Time to ditch the perfect lawn?

[exile]

That's me too @ajm. Our "grass" has so much wild thyme (natur and citron) and oregano in it that getting a green look is as good as it will ever get.

[L Austin France]

What's a perfect lawn? I've given up fighting nature - as long as it is green

Hear, hear!
Life's too short to worry about the state of one's lawn.
After winter it always takes me a few cuts & sweeps with the tow along lawn sweeper but still get the agravation of M Mutt walking wet cuttings into the house. During the summer I can get away with one mulching cut every two weeks.
I've got about 2,500m2 of grass to mow split 50/50 lawn & (sort of) orchard which only take about 1 1/2 hours tops to cut with my super dooper Stiga frontal cut mower so not too onerous as long as I remember to duck under the trees & trusty wife has raked up the windfalls before mowing.
It's never that pretty but good enough myopic me.

[Sparkle]

@Blaze beautiful colours in your photo. As for a perfect lawn - what's the point especially when it was once a field, is uneven and had the odd mole That said it does get a frequent mow as OH doesn't like it looking too untidy - well it is a garden, we don't grow veggies only shrubs & flowers and love to sit in the garden

[Blaze]

The poppies were from seeds I collected from plants growing wild - as I do with various wild flowers. I love cornflowers, they flower continuously through the summer and well into autumn. Yes, the area looks a bit sad through the winter, but it's always a pleasure when last years seeds start germinating .... I tend to collect seeds when

[niemeyjt]

Our area is encouraged not to keep collecting grass (if you haven't got an area where you can compost it), as it's better to allow that goodness go back into the soil. When we've had a difficult mow, really long after a wet spell, yes, there's lots of grass left, but that gets chopped up again and eventually "disappears".

For a lawn - yes. However, many moons ago when I was doing Nature Conservation things, the Wildlife Trust was involved in the early days of rewilding (like 40 years ago).

One of the things we did was to scrape the top layer of soil off the agricultural-quality land to make the soil less fertile - because fertile is great for grass but the grass then outcompetes the wildflowers.

So if you are making a wildflower meadow, do you want to mulch the goodness back into the soil - or is it better to cart it away to make soil weaker so grass does not outdo the flowers? Talking purely from a botanic point of view - not the logistics and your time!

[Bayleaf]

So if you are making a wildflower meadow, do you want to mulch the goodness back into the soil - or is it better to cart it away to make soil weaker so grass does not outdo the flowers? Talking purely from a botanic point of view - not the logistics and your time!

The clients' lawns that we're mowing less of are because they already seem to be teeming with wild flowers naturally when you don't mow too often. So, that area (usually all the middle) is left to "do it's thing", and we mow around the edges. It just seemed such a crime to be mowing over flowers that were already the dominant flora.

Another "lawn" (orchard really), I mow on go-slow, to let frogs and crickets get out of the way! Yes, I know - I'm in the wrong job!!

[Blaze]

I mow on go-slow, to let frogs and crickets get out of the way!

When returning from work at around 2 am in the UK, when I got to our village, I used to stop and move frogs out of the way to avoid running them over (there was a stream running through the village ...)

[Bayleaf]

If you want a perfect lawn, you can always put down some Astroturf - very low maintenance

Looking at some of the sterile-green "short as a short-pile carpet" lawns I see - that would be a good option for some.

One garden I pass, all the boundaries around the fences are bare brown - so, lots of weedkiller there, and the lawn is pretty much scalped. I can only assume the residents have allergies, so have to keep the green stuff to a minimum. No trees or shrubs. It's a very rural property though, so if allergies were the problem - not the best place to live anyway, next to conifer forests and hay fields!!

[Spectrum]

Sorry I go against the grain, I have a fair bit of grass and do cut it in stripes, its the way I was taught in collage, I like a green lush lawn, I know that Iam never going to get a bowling green effect, I know how much work they take to look after and take up and then relay it. I did try a wild garden a few years back it did look nice but I spent more time weeding it trying to be careful not to pull up the wild flowers, it just wasnt worth the hassle, Iam surrounded by hay meadows so lots of wild flowers for the little creatures, the farmers take one cut each year, about late August early September.

[Quiksilver]

Sorry, but I don't subscribe to the 'having an attractive garden is not eco-friendly' school of thought. It all depends on your definition of attractive, doesn't it? I've nothing against meadows, wild flowers etc. but not in my space. That space has changed from an arable field with not a bird or earthworm in sight, to a wildlife paradise teeming with birds, insects of all descriptions, frogs, toads, salamanders, newts etc. About the only thing missing is rabbits, thank goodness! The cat caught one in the first week we were here, had it for dinner over three days and we haven't seen one since