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Is your garden imperialist? The lawn became a symbol of domestic success

The lawn promised domestic happiness. Dennis Hallinan/Getty Images

The lawn promised domestic happiness. Dennis Hallinan/Getty Images


May 23, 2022   4 mins

Ten years as an inner-city parish priest has not prepared me well for the dilemmas of suburban ministry. Bill showed me round the beautiful graveyard of my new church in Kew. Over the boundary wall, the gentle rhythms of white-flannelled cricket suggest the calming promise of the village idyll. The churchyard is the resting place of several gardening luminaries, as well as the painters Thomas Gainsborough and Johan Zoffany.

But the so-called “Holy Mowers” who maintain this beautiful spot are in something of a quandary about the very purpose of their existence: mowing. After all, this is “No Mow May” — a movement that began in 2019 in Britain and has taken off not just in this country but also in the US. It calls on mowers to give it a rest during the late spring as a way of allowing wildlife to be, well, a little more wild. Plants need pollinators and pollinators needs plants, so let the weeds return. Alas, its detractors think this creates an unholy mess, giving the dreaded green alkanet a free pass during this crucial growing month.

How we came to fall in love with the closely cut grass lawn is a long and fascinating story. Two years after my new church was opened in 1714, the landscape gardener Capability Brown was born. Known as England’s greatest gardener, Brown’s landscapes created the now familiar aesthetic of the English country house — Blenheim, Chatsworth, Burleigh — surrounded by clumps of trees, lakes, and vast swathes of cut lawn as far as they eye could see. Gone were the straight avenues of trees and geometric fountains; the new look was an imagined reconstruction of nature as God intended. Brown was not just copying nature; he was, some said, improving on it.

Styled as unaffected, the Brown look reflected the view that the English had of themselves: free and unmannered. In truth, it was just as mannered and even more expensive to produce than the more obviously artful and rectangular gardens that it replaced. And Marxists were right to point out that all the means of production, the way wealth was generated, was deliberately out of view. It was as though the aristocratic lifestyle could be built upon a few effortlessly grazing sheep. Later gardeners came to regard the Brown revolution as something of a cliché and a bit of a con.

But nonetheless, the idea that a little slice of paradise and individual freedom could be found in cut grass took hold in the most remarkable way. With the invention of the cylinder mower in the 1830s, the cut grass paradise was democratised. Even those moving from the country to the town could have a little patch of their very own Eden. Sport, too — golf, cricket, football — all required a mown surface. And as the British Empire spread its influence around the world, the lawn became a symbol of domestic success and tranquility.

In the US especially, the lawn represented the bourgeoise American Dream, the promise of domestic happiness available to all. It mattered not that the climate was unconducive. Millions of gallons of water were redirected to keeping this promise alive. Fertilisers were invented to keep the weeds down. Hours and hours of maintenance were required. As Yuval Noah Harari said of wheat: it’s not that we domesticated grass, but that grass domesticated us. But No Mow May is something of a fightback. The lawn is being cancelled — not green enough and too imperialistic.

And what all gardeners know, of course, is that the weeds will inherit the earth. This is especially true in Kew churchyard. Among all the fading gravestones, our constant mowing is only a temporary and ultimately futile act of resistance. It’s what we think we ought to be doing as responsible stewards of the natural world. As if the natural world relied upon us for its preservation.

Though perhaps it does. On the other side of the cricket pitch from the church is the Kew Gardens’ Herbarium, containing over seven million dried plants. Kew Gardens also houses the largest collection of living seed and plant diversity on earth: 2.4 billion seeds are carefully stored, frozen or dried — a priceless insurance policy for a future time of ecological crisis. I could not be more aware that it is now science, not religion, that is building Noah’s Ark.

At best, religions are a supporting act, taking our lead from others. The vision of some uniform, Capability Brown-inspired paradise has not helped us. We need different visions of how the natural world and the human aspiration for beauty and order might work together. And I suspect this will mean less carefully managed spaces and more appreciation of the serendipity of the wildflower meadow, with its bees and bugs and butterflies.

After all, a weed is simply a plant growing where it is not wanted. This has a parallel in Mary Douglas’s famous definition of dirt as matter out of place. Mud tramped in from the garden becomes dirt in the kitchen. For Douglas, this idea of everything having a rightful place implies the existence of a kind of social order that is premised upon a map of the world in which everything exists in relation to that map. Religion has generally been very influential in drawing these maps, as Douglas brilliantly explained.

Some maps are more helpful than others, though. The Capability Brown map of the world was profoundly unhelpful and, unfortunately, deeply influential. It set up an impossible view of the natural world and invited us all to participate in its aesthetic and social pretence. It was always a kind of aristocratic deceit. And as a consequence we came to view the real natural world — green alkanet and all — as some sort of uninvited intrusion. Unnatural even. That’s the irony.

No Mow May freaks some people out. Their garden doesn’t look like it should. The dreaded weeds are re-appearing. But what is wrong here is not the weeds, but the way we have come to think about our gardens and our natural spaces. What we need is not fewer weeds but a new map of the natural world and our place within it. We can redesignate them as plants. Learn to make your peace with them. Because when you are six feet under, they will still be growing there above you.


Giles Fraser is a journalist, broadcaster and Vicar of St Anne’s, Kew.

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Jilly 0
Jilly 0
2 years ago

Unfortunately in my neck of the woods people have got rid of their front lawns, not to rewild, but to put down hard surfaces on which to park their numerous cars.

Russell Hamilton
Russell Hamilton
2 years ago

My garden is imperialist, globalist, unsustainable, and beautiful. Did the glories of English civilisation start with people who thought “Yeah, the weeds are just fine”. No. No. No. We don’t want thorns, prickles, and mess when can have camellias, azaleas, carnations.

I have abolished my lawn, it was just too time consuming, for if I was having lawn it had to be perfect. But if you have a family where are they to play but in the backyard on the lawn. You start with Queanie Queanie who’s got the ball, then on to French Cricket, Totem Tennis … it’s where you have parties, family gatherings, it’s where the little kids play in their inflatable swimming pools and dogs lounge around. On a sunny day you can throw down a beach towel on your beautiful green lawn and top up your vitamin D. What would be the point of a family home without a lawn?

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
2 years ago

It was as though the aristocratic lifestyle could be built upon a few effortlessly grazing sheep. “

Actually, it pretty much can be. I would hardly call myself “aristocratic”, but I do have a couple of acres and a decent lawn, and my lawnmower hasn’t seen a day of use in over 2 years.

The sheep really do keep it mowed down. You can’t leave them on it or they’ll eat it down to nothing. That doesn’t avoid the inevitable broadleaf weed killing or fertilizing, but as lawnmowers, sheep are excellent.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
2 years ago

I am not sure the suburban lawn has much to do with the aristocratic landscapes of Capability Brown. The purpose of these were to produce a pleasing vista. A pleasing vista is not really available in a suburban setting where you are not out of sight of your neighbours.
The lawn serves as a playground for children and their ball games and is a demonstration that order prevails in the house. My wife’s distress if the lawn is not maintained in a neat fashion has nothing to do with any aristocratic ambitions but derives from a desire not to be judged as a negligent garden slattern. A neatly mown lawn is a symbol of a well ordered household. I would prefer a well flowered meadow that would support pollinators but I recognise that this will never meet her ideal of domestic virtue whatever the ecological arguments in its favour.

Sam Sky
Sam Sky
2 years ago

The only correct response to “Is your garden imperialist?” is “**** off and leave me alone”.

Julian Pellatt
Julian Pellatt
2 years ago

“No Mow May”.

Woking-class c**p! Won’t remotely impact on the damage caused by 8-9 billion people on the Planet.

Nicholas Rynn
Nicholas Rynn
2 years ago
Reply to  Julian Pellatt

Oh well take a walk in the woods, it does wonderful things for foul temper disease.

Laura Creighton
Laura Creighton
2 years ago

Instead of a lawn, I have low-growing wild strawberries. All in bloom now — and I have never seen so many white blossoms. You’d think I had planted anemones.
No mowing needed. Walking on the plants barefoot is pleasant. Strawberries!

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago

 As if the natural world relied upon us for its preservation.

The natural world does indeed rely on us, its 7billion+ cohabiters, for its preservation, if preservation is the goal.
Re-wilding is an urban fantasy.
A re-wilded landscape in modern times is quickly overtaken by invasive species and hazardous undergrowth.

Alan Hawkes
Alan Hawkes
2 years ago

Given the space, it is possible to have a mown area, with neatly trimmed edges as well as an unmown area: preferably the area that would be the most difficult to mow.

Steve Smith
Steve Smith
2 years ago

Very thoughtful, as always.

Mark McKee
Mark McKee
2 years ago

Honestly Giles, why are you writing this when Justin and Sarah are dismantling the Church of England by declaring it institutionally racist? Please spend your time fighting the cancer of wokedom!

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
2 years ago

I can always count on this writer for a good morning groan.

Richard Hopkins
Richard Hopkins
2 years ago

Unfortunately, the author didn’t mention the extraordinary plant diversity that can be supported in churchyards, if they are maintained sympathetically. They can be sacred sanctuaries for wildlife. The delightful St Brynach’s in Nevern, Pembrokeshire did have the highest count of plant species in a British churchyard. It’s worth a visit.

Bill W
Bill W
2 years ago

I was brought up in rented housing (military quarters) which may explain why I was accustomed to small gardens mainly comprising lawns on which we played French cricket, badminton, and a little bit of football etc etc. Our last house had a hillside garden with some woodland. What a release it was to move to a house with a smaller garden on flat ground which I have sought to devote to lawn.

Laurence Siegel
Laurence Siegel
2 years ago

My lawn has been completely destroyed, not by No Mow May but by the unavailability of workers. It is now a giant weed patch and needs to be plowed under and reseeded. My wife and I are too old to do the work ourselves. Now it turns out I am supposed to think that’s a good thing? We already knew the Left only destroys but I didn’t really think they’d come for my garden. Fight back – invest in beauty.

Nicholas Rynn
Nicholas Rynn
2 years ago

My front garden is a riot of buttercups and Daisy flowers. There are some very pretty blue ones which my wife knows the name of but I don’t. The lime trees are in full bloom. The blackbirds are loving it.
I suspect No Mow May is about to become Thinking About it June. I shall spend the early evenings looking at nature’s beauty, drinking red wine and taking in the evening sun. So much more relaxing than mowing, weeding and rolling a patch of grass that will never pass as a lawn.

Last edited 2 years ago by Nicholas Rynn
Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago

I was told that sometimes during frequent posting, Unherd just randomly vets some posts. I don’t follow this logic at all.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
2 years ago

Perhaps but sensitivity over “demeaning” words seems to have been incorporated into the algorithm. Since the former boxer Glenn McCrorey was allegedly arrested for threatening behaviour for addressing two waitresses in London as “Pet”, a perfectly normal working class greeting in Darlington his home town, one can’t tell what is going to cause a furore now. To object to the term seems to lack any cultural sensitivity towards working-class Northerners but it seems their perspectives are not of importance to the woke.

Philip Stott
Philip Stott
2 years ago

“Kew Gardens also houses the largest collection of living seed and plant diversity on earth: 2.4 billion seeds are carefully stored, frozen or dried — a priceless insurance policy for a future time of ecological crisis.”

Not really the thrust of the article, I’ll admit, but that quote made me think of a single point of failure. Are there any backups for this backup?

Mike Doyle
Mike Doyle
2 years ago
Reply to  Philip Stott
Philip Stott
Philip Stott
2 years ago
Reply to  Mike Doyle

Thank you

George Alliger
George Alliger
2 years ago

Well one thing not mentioned is the fact that Luis is the one who does the mowing, coming every week in the growing season and twice a month otherwise. His remuneration from mowing our and others’ lawns helps keep him and his family alive.

George Alliger
George Alliger
2 years ago

Well one thing not mentioned is the fact that Luis is the one who does the mowing, coming every week in the growing season and twice a month otherwise. His remuneration from mowing our and others’ lawns helps keep him and his family alive.

Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson
2 years ago

I don’t understand the relevance of the article you have linked.