I grew up on a quiet street in a small town in eastern Poland. My parents had and still have a classic PRL “block” – a two-story single-family house, which was used to build entire housing estates in the 1970s. This house usually stood in the middle of the plot, in front of it there was space for a flower garden, and behind it there was a little more land intended for a large vegetable garden and a piece of orchard. It was the same with my parents. At this time of year, lilacs bloomed in front of the house, and my mother would bring radishes and chives from the garden. All the neighbors had their plots arranged in a similar way.
I still visit my parents in their quiet neighborhood and look at the houses where my friends grew up. Today, many of them have passed into new hands, completely changed – new fences, self-closing gates and behind them impressive garages, no longer for babies or Polonaises, but for proper SUVs.
I also look at the gardens and see that only a few of them have flowers and vegetables. They are increasingly replaced by neatly trimmed lawns with trampolines and swings for children, or plastic garden furniture and barbecues. Instead of apple, pear or cherry trees, there are ornamental shrubs and – of course – thujas, with which everyone tries to hide from the prying eyes of their neighbors. No one has time to sow, weave or preserve crops. Even in my parents’ house, part of the vegetable garden has been replaced by a lawn.
Lawn instead of beetroot
The lawn trend took off in Poland in the 1990s. Maybe it was then that we first felt that there was enough food in the shops and we didn’t have to queue for everything? So not only backyard pigsties and chicken coops disappeared, but also vegetable gardens. Or maybe we went to the West and saw that this is what they have there? The richer the residence, the better-groomed the lawns and the more beautiful they surround famous palaces or aristocratic residences. And we wanted it to be the same way – elegant, Western and noble, not peasant. Today, a lawn is a “must have” in practically every suburban house, every park and even in a backyard.
But today the situation in the world is completely different from the 1990s. I think everyone is already aware that the climate is changing, Poland is becoming drier, and nothing is more conducive to water leakage from the soil than grass that has been cut to the ground. This is most noticeable on lawns when there has been no rain for a long time – they turn into dry, yellow, bald patches of earth. “In a meadow, the roots of plants reach several metres deep into the soil, and the cut grass develops a shallow root system, only a few centimetres long, which is very ineffective at retaining water. Lawns dry out quickly,” says Prof. Łukasz Łuczaj from the University of Rzeszów.
But of course there is a way. It’s watering. A well-trimmed lawn, to maintain its appearance in a dry summer, requires hectoliters of water and the energy needed to collect it, clean it and pump it to the water supply. And water and energy are truly scarce commodities today. Pouring water on a uniformly cut lawn is an activity that has as much in common with ecology and a sustainable lifestyle as driving a few kilometers to work every day through the city center in a large SUV or all-terrain vehicle.
Save life on the grass
The trend towards mowed lawns is also a tragedy for animals, for whom long grass can be a great place to live. “Mowing grass reduces the diversity of plant and animal species. For example, there are far fewer insects on lawns than on meadows that are mowed once or twice a year,” explains Prof. Luczaj. And insects are an extremely important element of the food chain; their numbers determine the number of birds in our gardens and villages. In turn, the number of insect species depends on the diversity of plants.
— In our nature, many insects are closely related to a specific plant species, for example, the beautiful red-winged butterfly feeds only on sorrel. If there is no sorrel on the lawn, the red sorrel will disappear, says Prof. Luczaj.
And today there are more species-poor lawns than ever before. — This trend, which started somewhere on the few estates of the rich in the past, has become very democratic. Everyone mows their lawns, cities, towns, parks and backyards, and ditches near roads and paths are often sprayed with glyphosate, a strong herbicide, so that nothing grows there – lists our common sins, Prof. Luczaj. That is why huge areas of our country are turning into a biological desert.
When to mow the lawn?
According to Prof. Luczaj, it would be ideal if nature cut Łuczaj once a year, when biodiversity is at its highest. – But it is a good idea to avoid cutting in May, because it is a key month for the growth and flowering of many plants and for the reproduction of insects and birds – says Prof. Luczaj.
In England and the USA, they are promoting No Mow May. It is worth instilling this idea in our country as well. Or maybe you should only get your lawn mowers in mid-June? — I only mow my lawn for the first time after June 20th, because that is the least harmful to biodiversity. Of course, you can’t mow with a regular lawn mower; you have to use a scythe, hand trimmer or tractor, because the grass is already very tall. Then you can mow the lawn more often, for example once a month, and keep the grass tall, says Prof. Luczaj.
And no more lawns where nothing grows except one or a few species of grass. Let’s sow flower meadows around our houses, in green belts, in city parks or in rural yards and let them flourish freely. Then they will turn into pastures. Grass does not require expensive and time-consuming care, it maintains itself and contains various plants, also colloquially called weeds by lawn lovers. Let these weeds become the most elegant elements of our gardens from now on. Just like forgotten vegetable gardens.
