Chandra Bose was knighted by Queen Victoria for
proving plant consciousness

It is because animals like sheep
and cows who graze and are
then slaughtered have
created clipped green that
animal enslaving countries
find mown areas esthetically
pleasing

Here is a link that might be useful: stop mowing

I'm all for it. I hit my lawn once or twice a year with the scythe.

There does seem to be something in the human phsyche that loveth a mown expanse, though. Is it rooted in our evolution? A wide expanse of short grass would have been much safer and more predictable than some other habitat. What looks beautiful to us is probably a reflection of this kind of evolutionarily advantageous dynamic.

Concrete it all over. That grass can't be good for you!

Fruitarian wrote: Please download with 100% cotton, rice, recycled, or scrap paper - unfortunately my hard disk is not made of any of those materials (as far as I know). Damn, I'd so love to read some more of that rant...

Come on, be honest,did anyone bother to read all of that little tirade? :-))

I gave up after the first couple of rabid sentences.

Might as well not cultivate our gardens at all then. Just let them run wild with a mixture of brambles, nettles, convolvulus, couch grass, hawthorn etc. Very nice for wild life no doubt, but not what I want!

Nah, didn't read it all. There are better ways of getting ones' point across than posting enormous posts like that.. :/

As for letting gardens run wild.. I have a hawthorn hedge, brambles for blackberries, and nettles in the borders. All under control, and until I find something better to fill the space, I'm enjoying the wild and woodlandy look. :)

Melanie

I don't believe the rant was directed at gardening in genereal (I did read most of it), but rather toward the cutting of grass with motorized equipment in particular.

If one has a small lawn it can easily be handled with human-powered equipment, and if one has acres of lawn then it should be grazed, or at least cut for mulch or hay.

The post was by someone in the US. The only person who responded positively was in the US.

Perhaps that's why this is a separate Forum for the UK?

NEVER ever thought I'd feel this way, but BRING BACK SPIKE!!

The amount of people in the UK with a large expanse of lawn, or indeed, large expanse of anything is very small. There is certainly few of us with a lawn big enough to be grazed and if you've worked with grazing animals you'll know that grass isn't always their chosen food where other tasty looking morsels are growing.

I did read most of it but in bits and pieces over days, I need to get another book from the library!

Well sure, since y'all have a bit less than us over here, then certainly you are excused from any connections between your activities and impacts on environment.

You know, every time I post on this forum, sooner or later somebody mentions that only brits should be allowed to post here. And yet, often enough I have seen posters from the UK contributing to other GW forums and never once have I seen this sort of narrow-minded sentiment directed at them.

I also live on an island, but I try to remember that there is a larger world out there.

I was more, tongue in cheek, referring to your post regarding acres of lawn rather than trying to belittle the environmental responsibility of anyone who gardens. Indeed many of us are keenly aware of it.

I can't speak for other people only my own experience but it may have a lot to do with the delivery of the original post. Preaching of any sort is something many in the UK find uncomfortable, had this been a straight forward, fairly short essay it would have probably been received differently.

I'm yet to see a post that out and out states only British should be allowed to post here, apart from the fact that the UK includes Northern Ireland as well, however the two posts I have seen mentions that this is the UK forum have been this one and another on which I received a personal and uncalled for remark by a US citizen.

Personally I don't care where any poster is from as long as we're not treated as another mission someone needs to minister to.

I was refering to crazylady's very clear implication that the UK forum should be for brits only. As I said, this isn't the first time it's come up.

When I was in England in my real body, nobody suggested that I shouldn't be there, even by implication.

Anyway, regarding these kind of crusades or missions, like the non-mowing rant; they often have some valid or interesting philosophy behind them but of course they are couched so extremely that they turn most everyone off, british or otherwise.

Speaking of brits, do any of you like Gilbert White's writings?

I have the Natural History of Selborne on the bookshelf. We live in the same county as Gilbert White's House, we go to the annual plant fair there most years.

Come to think of it there's a fair expanse of mown grass in that garden ;) I'd post a photo but I've never got the hang of that on these forums!

When I bought my house in late summer of 2004, initially I didn't have a lawnmower, so the yard was left to grow wild for several months. It was kind of neat, but I knew that eventually I would have to take it down, if only for the respect of my neighbours and their reasonably well-maintained yards.
But also because I got the gardening bug and wanted something different.
The original owners of the place haven't done anything but mowe the grass, for 20 years, so it was filled with thousands of dandelions - another thing I had to take care of.
Fortunately, just at the time I went looking for my lawnmower, the industry came up with an electric battery powered machine. Very quiet and non-polluting (our electricity comes from hydro & nuclear).
But its not as powerful as the gasoline-powered models, so taking down the jungle that grew up in the yard took a few recharges. But once that was taken care of, the regular mowing is done on a single battery charge, no problem....
I have since then also started an Alpine garden, with the lawn removed, replaced by an area covered by mulch, rocks and conifers.
Of course that reduces the area of lawn that needs mowing.
Perhaps the initial post's purpose was to get people to replace all lawns by cultivated gardens ??? (needless to say, I didn't read that whole Castro-style marathon rant...)

I agree life is too short to spend your time reading rants like this! But I did notice two paras near the end which state:

"The National Wildlife Federation
which promotes the killing of animals
by hunters nevertheless also
promotes wildlife habitat, with
special emphasis on making the back
yard wild."

then,

"The Fruitarian Network of Akron Ohio
works for all aspects of plant rights
and nonviolence."

This I find amazing (and totally contradictory). So it's quite OK to go round murdering wild animals, but it's cruel to cut grass to maintain a neat area in your own back garden!!! Or am I missing something?

I'm sorry the implication in my post was unclear. I have been here for several years, and have always understood that this forum is for gardeners in the United Kingdom to discuss plants, techniques and sources. I am not inventing conditions to suit my personal preferences; I am obeying the rules.

There have been several posters here from other countries in Europe who can make positive contributions because they garden in fairly similar conditions.

I am afraid I do not warm towards people who make posts which do not relate to gardening in the UK (such as the spam which began this thread) from people who do not take the time or trouble to understand our gardening conditions or our more restrained and diffident way of expressing our views.

The original post is irrelevant to 99% of gardeners in the UK. Over here, a garden 100' x 100' is BIG, and most people live in towns, where it is illegal to keep animals.

I think I said the implication was quite clear. In any case, absurd rules were made to be broken.

I think the growing conditions in coastal new england must be fairly similar because most of our common weeds are imports from southern england. Also most of our garden crops, and we grow them at the same time of year. In some other parts of north america such is not the case. In northern scotland it probably isn't the case either, is it?

The town I live in was settled in the 1600's by people from Tisbury, england. My lawn is tiny, less than 100x100, and I am not allowed to keep a cow, nor goats, nor sheep. (strangely, we are allowed to have any number of large, troublesome dogs). Nevertheless, even small patches of grass do need to be cut at some point, or else they will become small patches of brush and brambles. So even there in irrelevant england you will be reaching for some sort of cutting implement, and I am guessing it will likely be powered by an engine of some sort?

A small, rarely-used poorly-maintained motor can do some champion polluting in a short time. I believe that is part of the point of that aggressive manifesto. As I said, the basic thrust of it is valid (and applicable everywhere). But of course, since it was posted by an american, and other americans have read it here on your UK forum, you mustn't concern yourself.

Good day.

Are you having us on, PNB? In England 100 x 100 (I presume you mean 'feet') is an ENORMOUS lawn. A typical entire suburban plot size (including house, garage, outbuildings etc) would be roughly 100 x 30 feet (NOT metres). Many are quite a lot smaller than this.

I was responding to crazylady's mention of 100x100. That would be a large lawn even in the large USofA.

Sorry it is so difficult for us to communicate. Is it a language thing? A patch of grass, were it 5'x5', still if not cut regularily will not remain a patch of grass for long, y'all will agree?

Sorry PB, I didn't look far enough up the page.

I'll keep mowing my lawns whenever they need it, weather permitting, as I don't want to be suurrounded by jungle conditions.

I'm still amazed that apparently "The National Wildlife Federation ... promotes the killing of animals
by hunters." Sounds like a contradiction in terms to me.

I frequently post on US forums if I think of something which might contribute and have never been told to go away. Gardenweb is supposed to be for discussion and I have found out many interesting things here. To start with I did tend to think 'what a stupid question' or 'well that's not the way to do it' but now I enjoy reading about the differences in our gardening habits. The sheer size of the US means that someone there will be tackling the same challenges that we are. One of the aspects I find so fascinating is this concept of size with some people referring to having 'only' an acre of 'garden' in several acres of 'yard' while others will be seeking advice on a pot plant in a tiny appartment. Why should we only be interested in what we know? (ps I didn't bother to read the 'rant' - that's a choice we can all make without getting het up about it) I find the occasional spats just add to the entertainment.

Good attitude, Flora. I quite agree, the differences are interesting.

I suppose some people do have acres of grass to mow as lawn, but that isn't particularily common here, despite whatever stereotypes exist. Grasslands of that size are generally used for grazing or hay, sensibly enough. Some folks find themselves stuck with a bunch of fields but don't want to be bothered with animals and don't want tall grass for bug and critter reasons - but nobody in their right mind wants to do that much mowing, not even a suburbanite american. Those who do have lawns of such size to mow and maintain tend to be wealthy (I guess that goes without saying?), and so they can have somebody else mow it.

It's a safe bet they aren't going to be concerned with this non-mowing mission.

Well, I still haven't read all of it but I've dipped into it and if you ignore the quasi religious airy fairy philosophy there are some sensible ideas hidden amongst the weirdness. I work in a school and have never understood why it is necessary to mow our steeply sloping grounds as if they were lawns. They are no good as sports pitches so why can't they be meadows which are just cut once or twice a year for hay or compost? They would support a huge number of plant, invertebrate and bird species and improve our environment greatly. As it is I managed to stop the groundspeople in one area when I spotted some cowslips struggling to bloom. Now we have one small patch of wild flower meadow. But we could have a lot more. I think the original poster has some excellent points but has put us off with the presentation.

Flora, I share your attitude, and would also like our American fellow gardeners to be treated in a more welcoming manner. I also agree with the last sentence in your recent post - the excellent points that are obscured by the presentation. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who give us 'green' folk a bad name! It's perfectly possible to be eco-friendly and quite sane...

By the way, I actually do not usually cut my lawn with powered equipment. I have six guinea pigs and a rabbit in runs that are moved frequently; they keep the grass down and fertilize it at the same time. Obviously it's never a flat even lawn, but it is lush and green! Now and then, when we've had lots of rain, or are expecing 'company', we need to use the lawnmower for a proper trim.