An email arrives from a futurist at the Royal Horticultural Society predicting gardening trends for next year. Purple vegetables are about to become a reality: the purple spectrum includes not only purple broccoli and the more familiar Lollo Rossa lettuce, but also carrots, cauliflower and peas.
Recent hot and dry summers have favored the growth of figs, apricots, melons and grapes, while wild horticultural activity has inevitably moved from flowered to herbaceous areas. Plants that were once ruthlessly exterminated by vigilant gardeners (dandelions, plane trees and stinky grass) are now not only tolerated, but positively encouraged.
What doesn't get mentioned here, however, is the hottest trend (literally) in landscaping: ugly lawns. Many of us watched with dismay, during the dry summers of the last two years, as our lawns went from bright green to bright brown, and summer watering bans drowned out the roar of sprinklers.
But on the Swedish island of Gotland, ugly lawns – the uglier the better – have become a symbol of pride in a fierce local competition that is fast becoming global.
The Swedes, like the English, take care of their lawns: a well-groomed lawn is traditionally the hallmark of a gardener, distinguishing dwarf ryegrass from slender, creeping red fescue. But in 2022, when water shortages on Gotland forced a ban on irrigation, the city government held a macabre lawn competition to encourage people to save water.
Not only has water consumption on Gotland fallen by 5%, but the modest regional competition has attracted international interest, with this year's participants coming from Germany, France, Canada, Croatia, the United States and the United Kingdom. The levels were impressive: "Everyone was disgusting and deserved to win," said Mimmi Gibson, Gotland's regional brand director.
But after hours of deliberation, judges, including RHS gold medal-winning garden designer Diarmuid Gavin, awarded the prize to a bandicoot-infested field in Tasmania, owned by Kathleen Murray, who said of her ex-husband: “I chose a lawnmower in 2016.”
A dreary winter walk on my lawn showed that it could be a promising candidate for the next competition: it was full of wet rubbish washed away by the recent floods and decorated with worms, moss, thistles, fairy rings, a few brave daisies, and sat. behind the kitchen door. Where I had spread the bird feed, there was a large patch of charred heather created by the local mergansers.
Neglected, unfertilized, unpolished, it is an example of a virtuous and forgotten vice. Yet when I look at this neglected landscape of wildlife, a wistful image comes to mind: a rare moment last year, between winter floods and summer drought, when old apple trees bloomed on grass-trimmed lawns. Stripes. .
It was a beautiful view of an English garden in spring and, like all moments, fleeting. Something similar will definitely happen this year too. But if dry summers return, instead of lamenting the dying lawn, we could hide in the shade of our newly planted trellises of ripe grapes and learn to embrace the spirit of Gotland, home of the city website gotland.com. /uglylawn/ offers a practical guide on how to organize your own ugly lawn competition.
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