Over centuries lawn has come to dominate not just Australian cities, but cities around the world. Might we be ready for something else?
am standing in a street not far from my home in Sydney. It is mostly unexceptional – a mix of redbrick detached and semi-detached houses, plantings of melaleucas and scrubby, dark-barked callistemons. Indeed, the only unusual thing is that whereas in most streets around it verges are grass, here there is a small stencil reading “no mow” on the footpath, and, behind it the verge is given over to an assortment of native grasses and low groundcovers instead of lawn.
Lawn is ubiquitous in Australian cities. Public spaces such as parks are designed around wide expanses of cut grass, turf covers sports fields and school ovals, and most private houses still feature at least small patches of lawn. In the suburbs and country towns it covers nature strips, verges and median strips, carpeting the ground that is not covered by trees and other plants.
What we do know is that the cultivation of areas of short-cut grass began in monasteries and the gardens of the nobility in Britain and northern France during the middle ages. By the 16th century the idea of lawn as something that connected the various elements of gardens had been established, and by the 17th and 18th century lawns had become an essential part of the design of formal gardens.
These associations grew more complex as European powers expanded across the world. From the Americas to Asia and India, colonial societies sought to reshape the landscape in ways that recreated the familiar vistas of Europe, integrating lawns into new systems of social and environmental control.Nowhere was this more true than in Australia.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Can PwC’s Australian business survive the tax leaks scandal?This week in The Fin podcast, senior writer Neil Chenoweth, Edmund Tadros and Joe Aston on why it can never be business as usual for the big four consulting firms and whether PwC’s Australian business can survive.
Read more »
‘It’s so backwards’: women call for equal prize money in South Australian footballPlayers in the state’s Women’s National Premier League compete for less than a third of the prize money allocated to men
Read more »
ASX 200 LIVE: Australian shares to slip; Harvey Norman, Sandfire to report; China PMIs pendingAustralian shares are set to edge higher, with sentiment helped by modest gains in New York. Bitcoin eases after rally. Follow updates here.
Read more »
Catch these rising stars of Australian comedy before they get bigAlexandra Hudson, Henry Yan and Meg Jager have all wowed audiences in the Raw Comedy competition. Now they’re bringing their debut shows to Sydney Fringe.
Read more »
Boomers continue Australian basketball record after qualifying for Paris OlympicsAustralia are off to the Olympics again, continuing their record of having competed in basketball’s marquee event in every Games since 1972
Read more »