When we walk in the garden and leave the path, the grass is thick and comes up to our arms. There is a great diversity of grasses and flowers, insects are buzzing around, and here and there a poppy pops up.
Our neighbors all mow their fields. I look at the short grass and think: why on earth would you do that? No color and no life. I guess they look at our garden and think the same: why on earth would you let it grow so high? It is better to mow your grass not too early, we tell you why.
Status symbol
What is this obsession with having a green, shortcut lawn? It is a lot of work, it is expensive and most important it is in no way helping nature. It is not nature anymore, it is culture.
It probably started with the Romains. They cut down trees for a couple of miles to have a clear field of fire and see the enemy coming. When grass is short there is no place to hide, while danger can lurk in the high grass. Thus, it gives us a feeling of safety.
By the late 17th century, grass lawns became trendy among the wealthy aristocrats. André Le Nôtre included ‘tapis vert’ in his famous landscape design of Versailles. It was used for recreation and became a status symbol for the rich. If you wanted a tidy, green lawn without animal droppings you needed a lot of manpower and money to accomplish this.
The first lawnmower was developed in 1830 and it made grass lawns more accessible for the less rich. Lawns became very popular in the western world and nowadays they still carry this status symbol: it shows that you have money and time to cut it, water it and keep it free of “weeds”. The neath, orderly grassland reflects on its owner.
Don’t mow let it grow (and then cut it)
The world we live in needs a whole lot of diverse grassland, we need to give flowers and plants the time to grow and bloom and provide food for bees, butterflies, beetles and other insects. Our grassland reflects on its owners too: messy, colorful, welcoming and with some spare time:-)
We cut our grass once a year in late June or July, the low-tech way with a scythe. Timing is important because it should not become too difficult to cut and put into bales. We found an excellent way to do this without a machine!
Making a hay bale with a trash container
Take a big empty trash container and put 2 cords in it. To keep the cords in place, you need to create some piece of wood to put on the bottom of the container which can hold the cords. The 4 ends of the cords are hanging outside of the container with something heavy on it to keep them from slipping back in.
Get your hay in and make sure you compress it firmly. Take a step ladder, climb in and do the hard work! Tie the ropes around the hay and remove it from the container.
Eens met de strekking van het verhaal. Toch is geregeld maaien op bepaalde plekken gunstig voor de ontwikkeling van andere flora en fauna(!), denk maar aan de grote grazers in een natuurlijk veld. De kans is groot dat bij eens per jaar maaien bepaalde soorten de overhand krijgen en dat zullen dan vooral de grassoorten zijn. Ik zou zeggen; experimenteer op bepaalde stukken land en…. leer.
Experimenteren en leren blijven we doen! Sommige stukken worden al meer gemaaid omdat we daar ook ons terras hebben, we zullen zien wat de verschillen zijn volgend jaar.