Grass

It is coming round to that time of year when, in my country, there will be a regular pilgrimage to the shed.  A machine will be extracted to cut the head off a plant that must be the most widely grown in the country.  Grass.  It is highly convenient to gardeners that grass does not grow below 7°C and therefore does not need cutting for some months of the year.  In the past it was a sign of class, of upward mobility, of wealth, nowadays, for some, a neatly manicured lawn is an obsession integral part of their garden.  It is odd really that one plant has become so important in the national pysche.

Grass grows everywhere, literally.  No other plant family has a wider environmental range, it can tolerate cold, it grows in the polar regions and on mountain tops, and heat.  Their ability to adapt and grow almost anywhere has no doubt contributed to their success as a plant.  The Grass family includes rushes, sedges, cereals and bamboo.   Rushes, they are round whilst sedges have edges, were used to light houses before electricity.  Rushlights were the pithy interior steeped in fat, set in a clip and burnt to provide a weak, as we know it, light.  I have been told that the saying 'burning the candle at both ends' may come from this, but don't quote me on that one!  Rushes can also be dried and woven.  They provided matting in houses for walking and sleeping on as well as seat covers and baskets.  Cereals are a staple crop, they are the most widely eaten and produced all over the world.

When we moved to our house eleven years ago we inherited with it a garden that was largely grass.  Other plants were attempting to grow but with such a large population of wild rabbits in the area they were struggling to survive.  The rabbits have been excluded from the garden along with the grass.  We did not own a lawn mower and had no plans to buy one.  Much as we would love to own a large enough plot of land that some could be left as grass, we don't and we wanted to grow fruit, veg and bee friendly plants and the entire garden is given over to this.  We removed the grass by covering the entire garden with old carpet, old black plastic bags and cardboard (we had a plentiful supply of this) not long after we moved in.  We left this covering on for months replacing any that had rotted down.  As we worked on each part of the garden we removed the covering and throughly dug it over.  There is a small patch, growing bigger each year, where we obviously were not so thorough.  I think it was probably one of the last parts of the garden we dug over and by then probably also loosing the will to live.  Most of the patch is under a path each spring, as the grass starts to regrow, it reminds me that we meant to take up the path and dig over the ground........

Most lawns are in fact not entirely grass.  Those that are so carefully managed are to my mind the most artificial not just because they are manicured to within an inch of their life, but that they are a monoculture in microcosm.  They offer no nourishment to our pollinators.  I bet if you were to look closely at your lawn you will see an abundance of different plants and more than plant life flourishing.  A lawn doesn't need to be grass at all. What about chamomile or thyme?  We planted a thyme lawn in the area we hang a hammock.  We knew it would be an area that would need to walked on so growing veggies there was not an option, from a few plants it has now established itself into a fragrant carpet which can also be eaten!  What about you, do you have a lawn?