My kind of lawn mowing
We’re quite attached to our lawns here in Britain. Much time is devoted to mowing, raking, edging, and feeding to create the perfect swathe of green. Last weekend was the first dry and warmish weekend of the year and I could hear the distant hum of lawnmowers around the village. For many, a garden wouldn’t be a garden without a patch of turf and the weekly mow is part of garden routine, but not us. When we moved here one of the first things we did was dig up the grass in the front and back gardens.
I don’t deny that the smell of cut grass is a powerful scent that can transport me to a warm summer’s day, I love lying in a park surrounded by green and I’ve visited some beautiful back gardens where the lawn is an integral part of the design. Friends with pets and children see their lawns as a necessity and I’ve seen extraordinary levels of care lavished on patches of grass. We once lived opposite a lady whose front lawn can’t have been more than 2 metres square but that lawn was primped and preened as if it was a prize-winning poodle. There would be a sprinkler installed during the summer months and it was so green it looked like astroturf. Her gardener, who must have been in his 60s, gardened wearing nothing but a pair of tiny shorts and little plimsolls and had the sort of leathery skin cultivated from a life of sun-worshiping. It was an intriguing site to say the least.
The Lawn at High Glanau Manor, Monmouthshire (the foxes are statues)
Our gardens, front and back are both small. There was no path to the back shed, so you had to walk across the grass to get to it. Well after our first winter here, where it seemed to never stop raining and I had to collect the wood from the shed via the grass you can imagine what state it was in, not to mention our kitchen floor. A proper path was needed but there was so little space left that putting in a lawn didn’t seem worth it and in the front garden there was nothing but grass and a hedge. After 8 years of living with other people’s gardens I wanted plants and as many as I could squeeze into the space. I’d always loved cottage gardens and their exuberance, stuffed with flowers tumbling over paths. A swathe of lawn seemed like such a waste.
The lawn in my front garden being removed
I love how Carol klein the tv presenter has no grass in her garden even though hers is considerably bigger than mine, at over a third of an acre. She’s a real plantswoman and has large raised beds and border running through her garden instead.
The front garden with no grass but lots of plants
There is another reason why the lawns had to go, we both hated mowing them. Up until moving here we had lived in a variety of rented places and all except the flat you couldn’t swing a cat in, had gardens with lawns in varying states of neglect. Most were weed infested, not just the occasional daisy here and there but more dandelions and plantain than grass. Some had drainage problems and the resulting moss and the last house had a lawn that was so undulating with bumps and dips that it would have made for an interesting mini golf course. Of course, every time I mowed it I would scalp the bumps and not be able to mow the dips, which meant that even after an hour of mowing it still looked dreadful. The back garden at this house had a sloping lawn and so when mowing I was always worried the momentum of the mower would take me with it plunging me towards the patio. Then there was the sinking feeling when returning from holiday, knowing that the grass would now be knee deep and would be a chore waiting to be done.
Unusually, Wellyman has a real aversion to lawn mowing. It seems to be one of those chores that men really love, maybe because it involves machinery, I not sure but it’s not for Wellyman. During the months of June and July when I would be suffering from hayfever Wellyman would take over the mowing responsibility but he was clearly not happy with lots of huffing and puffing and muttering. And finally, there was the storage of the mower, which took up the best part of our garden shed. So the grass in our new house never really stood a chance.
It has been really liberating. One less thing to do before the holiday and no knee-high grass to wade through on our return. No faffing around with cables that won’t reach, no discovering you’ve mowed through the cat mess only when it’s too late and no grass clippings deposited everywhere especially when it has been a bit damp and they stick to everything. But best of all I’ve been able to grow so many more plants than I ever would if my garden had a lawn.
You have certainly done the right thing in getting rid of your lawns, your front garden looks super! Even here where we had 2/3rds of an acre of lawn, as each year went by, it got smaller and smaller until now I think only half of it is left, my next post tells the story! Ours is left as nature intended, we are happy as long as it is green and then certain areas are left to grow longer ( not too long because, like you , I suffer from hay fever) and give the wild flowers a chance to flower.I think people ought to be more relaxed about their lawns, gardening would then be far easier.
Absolutely, I agree completely , Christina
A woman after my own heart. And with no lawn more space for plants. I’ll bet that’s Carol Klein’s philosophy too!
I agree with you totally. We do have a small lawn in the back garden, but not as much as we used to. The garden used to slope down towards the house and it was all lawn. We had it tiered, the bottom tier is now a patio and the top tier is a lawn, which was needed whilst the kids were growing up. We don’t have any grass in the front garden. Your garden looks super, it’s certainly not missing any grass.
I’m not fussed about lawns and wouldn’t have one if I had a garden. Perhaps it’s because it was one of my jobs to mow my parents lawn using a hand mower, which is not one of my happiest memories! xx
I think most people think a lawn is the easy option but like you I think this is a fallacy. Lawns are not a good ecological choice either. In Italy everyone aspires to an ‘English’ lawn,. but not me! Borders (the larger the better) with gravel paths are the best option for me. Christina
As someone who spends much of the year mowing, a lawnless garden is a welcome sight. I used to work for a gardening outfit and cared for a garden whose owners had several large dogs. The owners never picked up after the dogs so you can imagine what it was like when coming to mow. Considerably worse than cat mess! I did it twice and then refused. And now … now I have a 150ft garden which is almost all grass. Yes, a garden without a lawn is a welcome sight.
Our garden is mainly lawn, but I keep carving out more and more beds, and my secret aspiration is for the lawn to be large enough for a set of garden furniture and a croquet pitch, but little more. For the rest? PLANTS! Lots and lots of them.
(And if I had a garden like yours, I’d happily dispense with the croquet lawn and take up petanque instead, which can be played on a gravelly path.)
I have to agree too, I have got a small lawn in my back garden but every year it gets smaller as I make the beds round it bigger. I might just bite the bullet and get rid of it completely like you. When I run out of room for plants then it will definitely go. I don’t religiously cut it every week in the summer so it has quite a few ‘weeds’ in like clover and daisies but I like that. I do quite like lying on it in the summer when we do get a nice spell and sometimes have a picnic, though I rarely sit for long enough before I spot something I need to do in the garden!
A most wise decision WW ~ less drudgery and more plants. We have what can only be loosely termed as a lawn but it has never thrived for various reasons. However like Pauline says as long “as it’s green” that will do me – I just pretend that the moss is grass. Planning to take a chunk out soon for more hellebores and snowdrops.
Hi,
I do love being able to sit on the grass in summer and especially love feeling it beneath my feet. However I do also hate having to mow it – especially my front garden as the area is so small it’s incredibly annoying having to wheel the mower round the house just to spend 30 seconds mowing; I’d love to get rid of it as it’s north-east facing so receives little light and is boggy and mossy, but know most people want lawns and I aim to move soon.
I’m not someone who takes pristine care of the grass, and I let it grow long so that it’s more useful to insects and birds
Hello wellywoman! I totally agree, what’s the point of a lawn when you can have flowers, fruit and veg ….
I gave up my lawn fifteen years ago and have never missed it. The abundance of flowers in summer gives me far more pleasure than a swathe of green. And my pet hate is a lawn with really small beds surrounding it.
pastures are perfect for rural folk whilst lawns are a luxury and like you have recently converted a weedy, shady green blob to a walkway gravelled area. Great narrative and a plethora of plantings that would even make Carol Klein green with envy