You may remember a few weeks ago I posted an article from Bloom about a talk given by Gerry Daly. The talk was all about making gardening easier and how to make your garden better for you and the plants in it.
One of the points Gerry made in his talk was about lawns and in particular wild flower lawns. Now before you start thinking about rolling acres of meadow that are only cut once a year, that is not what we are talking about! We are talking about a lawn where ‘wild flowers’ are encouraged.
Now when I say wild flowers other people would call weeds. In a ‘Wild Flower Lawn’ you encourage the presence of buttercups, daisies, clover and other lovely things like that! Having a wild flower lawn will mean you save time gardening as you don’t cut it as often and you also don’t fertilize it or spray it for weeds. Not only do you not have to spend as much time caring for it but only you don’t spend as much money maintaining it either.
I have lived here for seven years and have not once fertilized the grass or sprayed it to remove the weeds. The only extreme I have gone to is digging out some dandelions and the odd thistle. And while I have not fertilized it I still have a lovely green lawn when it is mowed.
Now while I do love getting out in the garden and cutting the grass I don’t think I could be one of these people who cuts their lawn twice a week. I like to keep it to every ten days! The best part of cutting it this amount is that in between cuts you get to enjoy the floral display that comes.
I would definitely encourage everyone to try and embrace a wild flower lawn in their garden. Not only will it save time but it is also much more environmentally friendly. The amount of bees and other insects I see visiting the clover and buttercups is just amazing!
My Name is David Corscadden and I have just finished my degree in horticulture from UCD. I have a keen interest in wildlife friendly gardens or as I like to call them “Wild Gardens”. I have in the last year taken a u-turn in what I thought I would do after college. I have moved more in to the literature side of horticulture and plan to do a masters in journalism next year.
Source: Beyond The Wild Garden – Wild Flower Lawns – David Corscadden
