lawn warfare

I love this time of year in fact it suits me down to the ground, (pardon the pun). As a glass is half empty type of man, summer from June on can often fill me with dread of the impending long nights.

As a kid I thought my mum was mad when she used to say Easter was her favourite holiday, how could it compete with the glitter and gifts of Christmas? But now I totally understand, everything is coming to life and no amount of baubles and boxes can compete with the bulging buds and bursting blooms of spring.

My mum was really not a homebody; she hated being indoors summer or winter, which I’ve inherited from her. I find it amazing when the nights get lighter, how many people are still happy to sit in front of their telly’s or computers, when the outdoors is putting on it’s very own technicolour  musical outside your window.

Anyway back to the jobs, I’ve mown the lawns a couple of times, which always frames everything and I’m desperately trying not to be so neurotic about moss and other unwanted grass guests.

The funny thing is that my grass, moss and I were living perfectly happily together, blade, body and soft bouncy lump, until Mr Titchmarsh pointed out via the pages of a book that it shouldn’t be there. So in McCarthyesque style I went on the offensive, tearing our green and soft neighbourhood apart in my attempts to root out this interloper, bombing it with moss killer and leaving napalm like scorched earth behind me.

Don’t get me wrong I love the Titch of the Marsh, but as with life and art, what I’ve found with gardening is that what you don’t know leads you to do things in a way that your not supposed to which in turn can lead to new and exiting discoveries.

Therefore, my grass and moss are slowly drifting into some type of equilibrium, with the crazed power of my dictatorship, giving way to a sort of détente. Obviously, like certain nations I’m covertly providing arms in the shape of grass seed, lawn food and the occasional air attacks with a fork.