The Grass is Always Greener

"Mama, look! How come their grass is green and ours is brown?" Grace, 6, asks as we pass the lush yard of a neighbor who seeds his lawn with winter rye. His is an oasis of soft green amidst the brown, dormant Bermuda grass that surrounds the rest of our houses in the neighborhood.

"He plants a special grass that grows in the winter," I explain. And I know what's coming next.

"I want green grass," Grace says.

A couple of years ago we moved from Northern California to Northeast Texas, and adjusting to a landscape that's not evergreen has been a stretch for us all, but Grace, our nature girl, finds it particularly unsettling.

"Green grass coming up," I reply and add a stop at the landscape supply to the errands we run. With some simple supplies added to my shopping list -- kitchen sponges and grass seed -- we head home to get some green started.

Easter is around the corner so I get out our egg cups from www.uncommongoods.com. I turn one upside down, use a marker to trace a circle around it onto a sponge, and then cut the sponge a little smaller than the circle so it fits inside the cup. Grace wets the sponges, I squeeze most of the water out, and tuck them into the egg cups. Then we mist them lightly again using a spray bottle of water. With a spoon, Grace adds a generous layer of grass seeds on top of the sponges and we mist them again.

We keep the egg cups moist, warm, and in a bright spot covered with a big clear plastic bowl for about 10 days. (To keep them from molding, use something to keep part of the bowl lifted so air can circulate.)

Grace and Luke, 2, eagerly check our experiment's daily progress. Once the sprouts began to show, we uncover our little "lawns" and see them really take off. I place them on a little tray and use them as a springtime centerpiece that lasts for months with daily spritzings of water.

Who says the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence?