I am trying to embrace my inner Swiss but these dandelions and clover in my yard are making my teeth hurt.

Is there a rule about when you can fire up the lawn mower? I have been paying close attention to neighbors all around and no one has cut their grass yet, even though it is shin-high in weeds, oops, I mean wildflowers.

I know there is a rule in the fall regarding the date (October 1) you can turn on your leaf blower and I'm wondering if there isn't the same kind of thing for lawn mowers.

No idea about where you are, but I've noticed that long grass doesn't always bother the locals as much, especially are they are currently too busy with spring pruning.

I cut the grass last Saturday and will cut it again today, but I do use a push reel mower and I didn't use the string trimmer. As long as it's during normal working hours (don't cut grass during lunch or Sunday), you should be fine. I did notice someone near work mowing the grass wih a riding mower (a non-professional type) yesterday, so I'm not the only one mowing the grass so "early" in the year.

I don't know about Vaud, but in Canton Schwyz, it is actually illegal to use machinery to cut grass.

Most people in that canton have their own cattle or goats, so it isn't as big a problem as it might first appear, and those who don't own grazing animals may rent a goat for the weekend from their local gemeinde/commune.

The result is a blissfully quiet canton, the sound of plucked banjos notwithstanding...

You rebel, you! I love it! And, DB, I'm not renting a goat. (That is surely one sentence I thought I would never type in my life, but there you go).

I actually miss the sound of a lawnmower and the smell of cut grass on a Sunday.

Whatever you choose to do eventually, do not dress up as Elvis and mow the lawn as it might still be unlawful to do so.

I know what you mean by having sentiment to those pretty yellow flowers blossoming during the first days of spring (I cannot remember their name but they ooze this milky kind of stuff when pod is broken). Are they called dandelions?

I looked across gardens in my hood and most of them are still intact. There is no specific rule regarding using the mowers that I would know of except for public holidays and Sundays or perhaps if neigbours request such from some valid reasons. One thing though which is regularly observed here is the neatness of your place. Once I neglected mowing the lawn from the above reasons i.e. I preferred being surrounded by revolting lush bushes and tall grass which added some aggressive touch and anarchy to our property instead of dully shaped hedges with geometry of rectangles and globes seen almost everywhere.

Soon a letter in mailbox arrived from rental agent with ultimatum given for the grass to be cut in "xyz" number of days. I wonder if similar applies to the owners of private property.

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Dandelions?

There is a new "Garden Charter" in Switzerland designed to stimulate biodiversity. Extremely "clean" gardens tend to make some species disappear (butterflies, hedgehogs, bees etc....). So if you respect the charter and put the logo on your garden, people will respect the apparent "disorder"

Garden Charter Site in french
Garden Charter campaign (in german)

Maybe this site can give some helpful advise :-)
http://www.agrotourismus-schwyz.ch/G...22.0.html?&L=0

Really? I wash checking that you actually wrote this today and not on 1 April....I live in Schwyz and we mow our lawn all spring/summer/autumn long, as do all our swiss neighbours as well as our swiss gardener who looks after the common areas.

No one has ever complained or mentioned getting a goat instead...

For some posters every day is 1 April

Living near Nyon (VD) and there is no law against cutting grass during the lunch hour. I was doing it one weekday lunch hour, and a neighbour (French nationality) complained . I checked the local regulations and found no mention, then talked to a local policeman who laughed and said that while that reg. did not exist, neighbours do exist! If the guy had asked me to stop because he wanted a siesta, then I would have stopped anyway.

Priceless ... and true worldwide.

Were y'all being serious when you asked what dandelions were? I have encountered them here as valid and respected members of the wildflower and salade (dent de lion) families, but in America they are every gardener's bane of existence, (except in the poor, rural south where dandelion greens are still harvested and eaten, a la kale).

Here in Obwalden we can rent the town goat by the hour or one can pay a premium and keep it for the night.

Yes there are rules, in every cumunity are they different, so chek the noise regulation of your community. $

My granddad used to feed his bunnys with dandelion which made them much tastier on the plate.

Is cutting the grass the same as cutting someones lunch?
If it is it should definitely be outlawed, no matter what the canton...

Ahhh, there is one born every minute isn't there, today it was me...