My mowing madness?!

Day 81 #365DaysWild 

The scythe is out as we attempt to reclaim the lawn..

Leaving lawns unmown has become highly-fashionable. My old dad was a strictly straight-up-and-down lines man. He would have been incredulous. A lawn not mown?! But in these days of biodiversity crisis we see the lawn as having great potential for invertebrates and other wildlife. And, of course, we bought into it bigger than ever this year, waist deep from no-mow May that went way through Thigh-high-in-July to what is now Super-soggy-September.

By the end of the season big areas of the unmown lawn became impenetrable and impossible to mow.

We struggled to find a solution. I need to admit publicly that I burnt my brother-in-laws strimmer motor out in double quick time. That’ll be a big cost for us to carry.

So out comes the Austrian brush cutter scythe, sharpened and ready to swing.

Hard work! And hardly a Poldark lookalike as I pushed across the lawn through the showers. Not only hard scything but mountains of arisings we’re stacking to layer up in our dead hedges.

Of course the poor old lawn looks utterly shagged by the experience. I’m hoping it recovers by the spring!!!

So glad we’re a team, me and the missus.

Possibly a quarter done. Phew. But then onto the meadows.

Our no-mow approach will need to be refined next year.