Please choose the most correct answer:
What causes these dark rings to form in lawn grass?
a) This is where the garden fairies gather late at night to dance and sing and make merry while drinking tiny bellflowers full of odd potions and elixirs. The odd potions and elixirs slosh out of the flowers and over-fertilize the lawn in those places
b) This is where the spaceships carrying hoards of hungry rabbits land in the lawn. The rabbits are released out into the garden where they can hop around and gather food to take back with them on their return flight to their own planet.
c) This is caused by the gardener when she performs a ceremonial dance under the full moon to give thanks for the harvest not being taken by the rabbits, ala Betty White in the movie “The Proposal”.
d) This is caused by fungi which produce nitrogen as they break down. The extra nitrogen causes the grass to be taller and darker in that location.
The correct answer is D. However, if you chose A then you get partial credit, because these are called fairy rings, after all. If you chose B, you really must stop obsessing over the rabbits. And if you chose C you have to be laughing right now because that was a very funny scene in that movie. I laughed for days thinking about that scene.
So what am I going to do about these fairy rings?
Nothing. It’s been a cool, wet summer, so we are likely to have an increase in mushroom and fungi growth in our lawns. It’s not killing the lawn, it just looks odd. And by the way there are several fairy rings in my back yard. As noted in this PDF from Purdue University, for the most part homeowners should just try to coexist peacefully with their fairy rings.
And that’s exactly what I plan to do, along with making up other stories theories about what else they might be, like maybe they are some kind of sign for the raccoons that points the way to the sweet corn…
Just make sure you don't step into the center of it, or you'll be whisked away to Faerie.
Of course it is a fairy ring. They are dancing for joy because it has gotten warm and they can party all night without fires that might draw the attention of a human.
I'd rather have fairy rings than snow mold.
And when you get grass stains on your neck from all that dancing, you get fairy ring around the collar.
Gosh, why would people want to get rid of fairy rings? It's not like you see them every day (well, not around here, anyway)!
Carol – you've heard of crop circles? Well, it's a little known fact that on the third planet of the star Betelgeuse, the inhabitants are only 1 millimetre high and are 100% literal minded, entirely lacking in imagination or artistic sensitivity. Despite these disdavantages however, they are keen competitors in the intergalactic crop circle championship (first prize annually to the race which creates the most intricate design on some backward planet.)But given their size, zapping fields of corn is clearly out of the question – their space ships are only a yard across. Grass – preferably neatly cut lawns – are about all they can manage. And given their literal mindedness – well it is called the intergalactic crop circle championship …