From mow to meadow - a garden writer ditches her lawn

After a major garden renovation at her Mount Albert home, Jo McCarroll decided to make the bottom of her section a no-mow area.

Previously a large area filled with grass and fruit trees, it is something of an experiment, she says.

“I previously had a section of about 700 and 800 odd square metres with a very small house on it, and previously at the back of the house was a lot of grass and a lot of fruit trees growing through the grass.

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“I made the quite frightening decision to get rid of quite a few of the trees that I planted and all of the grass at the back of the house.”

The fruit trees that remain, the “survivors” she calls them, will now grow within an open, wild, meadow-style garden.

“I've thrown a lot of different kinds of seed around, and I'm still waiting to see what will establish and how it will look. But my hope is it will be quite loose, it'll be quite open, and it will be something that I don't need to mow.”

The bottom part of the section was already churned up after earthworks, so rather than re-seed with grass, McCarroll raided her seed supplies.

“I went through my seed drawer and basically sowed everything I thought stood a chance. I put some phacelia around the place, or purple tansy, more nasturtium, meadowsweets, poppies, and cornflower.

“I had all sorts of half-finished wildflower mixes and seed I bought and never got around to sowing, and I thought, well, it's never going to grow if it stays in the drawer.”

Time spent tending a lawn is not time well spent for McCarroll, she says.

“The time that I had available to work in the garden, you had to spend quite a lot of it just maintaining the grass, cutting it and doing the edges.

“And you didn't get a lot for that. You didn't get a lot of colour, you didn't get a real diversity of plants.”

The new approach will bring more life to the garden, she says.

“I hope that will increase life in the garden both above and below the soil, I think it'll be a wider range of plants and different diversity of life that live in and among them.”

McCarroll had a head start with the earthworks, removing much of the grass, but as the grass is the dreaded kikuyu, vigilance will be needed to keep it at bay.

“I don't think I've got on top of it and I and I'm OK with that. My aim wasn't to get rid of it altogether, my aim is to see what else I can add to the mix that can compete with it.”

Grass tends to dominate in open spaces, she says.

“That's why I consider this very much an ongoing and experimental project.”

And while there will be maintenance needed to keep the no-mow area in shape, it will be more satisfying work, she says.

“I love spending time in my garden, but spending time just maintaining a sward of lawn. To me, that's not what I really enjoy.

“I'm really interested to see how this community of plants coexist and grow together. I mean that seems to me immediately a lot more interesting.”

An open, wildflower garden is also the pollinator’s friend, she says.

“Phacelia, borage and alyssum, all those are the gold standard of providing nectar and pollen for plants.

“If you don't have those in your garden already, you should get them because they are fantastic for supporting a huge range of diverse life.”

If you’re inspired to go no-mow, now is a good time to knock the grass back, she says.

“One of the best things you can do is deprive plants of light, and that does take some time. If you've got an agricultural plastic, like a heavy black plastic, a layer of that, and then just pile on top of that organic matter, something like lawn clippings on top or green waste. Or if you've got river stones or something around, and you just leave that and let the grass die off.”

Organic sprays are also an option, she says.

“These are oil-based, and they pretty much work in the same way in that they effectively stop the plant from transpiring.”

She is looking forward to seeing how the no-mow experiment pans out, she says.

“I imagine, possibly at the end of the season, I'll have to go through and maybe chop and drop it with a weed whacker or something and leave the seed heads on the ground.

"Feasibly, I might need to add to it over the years if something dominates. And like all I have is orange nasturtiums, and I want more of a range of colours, say. But I'm going to have to make this up as I go along because it's so early in the process.”

It does require a little bit of bravery, she says.

“All I have really done is knock the lawn back and throw some seeds around, and I think that'd be within the capabilities of most people.

“You might have to be someone who was OK with the fact that you didn't quite know what was going to happen, and you didn't know what it was going to look like?

“Embrace the unknown and find that exciting, rather than think that the edges all need doing.”

While McCarroll has gone for meadow-style plantings, there are other options for those wanting a no-mow alternative.

Creeping thymes, Roman chamomile, Corsican mint, pratia, angulata, native acaenas, in dry/gravelly areas, the native selleria microphylla, Muehlenbeckia axillaris, and Soleirolia soleirolii are all possible candidates, she says.

“You can also use a mix of plants to get a variety of textures and leaf shapes. People rate the ground-hugging fern Blechnum penna-marina, especially in shade.”

The native mounding moss Scleranthus uniflorus is an option, too, she says.

“I don’t think it would take much foot traffic, it's a great look though.”

McCarroll is not, however, "anti-lawn".

“I think a beautiful, well-kept lawn can look wonderful and really set off a certain kind of garden, plus it's just lovely to walk on.”

But, for her, more diversity, and peace and quiet win out.

“I didn't like regularly disturbing my neighbours with the noisy mower or weed whacker.

“I also am hoping the no-mow area in my garden will be more diverse, in terms of plant life, insect life and soil life, than my lawn was, and I hope that will contribute to better garden health overall.”