good memories of your childhood and home. In fact, we are already developing the sense of smell before we are born.
Above Ground . . . Grass plants are 70 to 80 % water • Grass clippings are 90% water
• Grass clippings contain 4% nitrogen, 2% potassium and 0.5% phosphorus
• A 10,000 square foot lawn will contain: 6 grass plants per square inch, 850 plants per square foot, 8.5 million plants total.
Below Ground . . . 90% of the weight of the grass is in its roots • A single grass plant has 387 miles of root
• There are 329,000 miles of root per square foot
• 3 billion miles of roots in a 10,000 square foot lawn
• Turfgrass sod is a superior form of erosion control, with tests documenting:
• A dense lawn is 6 times more effective than a wheat field and 4 times better than a hay field at absorbing rainfall
• Sediment losses from sodded areas will be 8 to 15 times less for tested man-made erosion control materials and 10 times less than for a straw covered area.
• Runoff from a sodded area will take 28 to 46 times longer than for five popular erosion control materials.
• A 50 by 50 foot lawn (2,500 square feet) releases enough oxygen for a family of four, while absorbing carbon dioxide, hydrogen fluoride and perosyacetyle nitrate.
So when thinking about feeling good and helping the environment - having a lawn in your back garden is one of the easiest things you can do.