To no one’s great surprise by now, the white substance in Friday’s photo is mesh:
Like so many “instant” lawns that never really establish, the original grasses in this sod have died, leaving only weeds, debris, and the netting used as a matrix to support bunchgrass production.
(I have a personal grudge against sod netting, having removed the tenacious remains of black plastic netting when we replaced our lawn with alternative groundcoverings. Like Velvetta and Twinkies, this stuff never dies.)
I liked Katherine White’s take on “instant” flower gardens. She described the matrix as looking like the filling in an old book mailing envelope (the gray paper pulp stuff). It shed seeds all over, didn’t suppress weeds in any way and only sprouted a very few plants. That was in 1959–you’d think companies would have learned by now. We’re fighting our own battle with the black barrier plastic our home’s former owner was enamored with.