Paul

I am not so sure the cost would be the same as your suggested cost.  Assuming you would no longer have to mow (purchase equipment, fuel, transportation for both, employees, benefits for employees, the cost of maintaining everything) I think the cost even if it is as you suggest, would eventually be the cheaper route to go.  I do not have actual figures, which I am sure includes both State and Federal money, to compare.

I have often times thought that mowing these huge swaths of grass was folly and a waste both on the wallets of tax payers as well as for the local environment.

As a farmer that deliberately sows wildflowers into his farm and hillside I can tell you that simply spreading the seed is enough.  Enough will take and reseed themselves.  Many of the local competing weeds are in fact wildflowers themselves, often times native species.  If you stopped mowing right now there is a huge stretch of I-275 by my farm that would revert to nothing but thistle.  No special planting needed.

Just stop mowing.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com
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