Digging up the lawn

Garden transformation Part 17 – What no lawn!

Lawn hater? No of course not!

I love a beautifully manicured, luscious green lawn as much as anyone, but not enough to want to look after one myself, a lawn through my eyes is another border waiting to happen – more plants to buy.

Considering how much I love gardening, I’ve never liked mowing the lawn and that goes for my husband too.

At the risk of getting hate mail from all of you lawn lovers, which in Britain let’s face it, is a lot of you!

I think a lawn is the highest maintenance area of any garden – that’s if you want it to look at its best. Not only do you need to mow it and edge it every week throughout the growing season – which extends every year. You need to weed it, feed it, scarify and aerate it. Not to mention cleaning the lawnmower!

I think people that say they don’t have time for gardening would be truly shocked if they totalled up how many hours they spent on their lawn.

Needless to say our new garden design did not include any mowable grass! I do love tall swaying grass that you cut down once a year.

As we had got rid of the lawn at our last house, we didn’t even own a lawnmower! Luckily we had a lovely new neighbour/gardener that cut the lawn for us for a few months.

It’s a good job as we had so much to do when we first moved in, we certainly couldn’t spare any valuable time to mow the lawn. Although I have to admit that it did look lovely when he’d done it.

2013 September – Digging up the lawn

One month after moving in, the first pieces of turf were dug up, right in the middle of the lawn. We built the first two raised vegetable beds.

2014 – Acquiring a lawn mower

We finally acquired an old petrol mower from a friend, as it became apparent that we would have a substantial amount of lawn for a while yet!

2014 – April – June

Four more rectangles of turf were removed, as we built the next four veg beds. We then took the turf up in between the beds as we certainly didn’t want to be mowing the pathways.

2014 November – Plans to get rid of more grass

As I designed the garden on paper. I would laid it out with canes and plant pots to see if it worked.

2015 – New mower

Getting tired of tugging away on the pull cord, to get the old mower going. We gave in and bought a new Mountfield mower, luckily there was a good offer on at Screwfix.

2015 -July

The next chunk to go was the patio area between the bamboo bed and hosta bed

2016 -March

As we swapped the original greenhouse for a new larger one, it allowed us to dig yet more turf up to create a base.

The next area to be dug was the pond, but in all honesty there wasn’t any grass left there with all the building work going on.

And the same was true with the summer house base, and some of the pathways. Most of the grass had already been worn away.

2019 January – The Olive Bed & Grass borders

As we got nearer to the house, I wanted a raised bed with an olive tree in. This area had been a temporary home to some plants we had recued.

We built two low borders for tall grass – the type you don’t have to mow! To form a barrier between the patio and kitchen garden.

2019 February – The last bit

And finally, five and a half years after moving in!

As we started to build the plunge pool, it only left one tiny little area of lawn.

2019 March – Selling the lawnmower

The lawn had gradually shrunk away over a six year period, taking less time to mow each year. The last bit was finally dug up by the beginning of March and we put the lawn mower straight on eBay. It sold in the first week, for the same price we’d bought it for. The night it was picked up we toasted the end of grass mowing, or so I thought…….

2020 global pandemic

My mum now in her 90’s loves her lawn. She has no idea why her daughter would choose to dig up all that lovely lawn. Over the six years since we moved here, she’s kept saying, “you’re not really going to get rid of all of your lawn are you?” Same answer every time “yes mum”.

Unfortunately as we went into the first lockdown, my brother who normally mows mums lawn, had a very nasty bout of sciatica, so guess who mowed mums lawn all summer long?

One day I had fun cutting a rainbow into the grass, whilst mum sat (very socially distanced) and watched.

I have to agree with her it did look lovely when it was done, but…….

Missing the green

In our village we have a cricket pitch, football field, bowling green and park. So if I ever have lawn withdrawal symptoms, I can just go for a walk.

Stay safe & happy gardening.

Parts 1-20 of The Garden Transformation series.

Part 1 – Let’s get stuck into the garden makeover! Part 2 – New garden, new cat! Part 3 – Building the raised vegetable beds Part 4 – Lady bricklayer? Part 5 Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Shady Wall Part 6 – Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Great Wall Part 7 – Bamboo and Hosta raised beds Part 8 – The Majestic Walnut Tree Part 9 –The Holly and The Ivy Part 10 – Greenhouse – take two Part 11 – The Fruit trees Part 12 – Dreaming of a Pond Part 13 –The White Garden Part 14 – Gardening on an Ice-Age Glacier Part 15 – Creating the Pathways Part 16 – Creating a Woodland border Part 18 – Planting the Magnolia border Part 19 – Making a Mediterranean Bed Part – 20 The Pizza & Olive Patios