Regarding hard wearing green surfaces, grass is pre-eminent.
That is why sports turf is kept weed free, as weeds and mosses wear badly. Grass has evolved alongside grazing animals. It grows from the base rather than from the tips like most plants. So keeps coming back for more.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Do you think that like Carbon-Offsetting/Credits, some sort of credit could be given to those who like a "sterile green desert" but who feed nuts a, seeds and suet to the wild life?
Also, if you grow a tree, should you count the total area covered or the volume grown, or the carbon absorbed, oxygen released? Little grows beneath a beech tree, yet it contributes a lot.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
The ecological issue with lawns is not so much the lack of biodiversity as the amount of fossil fuels consumed in their maintenance. Planting the borders is fine for pollinators but it doesn't offset the energy consumed by the lawnmowers, petrol strimmers and the production of the chemicals often used. Allowing the grass to grow longer increases the biodiversity and also reduces the mowing. If you want to have a perfect lawn, keeping it to a size you can manage with a push mower and a set of hand shears is a good compromise that is manageable in most domestic gardens in the UK, but using an electric mower (with a cable) is a reasonable compromise that also limits the extent. Weeding by hand, or by repeated mowing rather than dosing with chemicals also helps reduce the impact.
The grass is fine, as it goes, it stores quite a lot of carbon and it reduces soil erosions and the urban heat island effect. It's not bad in itself, it's the way it's maintained that causes the ecological conflict
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
The problem as I see it is in the replacement. If you go the hardscape root you have the carbon footprint of whatever you choose, plus the fact it won't be as beneficial to wildlife. It you pull up the lawn and put in new flowers then you will have some carbon released from the process but also need to input resources to get whatever you plant to grow. It may in the long run be more beneficial to wildlife and capture more carbon but that could take quite a while.
Last year I cut the lawn twice. I have bulbs growing out of it so I do a later first cut but it didn't need a cut again until late October because we had no growth. The drought just burnt it off and stopped it growing. People tend to cut it as a routine around here, rather than when it is needed. We were a bit annoyed that the local pitch and putt course was watering the grass nearly everyday (but not watering any of the new trees they planted, which all died) despite the threats of a hosepipe ban. It is about managing resources and sometimes having a large sacrificial area of the garden, which essentially reduces the amount of resources we need to spend to keep the garden going, can be a good thing.
How bad is bare soil? I have almost none in my garden. At a pinch-point under trees, a path is worn bare, but is covered by trodden leaves for most of the year.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I don't mind bare soil around some plants so that I can enjoy their form . I'm not that keen on having plants rammed together - even if it suppresses weeds.
I don't mind bare soil around some plants so that I can enjoy their form . I'm not that keen on having plants rammed together - even if it suppresses weeds.
But bare soil is not what nature does. Nature doesn't enjoy form, it's a very human idea.
And isn't "rammed together" what they do in Chelsa show gardens?
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Posts
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
That is why sports turf is kept weed free, as weeds and mosses wear badly. Grass has evolved alongside grazing animals. It grows from the base rather than from the tips like most plants. So keeps coming back for more.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Do you think that like Carbon-Offsetting/Credits, some sort of credit could be given to those who like a "sterile green desert" but who feed nuts a, seeds and suet to the wild life?
Also, if you grow a tree, should you count the total area covered or the volume grown, or the carbon absorbed, oxygen released? Little grows beneath a beech tree, yet it contributes a lot.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
The grass is fine, as it goes, it stores quite a lot of carbon and it reduces soil erosions and the urban heat island effect. It's not bad in itself, it's the way it's maintained that causes the ecological conflict
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Last year I cut the lawn twice. I have bulbs growing out of it so I do a later first cut but it didn't need a cut again until late October because we had no growth. The drought just burnt it off and stopped it growing. People tend to cut it as a routine around here, rather than when it is needed. We were a bit annoyed that the local pitch and putt course was watering the grass nearly everyday (but not watering any of the new trees they planted, which all died) despite the threats of a hosepipe ban. It is about managing resources and sometimes having a large sacrificial area of the garden, which essentially reduces the amount of resources we need to spend to keep the garden going, can be a good thing.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I have not included my house and shed footprint that count as sealed surfaces. I ignored my greenhouse.
I wonder what others calculate for their overall factor.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
And isn't "rammed together" what they do in Chelsa show gardens?
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."