2014 – the year of the lawn!
New Year is a great time for wiping slates clean, so here is a confession.
Collectively, we in the gardening professions are guilty of making things pretty tough for lawn lovers. It’s true! Whilst there has been an exciting increase in lawn interest over recent years, and a reversal of the brutal trend to rip them out and replace with wood or concrete, we haven’t matched that growth with the right sort of support and advice. As a result, we have in fact made things worse.
Let me explain.
We all love flowers and we all have our favourites – which is fortunate as very few gardens can accommodate every single species! We can pick and choose what we want, select the ingredients and create our own unique tableau. And best of all, we know that whatever our taste, there is always good professional advice to help us. You want everything to be orange? That’s easy. A simple garden of flowering evergreens? No problem. Randomly self-seeding annuals – easier still! And at every step of the way, should you have a question you will always find the expert answer.
So, if we can enjoy this infinite spectrum in floral tastes, why not with our lawns?
The answer is simple – because no one has (yet) told us that we can! But that is about to change.
As we say goodbye to 2013, let’s survey the ‘spectrum’ of lawn lovers. It’s easy – we fall into only three types:
1.The ‘conservation’ gardener (often accused of being the lazy gardener) who believes in ‘live and let live’; if nature wants the lawn to have bald patches, so be it. “Lawns should be natural.”
2.The ‘have a go’ gardener (in many ways the true hero) who doesn’t really have time or knowledge but still makes a brave attempt at maintaining a good lawn.
3.The ‘serious’ (or obsessive?) gardener who remembers the ‘perfect’ lawn of days gone by and religiously uses cylinder mower, top dressing, fertiliser, spraying, etc etc etc.
Sadly, today’s lawns are the products of yesterday’s lawn care advice – patchy, inconsistent or quite frankly wrong. If we want the lawn to look good, we’re scared that it means excessive use of water and chemicals or creating something so preened to perfection that it looks unnatural. Or we look at our sad patch of grass, pleased that it is au naturel and a playground for local birdlife, but secretly hating what it looks like. Even if we do know in our minds what we want from our lawn, it seems unachievable without compromising our environmental principles or committing all our weekends to hands-and-knees micro lawn care! And it’s all for want of good, balanced and comprehensive advice.
The irony is that the right type of expert help has always been there! Up and down the country turf professionals successfully maintain a fabulous spectrum of lawn types for myriad purposes. And they don’t use tons of chemicals. And they don’t drain their nearest reservoirs. They simply understand lawns – the structure, yearly cycle and the particular needs of different types of lawns. That’s all.
So let’s welcome 2014, the year when this proven expertise and wisdom becomes available to each and every gardener in the land, the year when you can take stock of your garden, decide exactly what sort of lawn you want – and go out and achieve it. My new book – “Be Your Own Lawn Expert” – is out soon; written to put right everything that’s gone wrong in modern lawn care, I can guarantee it’s a pretty good place to start!
www.davidhedges-gower.com
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Replies
you missed one category....artificial lawn! Had a small lawn and I just didn't have the time or energy to do it justice, especially with a young family ruining it!
haha! thats not a lawn....thats a cop out!
see the point though, but I dont see it as an option I would EVER recommend.....
yes it is a cop out, but a very worthwhile one! sometimes you have to recommend what suits the customers needs even if you don't personally like it
absolutely......my point is that its not a lawn...
its a piece of plastic.....
we call it artificial grass, but....its plastic that looks like grass
I would not put in there about meadows that we are apparently calling lawns either...I think they are the no-grass lawn, full of meadow type flowers.....
if they are a flower....then they are not .......
granted, artificial grass has its place, but not in a lawn (IMO)
well be calling concrete, re-inforced black grass next....(only joking)
The only thing about artificial grass is that the only similarities are that it looks like grass, its called grass and it goes where your lawn was/will be.
Other than that it is ....artificial.
Some people love it as it suits their lifestyle....understandable.
Some think it an eco-option? Made of plastic? Not adding in any way to the environment (apart from not mowing), it does not act in any other way...green?
It has to be replaced and destroyed....eventually, i assume?
It has a shelf life? I assume?
I could go on.......
It is an option for some.....a bit like Quorn maybe???? :-)
Im in the serious lawn category, stipes perfectly in line, edges seemlessly trimmed and all the trimmings that go with it. In my opinion the better the grass looks the better everything else around it looks e.g the flowers and even a meadow against it. I have one problem in a corner that doesnt get enough light,and its under a sycamore a bit. Iv tried everything to bring it on; the right watering once a week or so, heavy too,reduced fertiliser in that area,height adjustment on the mower shady grass seed but alas it just wont come good?by october its back to square one; the soil is an abomination of havy clay and bricks from an old pottery company which resided here before IS there anything I can try at this stage?I also tried improving the soil and going with seed on that.
One thing I have discovered about artificial grass - Cats - Once they dig their claws in, they fall in love with ripping bits of it out, to be fair it takes a long while, but a determined cat can pull corners up in a few days of playing.
Also, no one seems to clean it - so it always ends up full of moss as dust and leafs settle and rot down, giving a perfect environment for it - sadly the only (3 ) people i ahve met wiht it expect it to be ZERO maintenance.
Love it :-)
paul doyle said:
Hi David,
What were your views on The Great British Garden Revival lawns episode last Friday evening?
I myself am from within the Artificial Grass industry however I most definitely am NOT one of the individuals aiming to turn every patch of natural grass artificial.
Artificial Grass has its applications and especially money saving elements however you are NEVER going to replace the GREAT BRITISH LAWN.
Cheers
Hi Mathew,
like anything else to do with lawns, it was appalling!
We showed unattainable lawns such as the college's (if you cant have a good 'perfect?' lawn when no-one walks on it, when can you)
It was presented as a save our lawns. All great, content, disgraceful!
A gardener (not a lawn expert) showing about forking a lawn (really?) top dressing a lawn (really) and its a simple as that.
We in the UK have no voice for lawns (but I am here waiting) but the garden media think lawns are easy and talk about the same old dribble.
My book, out soon, will show all that modern lawns is about working with nature, the soils, healthy grass etc, without emphasising too much on chemical usage (especially not the unskilled domestic user)
The average UK lawn can be beautiful without being mown with a cylinder. Short is not good, as dark green is not either (even though thats what we want)
Artifical is good for many and as you say, will never replace grass...period......but its modern day for some.
My personal opinion is that schools are a great focus for it, for safety, aesthetics, ease etc etc
It is about as eco friendly as anything else in gardening in my opinion (even gardening is nowhere near as green as people think, but thats another subject!)
IMO, we need more media on all.
Program looked pretty, but who decided on the grass content? An enthusiast? Certainly not an expert!!
Matthew Spedding said:
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