Sigil for eloquent writing1/22/2024 Three-quarters of the property is deciduous forest, while the "lawn" at the back of the house was a long neglected rectangle of land that had gone wild. My view didn't really begin to change until I moved into my own house half a decade ago. We want others to think well of us, and so out we go on Saturday to cut the grass.īut maybe it's time we change the way we think. If we have the time and money to maintain a perfect lawn, we must be doing pretty good. Many of us still have it ingrained deep in our consciousness that respectable people have a certain kind of respectable lawn. Today, there is a booming business in fertilizers, grass seeds, pesticides and herbicides all dedicated to the uphill battle to have that perfect lawn. With the invention of the lawnmower and the garden hose, a perfect lawn was within reach for average Americans. After much experimentation, a mix of grasses that could withstand the North American environment was discovered - although it would require lots of maintenance in order to thrive. The only problem was, our climate is much harsher than the one in, say, England, and that lovely European grass does not do very well here. Rolling lawns and manicured gardens became the standard on the sprawling estates of the wealthy, and our standards of natural beauty evolved to hold that as the ideal.Įventually the idea of a manicured grass lawn as a sign of power and worthiness made its way to North America from Europe. You had land you didn't need to farm for survival. If you had a lawn, it meant you had something worth defending, or you were rich enough to have private land on which to hunt and the leisure time to do so. Yet another theory is that having a blank green swath in the front of your home indicated that you were wealthy enough not to have to grow your own food.Īll of these theories point to one thing: having a perfect lawn is a status symbol. Simply put, they were areas around castles that had been cleared of forest and were kept trimmed by grazing livestock in order to have a clear view of any enemies that might emerge from the woods.Īnother influence may have been the aesthetic of a glade, a place in the forest often grazed short by deer kept in a game park by wealthy landowners. In medieval Europe, lawns seem to have originated as a direct result of wealth and power. There are many theories and reasons why we have what we call "lawns," and it's an interesting area to research further, but here is the basic gist. Why do we prize a lawn of plain grass above one of wildflowers, medicinal herbs, and edible plants? And that's just the way it was.īut some years ago, I started wondering why. Humans had little, green, blank areas around their houses, occasionally dotted with ornamental flowers. While I never understood the war on dandelions or the obsession with eliminating "weeds," I went much of my life without stopping to think about why we mow. If you were conscientious and good at life, odds are your lawn was equally under your control, free from the shameful blemish of a stray yellow dandelion and kept to a maximum height of two inches tall. A uniformly green, neatly trimmed lawn was the ultimate sigil of a household that had it all together. Growing up in a rural - but in some ways fairly suburban - middle class area, Saturdays often meant the buzz of lawnmowers mingling with the faint sounds of a baseball game drifting out from someone's TV. The smell of freshly cut grass is a vivid fixture in my earliest memories of summer. It's a sanctuary not just for me, but for wildlife as well. The deer stop to rest in the thickets of arching branches. There are foxes, groundhogs, rabbits, owls, hawks, butterflies, frogs and toads. When everything is in bloom, the whole place hums with bees and dragonflies. I have a confession to make: I don't mow my lawn.Īt first glance, my yard probably looks a little chaotic, a far cry from the traditional neat swath of green. But if you look closer, you'll see that it's not long, neglected grass, but a wild sea of tiny flowers and medicinal plants.
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