Our lawns are bursting into life, but how much do we need to tend them? I’ll enjoy my lawn better when I take the garden environment into account and, with COP26 in mind, manage it to help minimise carbon release. Even Russia’s attempt to destroy Ukraine is a factor this year.
Our soil is crammed with living organisms, from those we can see, like worms, to almost or completely invisible micro-organisms.
But life beneath the lawn is damaged and over time destroyed when we douse it with various feed and weed concoctions. And leaching inevitably spreads this contamination to the surrounding area.
When some or all of the lawn isn’t mown, even for a few weeks, clover, daisies and other wild flowers emerge and provide much needed nectar for pollinators, as well as shelter for many invertebrates.
Doesn’t a patch of wild flowers look more attractive than a scalped green sward? By all means, mow paths and sitting areas, but relax and enjoy the rest. It makes my pint of home brew taste better.
Lawns are a valuable carbon sink. Like all other plants, grass absorbs CO2 during photosynthesis and this provides energy for the grass to grow. Undisturbed, roots take and sequester this carbon. When cut regularly or periodically, carbon locked in the foliage is added to the compost heap and the resulting compost is then returned to the soil.
But this natural cycle is destroyed when feed and weed products are used because gardeners must bin at least the first two mowings. The fertiliser production releases 4-6 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of nitrogen produced.
This is bad enough, but the Ukrainian crisis might make gardeners wonder whether they should use fertiliser for the lawn when farmers can’t afford it for food production.
The cost of nitrogen per tonne has risen from £650 to £1000 in the last week.
Plant of the week
Pulmonaria officinalis ‘Sissinghurst White’. This is a delightful successor to snowdrops. I love the gorgeous strong white clusters that don’t yellow or fade to brown. Like snowdrops, they do best in partially shaded, damp places that don’t dry out in summers. Another good Pulmonaria is P. angustifolia ’Blue Ensign’, with clear, deep blue flowers emerging from indigo buds.
After flowering, Pulmonarias throw up a flush of new leaves, usually spotted or blotched with white or silver. This was supposed to look like lungs, giving the genus both its Latin name and its common one - Lungwort.
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