I have no wish to offend but I dislike lawns intensely.
If someone is explaining their lawn regime to me I make an excuse to move away before I say something which I know will upset them.
I was a 50’s baby and I have to say, looking back on life, I am amazed that Britain came out of World War II largely with its collective mental health clinging on - that is not to decry the many thousands of people who were profoundly affected for the rest of their lives. When you stand back and look at wars and how they start the whole thing is an abomination - usually one person’s ego in overdrive who, through persuasion or power manages to convince enough other people that he is right and a that whole bunch of other people must be annihilated to achieve the end goal - usually a commodity and/or wealth. How absurd that seems. Especially, without the human and financial cost of continuous wars there is plenty on this planet for everyone to have more than enough for a lifetime but that would mean equality and That Just Won’t Do.
I digress. Back to Lawns. As a 50’s child growing up in post-war Britain there was still rationing of some goods (mainly sweets!) and the Country was in full-on re-build although essentially there was no money for that. Pre-fabs, repaired terraced housing from before the First World War, re-purposed municipal buildings, new towns and cities and the new Suburbia where bombed-out Londoners were encouraged to move to and recover their lives. All of this brought its own problems, practical and psychological but in the main everyone was encouraged to garden.
Obviously there was full-on growing of food during the war but now, with Percy Thrower on the new-fangled television every Friday, showing the way and various ‘how-tos’ in the daily newspapers, people finally felt that they could create something that was attractive as well as growing food. The flower beds and bedding-plants and bulbs in the Spring, growing roses and dahlias became a thing, chrysanthemums and competitions flourished. Allotments were also popular and each Council House had to be built with a garden big enough to feed a family.
The focal point though, on the new housing estates especially, was The Lawn. We actually lived in the country at this time in a property belonging to British Rail as both of my parents worked for BR. It had a very large garden, fruit trees and bushes, we grew all kinds of vegetables, had flower beds, chickens . . . . and a lawn. I was a hyper active child, but I only know that retrospectively - back then I was just a bloody nuisance. Always with several things on the go at once, always looking for the next distraction. Time and again discussions would ensue for possible excursions, especially in the school holidays, maybe a day out somewhere, which was so rare that I would plan intensely even though I was only 5 or 6. What I would wear, where we would go, what we would do there. Mother would watch the weather forecast, sandwiches for the journey would be decided upon, white sandals would be painted with Kiwi shoe whitener and left to dry overnight stuffed with newspaper.
The day would draw closer and closer and then on the day itself, especially if fine and sunny, my Father would decide that he had to take advantage of his day off and the weather to cut the lawn and attend to other outside jobs. The main driver of this though was The Lawn. Where and how we lived did not necessitate a pristine lawn with stripes and neat edges but that was his ideal and this went on for the whole of his life. Endlessly replacing lawn mowers until he had quite the collection of equipment not deemed up to the job. I actually feel lucky that we were allowed to play cricket and tennis on it!
My husband describes something similar, if not worse, with his own Father. He was put on a ship at the age of 18 and sent off to fight in India. Left as a boy, returned as a man, and, I would argue, a damaged man. I don’t think there was any combat as such but the trauma of being sent from a small Suffolk town, trained and armed to fight, at sea for six weeks and then deposited in a Country so unlike anything he had known and knew nothing about, was profound. His adult life as a husband and Father, it seemed to me looking on, was the result of his earlier experiences, like a shaken bottle of pop - as long as nobody took the top off to see what was inside all would be well (ish).
Gardening was his release and The Lawn was his obsession. Mowing every few days in the Summer, exact, equal, straight stripes, neat very clipped edges. Up at the crack of dawn to achieve this and only grudgingly leaving The Lawn to its own devices for family days out or holidays. Nobody else could be entrusted to tend it to his satisfaction and even when he was too elderly and unwell to maintain it and my husband would mow it for him, he couldn’t help but criticise and struggle out to sort some perceived oversight.
The misery that these patches of grass create is not worth it my opinion. I accept that these damaged men found a way to make sense of their experiences in the absence of any profession recognition that help was needed. The collective environment of a housing estate where this low level toxic competition prevailed no doubt saved the NHS a torrent of time and money. I say men but my husband’s Aunt was even more affected. She was an Intensive Care Nurse and her lawn was not to be walked on without permission, was mowed to a strict timetable and the edges finished with nail scissors!
The thing is, there was very little domestic grass until around the late 19th Century. A domestic lawn mower was first invented in the 1830s but being able to afford to leave any part of land that you were responsible for without crops was only a decision for the very rich. The huge amount of domestic housing built as terraced houses for workforces by mill owners, railway companies and the like, did mean that everyone had a patch of equal size but the obsessive part only came into full force, I believe, with the arrival of the orderlieness - and more open gardens - of suburbia.
The part that lawns have played in my young life is not the only reason I dislike them. The sheer drudge of mowing, disposing of clippings and generally maintaining the health of something that has no other purpose I find exasperating. I am not even entertaining the argument that they are needed for pollinators and wildlife as they are never left to acrue such a benefit.
And the cost!
The UK, with a population of 68.3 million manages to spend a whopping £2.1 billion annually of lawn care products such as fertilisers and weed killer, lawn mowers account for £800 million of that, and other equipment such as strimmers, aerators and sprinklers. Just think of how much individual households would save if they dug up the lawn and then grew some of their own food! What a revolutionary idea.
And what if communities got together and decided who had the right facilities to grow which crop and then got together to preserve those crops, collectively, to share the work, share the cost, waste less seed and make it much more enjoyable, just as people did years ago. Municipal parks and gardens with fruit trees and bushes, beds of onions and carrots! Much less individual equipment needed, many more hands to make light work, children playing together while the work proceeds, with a share out at the end of the day. Just as it used to be.
Back to the Future.
Resources
lovejars.co.uk
Wonderful reading as always. Thank you!
Our ‘grass’, I hesitate to call it lawn because it probably never met the criteria, has gradually been overtaken by raised beds a couple of pots and perennials- with flowers and bulbs growing in a border. It is an incredibly small space but still manages to grow plums, blueberries, a few gooseberries, herbs and whatever happens to be in the raised beds. At the moment there are strawberries, onions, garlic and beetroot. The blossom on the plum tree has just ended. Every time I look at this riot it makes me smile.