What is it about Lawns

What is the attraction of a lawn? While I admire professionally maintained lawns, typically at stately homes or large gardens, and pitches for sport, Wimbledon, Lords, bowling greens etc. I completely fail to understand why so many people, mainly men, spend so much time tending a lawn; trying to achieve a nice even green surface with stripes.

 

I really like my lawn and spend for to much time on it , it a great achievement to get a very good because its difficult to get a great lawn and maintain it . Plus it can set the rest of the garden off, better to walk on than moss and weeds hundred times better looking I love a striped lawn . Unfortunately a lot of people are frankly wasting their time , the idea cutting as short as you can and throw some 4-1 weed feed and suddenly you'll have a lawn to match Wimbledon . I suppose it the same as other garden related activates I don't see the recently new attraction with wildflower meadows I've yet to see a really good one.

 

A classic green, stripy , well-edged lawn does set off other plants to perfection, if you're the sort of gardener who likes the overall picture

 

For the same reason we weed, mulch and prune - it looks good and it keeps things healthy.

Overgrown weedy lawns will spread those same weeds into your beds. Weed grasses are often worse for hayfever sufferers. Unkempt lawns are generally less pleasant to walk on barefoot in summer, especially when thistles start appearing. They're also less pleasant for blankets on the ground for picnics, or even just for getting chairs out to sunbathe or have a G&T of an evening. For those of us with dogs, short grass is easier to find and pick up dog poo from.

Just a few things that spring to mind for me.

 

Never attained a stripey lawn, but I do like a nice lawn to sit out on in the evening for a drink or two. They are a complete pain in the butt to maintain - They go all right then they go all wrong. I have just had my front lawn reseeded and my back lawn is being fed by GreenThumbs now. One thing they cannot cure is two rather large holes which are Molly's pride and joy, it does look a little like a mortar attack but it keeps her happy

 

Cannot imagine ever doing any of those things. I might sit down with a cup of tea or a beer on the edge of a raised bed, a tree stump or a convenient rock, but there is always something to catch the attention, a flower to look at, an insect or bird to watch, a weed to pull up or maybe a what's that, it wasn't there last week, did I plant it? moment; most common in spring with bulbs.
The damp grass at the front interwoven with moss is lovely to walk on and home to a number of waxcaps in autumn, recent dry summers didn't suit. The lumpy, bumpy grass at the back is home to a lot of insects especially ants, solitary bees and spiders, with crickets and grasshoppers in summer. The different varieties of grass with their different flowers and colours add interest to the buttercups, yarrow, plantain, dandelions and violets. The grass merges into the flowerbeds and the flowerbeds spill over onto the grass. Most summers the grass will get cut half a dozen times between March and October, this year due to the recent rain probably another couple of times. I do pull up docks which appear under the trees. Never cut the whole lot in one go as there are autumn and spring bulbs and primroses, self seeded geranium and cyclamen to be avoided. Old rotary mower (Mountfield Princess) is set high enough to avoid most of the bumps in the ground and conifer roots.

 

I like to see place's nice but here I wouldn't be able to keep it looking like a bowling green, so at the mow my grass in places which I don't mow so the clover can flower and the grass can self seed it has it's own nice look about it, if I could keep it looking like a bowling green it still wouldn't look very nice as the road outside kick's up so much dust it wouldn't look nice so that's why I don't bother

 

Hubs maintains our lawns, personally I think a nice lawn sets the whole garden off. Wouldn't like to be without one...at this stage in life when we can physically still care for one, but I don't like an unloved one!!

 

It's pretty much down to what kind of garden you have or like.
Mine is pretty over grown too many plants and not enough space.
Years ago I had a half decent lawn but don't bother any more it's shrunk as the shrubs have increased.
And these days I would never spend money on water to just grow grass.

 

Must say we don't water our lawns unless we really have a prolonged dry spell with intensive heat. Much better to train the roots to go downwards to search for the water table.

 

I dug up most of our grass to make room for plants that didn't need constant attention and were far more interesting (in my opinion).
I still have two areas of areas of grass but they shrink each year as the borders get larger. I think a well tended lawn is lovely to look at but expensive and labour intensive to attain. My grass full of daisies and I like it that way.

 

I hate lawns