turfgrass brain

We have reached the "lawns" unit in the Master Gardener certification class I am taking, and I am only half joking when I say I should ask if I can skip this unit on religious grounds. My religious/spiritual beliefs are pretty amorphous, but I have one opinion approaching dogma, and it is: Turfgrass lawns are an affront to God. If God wanted us to have monoculture turfgrass lawns, monoculture turfgrass lawns would exist in Nature. They do not. Prairies and other grasslands do, but they're self-supporting ecosystems with significant diversity. But instead of arguing this, I decided to do the reading, because I figure that if I know what keeps turfgrass healthy, I will also know how to destroy it. Some observations. oops, I was keeping my lawn healthy I do have *some* "lawn," partly to furnish grass clippings for use as mulch and partly to placate my neighbors, who don't want their turfgrass touching my garden. And, apparently, my incredibly lazy approach to "maintaining" it is also…