Wild Flower Lawns
You may remember a few weeks ago I posted an article from Bloom about a talk given by Gerry Daly. The talk was all about making gardening easier and how to make your garden better for you and the plants in it.
One of the points Gerry made in his talk was about lawns and in particular wild flower lawns. Now before you start thinking about rolling acres of meadow that are only cut once a year, that is not what we are talking about! We are talking about a lawn where ‘wild flowers’ are encouraged.
Now when I say wild flowers other people would call weeds. In a ‘Wild Flower Lawn’ you encourage the presence of buttercups, daisies, clover and other lovely things like that! Having a wild flower lawn will mean you save time gardening as you don’t cut it as often and you also don’t fertilize it or spray it for weeds. Not only do you not have to spend as much time caring for it but only you don’t spend as much money maintaining it either.
I have lived here for seven years and have not once fertilized the grass or sprayed it to remove the weeds. The only extreme I have gone to is digging out some dandelions and the odd thistle. And while I have not fertilized it I still have a lovely green lawn when it is mowed.
Now while I do love getting out in the garden and cutting the grass I don’t think I could be one of these people who cuts their lawn twice a week. I like to keep it to every ten days! The best part of cutting it this amount is that in between cuts you get to enjoy the floral display that comes.
I would definitely encourage everyone to try and embrace a wild flower lawn in their garden. Not only will it save time but it is also much more environmentally friendly. The amount of bees and other insects I see visiting the clover and buttercups is just amazing!
I too… probably by accident…. have a wild flower lawn! I’d love a meadow… but for the moment a wild flower lawn will have to suffice! Don’t you just love Gerry Daly’s approach to gardening? I once heard him say that digging over the vegetable plot was something the Victorians invented to keep their gardeners occupied 🙂
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When we lived in Massachusetts we had a long driveway (by urban standards) adjacent to a neighbor who was a very progressive individual in all areas. (he was a professor of neuroscience from South Africa) Anyway, he was always up for something different, so created EXACTLY what you describe in his entire sidelawn and it was GORGEOUS.
It started right as the snows melted with hellebores and crocuses, and the forsythias and pussywillows he had previously put in around the lawn for early color. Then in spring/summer he had tulips and lillies poppling up in crazy random spots and on it went into wildflower season. If he saw a patch empty of grass he stuck something in it and the effect over time was extraordinary. My driveway and his yard were very shaded in summer by 200 yr old enormous trees, but he chose his plants wisely and things still bloomed. Occasionally he’d weed wack the spots where the remaining lawn overgrew things, but in Massachusetts grass doesn’t really get too out of control.
I’m kind of pissed smartphones and digicams weren’t ubiquitous when I lived in that neighborhood. I had cell phones in the 90s/2000s but the original models weren’t camera-centric so precious few photos exist. Imagine a neighborhood with lush leafy trees and Queen Anne Victorian houses of period perfect colors and you have my old street. Now picture how amazing his sidelawn would look… I can’t believe I didn’t pull out the regular old camera ALL THE TIME to document those pretty summers!!
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