Time to ditch the perfect lawn?

[Bayleaf]

https://www.permaculturenews.org/2016/0 ... he-better/

Every year, as the mowing seasons starts, I have a real conscience problem. Yes, we still have to mow for some clients, and occasionally strim. But once you've been down on your hands and knees enough, tending the flower beds, you see how many little critters are living there - waiting to be chopped up by those gas-guzzling machines.

We've successfully converted a couple of clients to allowing much of their "lawn" to grow and enjoy the wild flowers - and their guests - to flourish. Then cut it down at the end of the season - or, in one case, the area is open and large enough for the local farmer to get a few bales of hay. We're doing ourselves out of money, but to be honest - I'd rather earn less and see a garden full of wild flowers and it's wildlife.

Reading the above article highlights just how high maintenance, and wasteful, and useless really, striving for that perfect lawn is. Better to convert as much area as possible to flowers, or even better, edible plants, and have as least grassy area as possible.

Just saying! Times are achanging.

[Blaze]

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

Seriously, I'd hate to have a lawn without daisies and dandelions in it. Bees, andrenas and all sort of tiny insects love them. As for weeding flowerbeds, I'm careful to re-cover up disturbed worms and grubs because Mr Robin is always waiting in the wings. We've left areas for wildflowers and others to self-seed but we also have grassy areas for the dogs (they prefer shorter grass to pee on ) However, because we get so little rain here, I never do a short cut and keep the mulcher on the mower.

Here's one of our flower areas last year :

Poppies - copie.jpg

[MAD87]

I approve!
I've never had a perfet lawn. I guess it has its place in certain environments (formal gardens) but grass is surely just a green backdrop in a domestic garden.

[Polarengineer]

Fabulous colours Blaze.
We too set aside a large part of the garden as wild meadow, but never get such colours. Lots of wild orchids after the bank of primroses. The lawn part has had some of the largest molehills I have ever seen this winter, so keeping it as lawn is no fun.

[ExMontpelliérain]

We’ve been ahead of the curve on this for years because of sheer indolence!

[niemeyjt]

I think the downside is what you do with, effectively, a hay crop at the end of the season after the "big mow"?

Regular cutting and bagging gives great compost (mixed with other ingredients). Regular cutting and mulching prevents too much build-up of clippings.

So, for the "big mow" - what do you do? Cut with drum mower or similar to make hay sized clippings or with mulching mower to chop it all up? Leave clippings and risk matting or rake it up?

Also, as I recall a classic hay cut is taken before the seeds fall out of the heads as this provides nutrients - so again when do people do their "big cut"?

When we had a bigger house in the UK, it included the village green. We had the above issues with moles, and loads of flowers - and we let the local farmer take a couple of hay crops and it was very pretty. It also annoyed a neighbour who wanted it to be a bowling green - so double win!

[Bayleaf]

Hay cuts around here are well after it has gone to seed - so that all falls to the ground during the cut.

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".

We only mow for clients once a month, and if there are any areas of wildflowers, go round them. I stopped working for one client as they wanted to keep throwing weedkiller everywhere, and despite it being a holiday home - so they were rarely there, they expected it all to be collected each time, and have stripes! That's so last century!

[exile]

Cutting the grass is essential. So many crave the wild flower meadow look but do not appreciate that it is the flowers that are wild and not the meadow. Meadows need a lot of management and if not managed then the flowers will sadly reduce in number and variety. Traditional meadow management is either cutting for hay or turning out the land for beasts to do what the mower would do (and refertilise the ground to boot).

As for when to cut, it will depend on the area. Some of the UK Dales farmers receive a subsidy to delay their first mow until June, when the spring flowers will have set seed. This later first mow reduces the crop for subsequent second cuts and hence the subsidy.

What I do is to mow (from May onwards) but avoiding areas where we have violets, cowslips and primroses - as well as bulbs deliberately planted into the area.

Failure to mow/graze means that the flower seed will find it more difficult to grow through the tall competing grasses. Leaving the mowings on the ground creates a thatch which equally makes it more difficult for wild flower seeds to germinate.

[Hotrodder]

We will never achieve a "perfect" lawn, or even semi-perfect one because there is an active army of moles constantly at work. They have destroyed what was once a flat, gently sloping green space turning it into something like a WW1 battlefield that is a nightmare to mow. I had planned to turn the area into a new woodland of mixed species keeping a small easily maintained natural garden nearest the house. I hadn't realised how expensive trees are to buy and so tried doing it piecemeal when I could afford it. What I have managed to plant were attacked by neighbour's cats and scratched to bits and the moles working around the roots of the saplings managed to kill a few. I even tried three of the dreadful cypress leylandi that supposedly grow up to a metre a year. The cats destroyed one in the first year. Undermining by moles has done for another over the last 18 months. The brave survivor has only achieved the lofty height of 1.5 metre as of today. I planted 6 silver birch three years ago. Three are still alive but the tallest is still less that a metre tall. I have given up with my reforestation goal, and given that the last jerry can of petrol to run the mower cost me over €30 I will be mowing maybe once a month instead of weekly. With the amount of rain we get here you have a choice. You cut regularly or you invest in a 4x4 to get to the end of the garden.

[ajm]

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