Selfsufficientish.com

Why are lawns............just that why are lawns..............what is their purpose,I have just mown our lawn for the umpteenth time this year and thats enough no more green carpet in the garden it's comeing up this winter and I am haveing more raised beds and a wildlife pond............so there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good for you! I hate neat lawns. That may have something to do with the fact that I'm bone idle so all my garden needs to be functional and productive - I don't even have flowers unless they serve another purpose too. Cutting grass just to sit on isn't a good enough reason, especially as you spend so much time cutting it you don't have time to sit in it.

Plus I always wonder how many beds/veg etc I could get in that area. They're not very good for wildlife either, are they.

Just make sure you keep somewhere to sit - grassed or otherwise. It's a very important part of gardening you know

Looking at the size of my bum the less sitting on it I do the better

never could work out why unless something was grazing on it
previously have had lawn for kids and rabbits to play on, and later left a small amout for dog to pee on, whats left is now bird feeding area

Oh come on guys, grass provides me with loads of compostable material (the green stuff to layer in between the woody stuff), keeps us cool - ever sat out on a hot day in a gravel garden?????? , provides tons of nectar for bees and butterflies in summer (that's the weeds growing in it and clover) and looks damn nice when it is green. Which isn't often round these parts. And it cushions the ground when you walk on it when it's green. It's just so necessary and wonderful. Maybe if you have green grass all year round you don't appreciate it like we do. I absolutely adore green grass as I've spent the last 13 years living in places where grass is brown and like a desert in summer.

Also, many species of butterfly rely on grass as a food stuff, so don't get rid of all your grass. Keep some long wild bits of grass unmown. There is a really good reason to keep it, much more so than nettles for example! You can't whistle through nettle leaves can you?

I have to admit that I'm not a lawn lover. My garden has far too much of the stuff for my liking but would look a bit crowded if I got rid of it all. i have taken up some to make my new pond. I took up another section a few years ago to make the veg patch. I leave most of the rest unmown now until midsummer when I harvest the hay for chicken bedding. There's just enough proper lawn now to put my sun lounger on.

Grass, on the other hand, is useful. As Mandy says, it has a variety of uses, particularly when full of wild flowers. I also like grass paths, especially at the top of my garden which gets covered in leaves in Autumn. I can hoover up the leaves with the lawnmower, much quicker than sweeping a path and the combination of grass clippings and shredded leaves is brilliant winter bedding for chooks which then becomes even brillianter spring mulch for the veg patch.

Zoe

Well the lawn has had it's revenge,since mowing it I have had huge bites all the way up my legs and I mean all the way,they are so sore and inflamed that I am on pills and cream from the chemist but in spite of my suffering I am comeing to get you lawn ..................be afraid..........be very afraid.

Sorry guys, I love my lawn
I even like lawn mowers more than cars Mind you Sue would quite happily dig it up, which she did when we lived in Brightlingsea, came home from work one day to find one of my lawns gone

JM - I am so with you on this one. I've just caved in tonight and organised a man to come an cut my grass (lawn would give the impression I care for it, lol, and its got more dockens than grass I think) tomorrow cos I have got more than enough to do (plus I can't get my workboots on owing to a bad scald on my ankle at the mo ) - it'll cost me too how non ish

pelmetman wrote:Sorry guys, I love my lawn
I even like lawn mowers more than cars

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Mind you Sue would quite happily dig it up, which she did when we lived in Brightlingsea, came home from work one day to find one of my lawns gone

OMG it's so lush and green and your whole garden is lovely and looks like Groundforce came and did it for you! I wish mine was so tidy. (No I don't really cos mine is a wild garden with woodland and it just wouldn't work together!) Love your borders and where does your veg patch fit in (I remember seeing photos of it)?

Hi MMM,

The veg & fruit are on the other side Incidentally MMM we have been having trouble getting on ish lately with explorer, we could log on but as soon as we tried to view any threads my computor would freeze. Now using firefox for this site and it seems ok

It's gorgeous, I've always been envious of people with stripy lawns, ours rubbish grass just doesn't do that (how DO you do that?)

I particularly like your spuds in that lovely manicured border. But I'm glad to see you have something dead looking in a hanging basket because it all looks too damn healthy and perfect to me!

As to computer problems, I don't know! I use explorer too and haven't had any problems, but I did miss you two so glad you are back.

Woops - the dead stuff in the hanging basket is my fault. I always take a great pride in our baskets but this one is still there from last year, I don't know why it just is poor thing, I really must send it to the great compost bin in the sky.

Nice to be back. Have been working hard on the garden all summer and haven't had the time to do any postings.

Sue

Millymollymandy wrote:It's gorgeous, I've always been envious of people with stripy lawns, ours rubbish grass just doesn't do that (how DO you do that?)

I just opened the pics and am gobsmacked that they black n white a circular lawn - that takes patience and effort - and practice. How amazingly neat !!! Pelmetpeople - your garden is truly lovely

MMM - the idea behind black n whiting your lawn (if i remember rightly) is that you go backwards and forwards in parallel straight lines in one direction eg north - south one week and then perpendicular the next week ie east to west (week 3 can be round n round if you want full variation) - this gives the grass a thorough multi directional cutting process encouraging it to be healthy etc. - and leaves it looking stripy (unless you go round n round)

Personally - if its green it can grow in my 'lawn' at the mo and the sooner i find the time and energy to dig up more if it the better, lol

Fruitcake I've never had a lawn that went stripy like that no matter how hard I tried! But here we don't tend our 'lawn' at all as there's too much of it and the grass is rubbish mixed creeping stuff with paddock grass plus gazillions of weeds/wildflowers. So it doesn't get fed or scarified or any of those things you are supposed to do.