Lawn-country

Exemplary cultivated and lush green lawn is often associated with England. Already in the 18th century English became pioneer of grass culture. This was favoured by the prevailing weather conditions in England. The frequent rainfalls and the rare and short periods of drought represented optimal conditions as today.

Australia is not necessarily comparable to England in terms of rainfall and rare dry periods. Australia is the driest continent on earth. Nevertheless, the Australians have fully adapted the passion of the English for a good lawn. Every house, every garden, every park and every street has lawns. Outside city centres the so-called footpath on a street often consists only of a lawn strip.

And Australians spend a lot of time with their lawns. Very important is the regular lawn mowing. Even after weeks of dryness, when the lawn is often nothing more than a brown area burned by the sun, people still mow their lawns. Cutting the edges is also important. And for all that you have the right strong and noisy gasoline-powered machine, according to the motto, the stronger and louder the better. On all days of the week (including Sunday), the rattling of lawn mowers, edge trimmers, line trimmers or leaf blowers is heard almost every time of the day. If you go into a usual hardware store, you will always find a huge selection of these devices. Electric garden tools are rare here.

And if you do not want to take care of the lawn yourself, just hire one of the countless self-employed men (yes, that’s just men), who mow their costumers’ lawns somewhere all week. “You love the idea of being your own Boss, choosing your own hours, working outside the sun and making an immediate difference to a customer’s lawn (and life)” (from a promotional page for a lawn mower franchise). Working outside in the sun has a very different meaning in Queensland than in Central Europe.

A good lawn also needs a lot of water. Even though Australia is not a country that has abundant water, it does not stop people from generously sharing their drinking water with their turf. And also for that purpose you find whole rows of shelves with irrigation technology in the hardware store.

By the way, someone just mows the lawn in front of my window while I write this post ….

There is always someone somewhere mowing the lawn ….