Lawn Division

Here in the United States, many suburban areas are almost territorially divided by lawns. This is a twentieth century phenomenon, and has been a mystery to me since early childhood. My father would spend hours manicuring the lawn, and when he finished we weren't supposed to play on it.
(We did anyway. What's a yard for, after all?)

Streets are lined with lawns, each one different from the one next to it; fescue creeps into bermuda, which in turns slithers into Kentucky bluegrass. EEEK!

Perhaps we long in our hearts for the Village common. If so, we have forgotten its humble origin. Most commons were kept shorn by horses, goats and sheep, and covered with their ...evidence.

(How untidy.)

The homes surrounding such greens had gardens around them, not more green. Arable property, located close to home and hearth was a neccesity for early urban dwellers.

Maybe we miss long afternoons of croquet on our own home field?..No, I don't think that's it. Do you long for a chance to brush up your lawn bowling game in your spare time? I didn't think so.

Where, then, do we get this fascination with turf? Where's the imagination in unadorned fescue? Are Americans emulating the Augusta National golf course?
I hope not. Most of us can't afford that kind of upkeep for our SELVES, let alone our lawns. Is it a status statement--"look how much land we have?" or "look at my house?"

As a matter of fact, the answer to the status question is YES. Urban Victorian homeowners were perhaps even more trend-oriented than we are today. The display of large lawns became associated with Estate Living among the rich and fatuous of the 19th century, and it was, therefore, a neccessity for the up and coming middle classes to have a lawn as well.

The introduction of the reel mower into mass production during the late 1870's made the upkeep of lawns easier (one didn't need paid help to keep the turf neat, or at least ones' help could work faster ) and the urge for turf continued to... spread. Following the Second World War, the advent of greasy gas mowers and a housing boom combined with pestcide-rich grass mixes to create what we see throughout America today. Plain old green. My father's pride and joy. How boring - and how expensive!

The original village green contained all kinds of ground covers--as long as the green was edible and required little water, it worked just fine. Colonial community living dictated that culinary gardens should be close to the kitchen, and cutting gardens close enough to prevent flowers from wilting away before use. Not a bad idea at all, and one which seems to slowly gaining ground (no pun intended) in modern landscape design.

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