Its amazing what happens if you stop cutting the grass in the usual way. If you are organic, as we are, then the lawn as such, probably isn’t just grass. I’m happy if it is mainly green.
Our lawn contains a lot of moss, daisies, buttercups, speedwell and a host of other tiny plants which have the chance to flower when not chopped every 5 days or so with a lawn mower.
Leaving certain areas to grow longer also brings in different insects and butterflies. More insects means that we are visited by more birds than usual – more creepy crawlies to feed all those baby birds that have appeared over the last couple of weeks.
We have even had a Daubentons bat quartering the circular lawn – hoovering up any midges that are there.
We can’t have a full blown meadow because I would have dreadful hay fever, so we cut the longest grass on the highest setting of the lawn mower.
After a couple of months the grass is growing more strongly than the flowers which are now being crowded out, so the decision is made to cut it back to the level of the rest of the lawn.
It all looks horribly yellow to start with, but after a bit of rain, a few weeks later it will green up again and no one would ever know that someone had been creating shapes in the grass.
I would much rather have a few flowers in the lawn than to pour chemicals onto it in order to have a perfectly green sward – I wonder if any of you agree with me !
Dear Pauline, I love the little flowers in the lawn, I love lawn but got rid of it all because it felt like work not joy maintaining it. Hay fever must be a disadvantage in gardening but you have obviously worked out a way to live with it. Your garden is looking wonderful. cheers, catmint
I would think a lawn would be a problem with the heat that you have, We don’t do anything to our lawn except cut it, no chemicals, no raking the moss out, no feeding and no weeding it ! It is only grass pollen that affects my hay fever so not really too much of a problem. Thanks for visiting Catmint and for your kind comments.
I love your circular lawn filled with wildflowers! I also like how the lawn sets off the rest of the garden. It all looks lush and very healthy.
Its amazing that everything still looks so green considering we are having the driest April and May that we have ever known, this must be the plus side of having a garden on heavy clay!
Lovely, and I agree with you that a lawn is not really a viable option if it means masses of chemicals and watering all through summer. I don’t have a lawn at all, some grass under the olives that is green in winter, filled with wild flowers in spring and brown for the summer, then renewed green and flowers in autumn. Christina
Yours sounds delightful Christina, a different look for each of the seasons, far better than boring green all the time!
Great idea. I too have a lot of tiny flowers in my lawn, which get removed with the lawn mower, I always feel so guilty. I tend to mow my lawn into shapes when I am designing a new bed or garden room. This way my husband gets a sense of what I am talking about and I can look at the shape from an upstairs window, making sure it is pleasing to my eye.
That is a super idea – much easier than dragging a hose pipe around to form the shape – wish I’d thought of that years ago !!!