May returns
and “the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land”. Sadly, the voice of the lawnmower is more likely to be heard today, as
the grasses, dandelions and daisies surge ahead, and normalising lawn
management fires up again. A lawn is a meadow passed under the yoke of culture.
For some people even a striped lawn is too wild, and they replace it with
plastic green turf. All this ‘normalising’ comes at a cost to the diversity of
living things which thrive in grassland.
Grasses were invented by nature about 120 million years ago, though it is unlikely that dinosaurs ever rolled on a prairie. It would take 70 million years or more before grasses were prolific enough to carpet the ground, so the pleasure of rolling on a greensward belonged to browsing and grazing mammals of the early Tertiary epoch. Later, whole ecosystems such as savannah, steppe and pampas evolved as a joint project of mammals and grasses. Grazers such as aurochs are likely to have maintained forest clearings and floodplain grasslands in prehistoric Britain (Yalden 1999, p.72). Wrested from woodland and valley scrubland for the purpose of livestock farming, hay meadows and grazing pastures are a Neolithic creation (Rackham 1987, p.330). Sheep, cattle and horses need them, and we need these animals.
The
familiar British meadow has become a rarity, particularly in the lowlands where
90% of it has been lost in the past century (Lake et al, 2020, p152). Ploughed
up in favour of arable or replaced by monocultural grass leys, too many old
meadows and pastures have been deleted from the landscape and, along with them,
the vibrant populations of herbs, insects, birds, mammals, fungi, et
cetera, which had thrived on them for many hundreds of years.
One place in
Suffolk with long-established grassland was Brome Park. The Hall was built in
Tudor times, about 1550, and an engraving dated 1707 shows the house surrounded
by extensive parkland and trees. The Park survived until about 1963 after which
it was converted to arable land. The only areas not ploughed up were the
grounds of the Hall, its tree-lined avenue and a scrap of land attached to a
cottage known as The Bungalow, which is where I have lived since 1992.
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| Brome Hall, illustrated by Jan Kip, 1707. The site of the Bungalow is just out of the picture, beyond a pond and dovecote (far left). |
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| Lady's smock (Cardamine pratensis) starring the lawn, with a large anthill (right), May 2022. |
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| Twayblade orchid (Listera ovata), May 2022. |
In 1999, I began making a list of as many species of plants and insects as I was able to recognise. I counted seven species of grass and two kinds of speedwell. I was amazed to find a twayblade orchid in one place and a spotted orchid in another; my lawnmower had never given them a chance to grow before. I found an incipient anthill beneath a plant pot, with yellow meadow ants scurrying about. I replaced the pot, and later discovered they had earthed up around it. This gave me the idea of encouraging anthills, of which I now have four – the largest is 30 cm high x 70 cm across. The lawn is now a texturally rich habitat: it may look a bit ragged and untidy in places but it now supports a much richer flora and fauna. In August I notice small moths flying up from the grasses round my feet. Frogs shelter beneath cool, matted tussocks, and voles forge a complicated network of tunnelled pathways. The spotted flycatcher swoops from a vantage point to snatch flying insects. The green woodpecker bangs away at the ant hills. Rabbits scuff holes and leave scatterings of bare earth which are host for fresh seeds. Plumes of gnats dance overhead, sometimes following my head disconcertingly as I move about.
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| Ant activity amid leaves of creeping cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans) and tufted vetch (Vicia cracca), May 2021. |
Having this meadow on my doorstep has transformed my engagement with and understanding of wildlife, particularly plants and insects. It has prompted photography, microscopy and the gathering of a small reference library.
What I have done here is allow the inherent richness in this small corner of Suffolk to express itself. The diversity - the seven species of grasses, for example – is a legacy of the past, and argues for habitat continuity here. I didn’t plant them. I argue that my lawn is the final, biodiverse remnant of the old Brome Park which goes back to Tudor times, at least. The sward reminds me of old churchyards; it may never have been ploughed. None of the other land round here – not even the grounds of the Hall – is anything like so rich. I admit of having made additions to the garden over the past 30 years, for example alexanders, hyacinth, marjoram, lungwort, mahonia, box, magnolia, and – on the lawn – a clump of greater knapweed. I argued that none of these have modified the baseline plant population, which I think is an ancient one. I fear that when I leave here this little world will be endangered by someone who does not appreciate just what a special place it is.
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| Common sorrel (Rumex acetosa) and fading leaves of lesser celandine (Ficaria verna), May 2022. |
My advice to gardeners is to stop mowing in May and see what comes up on your lawn. See what plant and animal diversity you already have – get to know and identify it, discover it close up; take macro photographs. If you find a monoculture then by all means diversify it, with native species chosen to typify a Suffolk meadow in your corner of the county. Someone in the future will thank you. Vary your mowing regime – I use a hand scythe in July to cut the longest grasses in the centre of the lawn while carving out swathes of different lengths in other parts with a petrol lawnmower. Sit back and note what happens. Give yourself a decadal timescale. Prepare to be surprised and delighted by what you find. Remember: it’s not all about ‘you’: the world is a fabric of other lives, from slugs to hedgehogs, frogs to daisies, and your lawn is part of the tapestry which makes theirs possible. Make space for nature, and remember that there is nowhere on Earth that we can take wildlife for granted any more. You have a scrap of our planet in your care.
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| A small hay meadow in the making - first growth of grasses Alopecurus pratensis, Arrenatherium elatius, Dactylis glomerata, Lolium perenne, Poa trivialis, Poa pratensis and others, May 2022 |
REFERENCES
Lake, S. et
al 2020. Britain’s Habitats. Princeton University Press.
Rackham, O.
1987. The History of the Countryside. J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
Yalden, D.
1999. The History of British Mammals. T & AD Poyser Ltd.
