(re-post from many years ago)
The front garden has flower beds and trees and bushes with patches of grass betwixt and between now in their late-summer, brown crispness. One does not walk barefoot there at this time of year.
The back garden is a meadow. It is not the first meadow I have allowed to happen in a city, nor, I imagine, will it be the last, but it is, like them all, distinctive.
This one produced seven different grasses from a lawn left to grow; the last one I did in Victoria had nine. Who would think, looking at an ordinary lawn, that this is possible! It’s like letting our hair grow long and finding part is curly, part wavy, parts totally different colours.
Under the apple and pear tree the type of grass has remained green and silky and just over ankle high. In other spots the grass is sere and stalky and reaches past knees. There are patches of soft feathery plumes that sway even when there seems no wind. Some of the long grass put ear to earth and stayed that way in mid-summer but other tufts continue to undulate longleggedly.
In the spring the meadow elicited my curious delight as I watched the different grasses perform uniquely. How interesting that they grew in groups, not one continuous mosaic. Or perhaps the mosaic depends on perspective and I was not enough far seeing as I wandered the field.
In early summer a sudden shift in mood surprised me. Begone meadow, you are incongruous in the city! I had cut cheerful areas and paths for dining and seating areas and been amused that perfect contentment occurs in the country with picnics in a grassy field with perhaps a blanket to blanket the ground, but, in my own backyard with the addition of table and chairs, some aspect of wary civilization crept in. Which did not welcome the tickle of grass up a leg. Now even these tamed areas seemed – what? – threatened? – by the surrounding meadow which seemed to have gone from pond to ocean size. Whew and wow.
This was likely not helped by several comers-by who stared at the space where a lawn should be and asked, “What are you going to do with it?” Implying, of course, and uncomfortably nudging my own wisps of doubt at the inherent beauty and benefits, that Something Had To Be Done.
I bought a scythe. Hah. There must be a knack… I started to inquire about meadow mowers in the city but thankfully did not get very far. Living smoothly in society does seem to depend on asking tried and true questions: “never-been-asked-that-before” ‘s usually end in a stalemate.
The meadows of my past had surely not resulted in disasters, I told myself or that I would have remembered. And I spent some time considering what exactly was the problem. Decided one thing was I couldn’t see my feet as I strolled around and that does tend to cause consternation of primitive origin.
Then something must have occurred to distract because next thing I knew the grasses did what the leaves do in mid-summer. They girded their loins or whatever you want to call it in August when things become less full, have reached the peak of growing and relax. The meadow became complacent, which mirrors my journey. I can easily see my feet. The grasses are in doldrums.
Now I can look out, the intellect having been satisfied, and feel the joy of the adventure. The squirrel parting the long grass with her dainty paws and peering through as if expecting to see a peanut locker. Apples and pears having their fall cushioned by stooping stalks. Butterflies and bees and clover. Lady bugs and spiders and the wind. The fragrance after a rain. A bit of country in the city.
