Lawn Mowing

Here in China there are lots of patches of grass or lawn. The grass looks like the "couch" that is common lawn grass in Australia. In Australia though we mow it. During the growing season - warmer weather - it is often almost a weekly task for the person whose job it is - perhaps the head of the household, the housewife, the teenage sons, or if lucky someone is paid to do it on a regular basis.

Here in China it is not used in the same way. People do sit on it, but strangely we find that only a few people sit on the grass. If they do they often sit on a sheet of newspaper or plastic. I guess we use picnic rugs or similar, but I don't recall actually seeing a picnic rug here.

But my point is that they seldom mow the lawns. The grass grows well and looks rather straggley - not mowed neatly like we Aussies seem to like our lawns. It has been a discussion point in Oz, particularly as most states have water restrictions that make it harder to water the lawns on a regular basis. Here I have never seen the lawns watered. It does rain here frequently and there is no water shortage as our drought stricken country is familiar with.

The college does not own a lawn mower, and on rare occasions I have heard a mower going, and the man comes with his mower and he does the small areas that are mown. They use a variety of mondo type grass here - and it grows in clumps to cover the ground between plantings of trees and shrubs. The clumps of grass are clipped by hand by the regular gardeners here. Not often, but every now and then we will see "Bill and Ben" - which is the term that some of us use for the rather large team of gardeners here - doing the clip.

I wonder if we in Oz could manage to live with a lawn that wasn't mown regularly. It would save on fuel, be better for the environment, and give a longer break to those guys and girls who have the job of regular mowing.

I've thought about our own backyard. We need the lawn mowed for the dog. He's such a small fellow that we'd lose him in long grass, and I wouldn't so easily identify the dreaded cane toads that are in our garden and who pose a real threat to Kramer the dog.

We actually walk on our lawns and the trail of couch grass can trip us up, and long grass would hide snakes.

I have given it some thought - that is thought about how we could manage with our lawns mowed less regularly. I do think we need to plant more mondo grass and things like that - the long mondo grass in particular - and we need to worry less about watering our lawns then.

I do think there is some merit in caring for our lawns the way they do here in China.