How to Count the Blades of Grass on Your Lawn
Choose a corner or edge of your lawn to start with., Get some cones to cover up parts of the lawn which you have already counted, so you don't lose your place., Consider buying a tally counter, which will help you keep track of how many blades you...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Choose a corner or edge of your lawn to start with.
Do not start in the middle because you will get confused. -
Step 2: Get some cones to cover up parts of the lawn which you have already counted
Try to count all blades in one sitting
- if you try to go away and come back, you might just get very confused.
Start early in the morning so that you'll have a full day of sunlight to work with. , You will probably also need a pen and paper, as your tally counter probably will not be able to count high enough and you will need to reset it.
Alternatively, buy multiple counters. , Go slowly and maybe find a friend who can work shifts with you.
Don't both try to count at once, you will just get confused and end up missing patches or double counting. , Start by counting, Roman style (four vertical lines, then a diagonal through them every fifth
-- that's one group of five), only create columns for clusters, and keep a roman count for clusters of four, five, six blades to a cluster, etc., until you have done exactly one square foot. , Then do that three more times until you have five square feet all cluster-counted. ,). , If the lawn has round parts, make them into triangles instead and recall that the area of a triangle is half the base times the height. ,, This is your estimate of how many average blades of grass there are in a typical square foot of lawn, and you even know how the blades are clustered, on average. , Now you will have your estimate of the entirety! , Blades of grass are always growing, shorter or longer, and dying, so an exact definition of what constitutes "a blade" of grass is arbitrary anyway, right? The whole thing is constantly changing in front of your eyes.
You can do two things about that: you can count it twice and measure the change, or count it all more times and measure the rate of change.
It'd be better to use Probability, Statistics and Calculus though.
There, you would be very accurate at the scale of a fraction of an inch, then multiply that out to all the fractions of an inch contained by the entire lawn.
If you, for example, note that in a square centimeter there are, in 20 samples, exactly 25 blades, you may get an excellent estimate for the entire lawn by using 25/20 = 5/4 of a blade/sq. cm. and figuring out how many square meters of lawn there are. 100 * 100 = 10,000 sq. cm. / meter. -
Step 3: so you don't lose your place.
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Step 4: Consider buying a tally counter
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Step 5: which will help you keep track of how many blades you have already counted.
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Step 6: Start counting.
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Step 7: Notice how the blades grow in little groups or clusters.
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Step 8: Choose another square foot of the lawn somewhere else and repeat the previous step.
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Step 9: Sum the cluster-types per square foot and arrive at a total per type (per four's
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Step 10: per five's
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Step 11: Use a realtor's tape measure and measure the square area of the lawn in feet.
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Step 12: Calculate the total square feet of the lawn.
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Step 13: Using your per-type averages from your five samples
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Step 14: take an average by summing them all together and dividing by five.
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Step 15: Multiply the blades of grass in one square foot by the total square feet of the lawn.
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Step 16: Factor in change.
Detailed Guide
Do not start in the middle because you will get confused.
Try to count all blades in one sitting
- if you try to go away and come back, you might just get very confused.
Start early in the morning so that you'll have a full day of sunlight to work with. , You will probably also need a pen and paper, as your tally counter probably will not be able to count high enough and you will need to reset it.
Alternatively, buy multiple counters. , Go slowly and maybe find a friend who can work shifts with you.
Don't both try to count at once, you will just get confused and end up missing patches or double counting. , Start by counting, Roman style (four vertical lines, then a diagonal through them every fifth
-- that's one group of five), only create columns for clusters, and keep a roman count for clusters of four, five, six blades to a cluster, etc., until you have done exactly one square foot. , Then do that three more times until you have five square feet all cluster-counted. ,). , If the lawn has round parts, make them into triangles instead and recall that the area of a triangle is half the base times the height. ,, This is your estimate of how many average blades of grass there are in a typical square foot of lawn, and you even know how the blades are clustered, on average. , Now you will have your estimate of the entirety! , Blades of grass are always growing, shorter or longer, and dying, so an exact definition of what constitutes "a blade" of grass is arbitrary anyway, right? The whole thing is constantly changing in front of your eyes.
You can do two things about that: you can count it twice and measure the change, or count it all more times and measure the rate of change.
It'd be better to use Probability, Statistics and Calculus though.
There, you would be very accurate at the scale of a fraction of an inch, then multiply that out to all the fractions of an inch contained by the entire lawn.
If you, for example, note that in a square centimeter there are, in 20 samples, exactly 25 blades, you may get an excellent estimate for the entire lawn by using 25/20 = 5/4 of a blade/sq. cm. and figuring out how many square meters of lawn there are. 100 * 100 = 10,000 sq. cm. / meter.
About the Author
Lori Taylor
Specializes in breaking down complex practical skills topics into simple steps.
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