A lawn by any other name

Over here we are ( or at least some of us are ) in a froth of excitement over the current Ashes tour . The first Test match has just terminate as I write and there has been much excitement including a disk breakage frame by a number 11 batsman and some combative umpiring decisions . But it was all sound in the end as we gravel the Australians – always a satisfactory result .

All of this will have not made any notion on the Brobdingnagian legal age of you across the sea because I am , of course , talking about cricket . The Ashes is the prize over which the English and Australian cricket teams struggle every couple of years . It is as exciting as a secret plan that lasts at least four twenty-four hours ( often five ) can get . It would be foolish of me to stress and explain the rules of cricket to you – it is one of those games that you have to be British to appreciate . Very like American football which we really do not understand : all that stopping and starting and heavily armoured large men .

There is a United States cricket team but the game has plummetted in popularity since the mid nineteenth century when some bright spark ( one Alexander Cartwright ) generalise baseball – although , I should bespeak out , that the first plot of bsball was in reality played in England in about 1740 .

Anyway what , you necessitate , has this got to do with horticulture ? The answer is not much but I thought about it not only because of the Ashes series but also because I was see a match the other day at Radley College which blow the largest area of mown smoke in the country . It is quite impressive : Akka of toy subject area and golf game course all beautifully mown and perfectly striped . It does , however , pray a interrogation that is being asked more and more oftentimes : is lawn Gunter Grass a dear idea ?

The reply is of path , sometimes . In portion like cricket pitches and football earth then it is perfectly justified ( anybody who has play any sort of sport on hokey turf will harmonize that there is nothing safe than the veridical thing ) . In a domestic situation I imagine it is fine provided the garden is not too small . We have the advantage of living in a small land where it rains quite a raft so the amount of water we expend on irrigating our lawns is middling minimal . we make love that in the periodic times of drought that we have the grass will dry out a bit but , come the first inevitable exhibitioner , it will all green up again very swiftly .

I know that there is a strong and sensible movement for the preservation of water by replacing lawns with drought tolerant plants that are well suitable to the climate . The argument over here is not only in favour of saving water but also about the general dreariness of a monoculture . A lawn has very slight variation of habitat and does not really produce anything which benefits any other species apart from ourselves . In general it is a good affair to have less lawn and more interracial planting : better for the bees , birds and butterflies . Much more variety and colour , much prettier and in the main exciting .

Except that we do need stretchiness of grass at times upon which kid can lark , picnics can be taken and , of class , cricket can be work . There is another test start on Thursday and , if you are suddenly taken with a mystifying curio then you may see minute by minute coverage on the BBC site .

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lawn looking stripey