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edging

corrected for lawn edging

For other uses, see Lawn (disambiguation).

A lawn is an area of land planted with grass and sometimes clover and other plants, which are maintained at an even low height.

Usage

Lawns are a standard or essential feature of ornamental private and public gardens and landscapes in much of the world today. Lawns are created for aesthetic use in gardens, and for recreational use, including sports. They are typically planted near homes, often as part of gardens, and are also used in other ornamental landscapes and gardens.

Lawns are also a common feature of public parks and other spaces. They form the playing surface for many outdoor sports, cutting erosion and dust as well as providing a cushion for players in high impact sports such as, football, soccer, rugby football, baseball, golf, tennis and bowling. In sports venues, the term lawn is usually replaced by turf or green.

Lawns cover a significant area in the United States. In a recent NASA-sponsored study, researcher Christina Milesi estimated the area covered by lawns to be about 128,000 square kilometers (nearly 32 million acres) making it the largest irrigated crop in the United States, about three times that of irrigated corn. [1]

Lawncare is big business in America. Estimates of the amount spent on professional lawn care services vary, but a Harris Survey put the total at $28.9 billion in 2002, which calculates to roughly $1,200 per household, spread over the 24.7 million households who use such services.

Virginia Scott Jenkins, in her book The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession (1994), traces the desire to kill weeds historically. She notes that the current rage for a chemically-dependent lawn emerged after World War II, and argues that "American front lawns are a symbol of man's control of, or superiority over, his environment."

Approximately 50-70 percent of U.S. residential water is used for landscaping, most of it to water lawns.

Along with trees, they are a vital player in the fight against urban heat islanding. Providing oxygen conversion, filtering of air particulates, erosion control, air and surface cooling to offset miles of new asphalt, cement and rooftops in the urban setting. In comparison to bare dirt, a lawns temperature may be 20 degrees cooler on a hot day and up to 40 degrees vs. cement surfaces.

Maintenance, construction and management of lawns of various kinds are the focus of much of the modern horticulture industry.

History

Before the invention of mowing machines in 1830, lawns were managed differently from today. Lawns belonging to wealthy people were sometimes maintained by the labour-intensive methods of scything and shearing. In most cases however, they were pasture land, maintained by grazing with sheep or other livestock. Areas of grass grazed regularly by rabbits, horses or sheep over a long period can form a very low, tight sward which is similar to a modern lawn. This was the original meaning of the word 'lawn', and the term can still be found in place-names. Some forest areas where extensive grazing is practiced still have these semi-natural lawns. For example, in the New Forest, England, such grazed areas still occur commonly and are still called lawns, for example Balmer Lawn.

Lawns became popular in Europe from the Middle Ages onward. The early lawns were not always distinguishable from pasture fields. It is thought that the associations with pasture and the biblical connotations of this word made them attractive culturally. By contrast, they are little known or used in this form in other traditions of gardening. In addition, the damp climate of maritime Western Europe made them easier to grow and manage than in other lands. British lawns more or less started around the medieval times within the courtyards of castles for the lords and ladies to take their daily constitutional and escape from the odours of the castle also the monasteries at this time should not be forgotten.

British lawns more or less started around the medieval times within the courtyards of castles for the lords and ladies to take their daily constitutional and escape from the odours of the castle. Likewise, lawns became popular in the many monasteries that existed at this time.

It was not until the Tudor and Elizabethan times that the garden and the lawn became a place to be loved and admired.

Created as walkways and for play areas, the lawns were not as we envisage them today. They were made up of meadow plants, such as chamomile, a particular favourite.

In the early 1600's, the Jacobean epoch of gardening began. It was during this period that the closely cut British lawn was born. By the end of this period, the English lawn was the envy of even the French. It was also seen as a symbol of status by the gentry.

In the early 1700's, gardening fashion went through a further change. William Kent and the age of Capability Brown were in progress, and the vast English Landscapes were seen all over Britain. Lawns seemed to flow from the garden into the outer landscape.

During the Victorian times, as more plants were introduced into Britain, and the influence of France and Italy became prevalent, lawns became smaller as borders were created and filled with plants, statues, sculptures, terraces and water features, which started eating into the area covered by the English lawn.

Lawns do not have to be, and have not always been of grass. Other possible plants for fine lawns in the right conditions, are camomile and thyme. Some lawns, if grown in difficult conditions for grasses, become dominated by whatever weeds can survive there; these include clovers in dry conditions, and moss in damp shady conditions.

Maintenance

Maintaining a rough lawn requires only occasional cutting with a suitable machine, or grazing by animals.

Higher quality lawns however require a number of operations. These may include:

• mowing, to cut the grass regularly to an even height
• scarifying and raking, to remove dead grass and prevent tufting
• rolling, to encourage tillering (branching of grass plants), and to level the ground
• top dressing the lawn with sand, soil or other material
• spiking, to relieve compaction of the soil
• watering, to prevent from going dormant and turning brown
• fertilizing
• herbicide and pesticide application to manage weeds and pests

Criticisms

A number of criticisms of lawns are based on environmental grounds

• Many lawns tend to be composed of a single species of plant, or of very few species, which reduces biodiversity, especially if the lawn covers a large area. In addition, they may be composed primarily of plants not local to the area which can further decrease local biodiversity.

• Lawns are sometimes cared for by using pesticides and other chemicals, which can be harmful to the environment.

• Maintaining a green lawn often requires large amounts of water. This was not a problem in temperate England where the concept of the lawn originated, as natural rainfall was sufficient to maintain a lawn's health. However the exporting of the lawn ideal to more arid regions of the world, such as the U.S. Southwest, has crimped already scarce water resources in such areas, requiring larger more environmentally invasive water supply systems. Grass typically goes dormant by turning brown during hot, dry summer months, thereby reducing its demand for water. Many property owners consider this "dead" appearance unacceptable and therefore increase watering during the summer months.

• In the US and some other areas, lawn heights are generally maintained by poorly tuned gasoline push or riding lawnmowers, which use an excessive amount of fuel and contribute to urban smog during the summer months.

• Lawns use up vast areas of arable land often obtained through the expropriation of farmers from their land to make room for suburbs.

However, using ecological techniques, the impact of lawns can sometimes be reduced. Such methods include the use of local grasses, using only organic fertilizers, and introducing a variety of plants to the lawn.

In addition to the environmental criticisms, some gardeners question the aesthetic value of lawns.

One positive benefit of a healthy lawn is that of a filter for contaminants and to prevent run-off and erosion of bare dirt. Highway construction projects in the United States now routinely include replanting grasses on disturbed soils for this purpose, although they are not maintained as lawns.

See also

• Artificial turf
• Organic lawn management
• Lawn mower
• Tree lawn
• Hydroseeding
• No dig gardening
• Fescue

References

• Looking for Lawns - a general interest article about the NASA study

External links

• An example of how a grass lawn can recover after a drought
• Articles on organic lawn care and gardening
• Articles on various aspects of lawn care and lawn maintenance
• Lawn & Landscape Magazine - a trade magazine for lawn care professionals

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "lawn".