The secret to a great lawn

‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your back lawn grow?’’ ‘‘With water, water and a bit more water, then water and a weekly mow.’’

I’ve been experimenting with being an adult for a while now.

Trust me, kids, it’s easy as. You just divide off into the generational category assigned to you at birth, then go to war with the other groupings over a predefined series of grievances.

It seems to be about defining oneself by what you hate. Do you hate capital gains or do you hate avocado on toast?

Eventually though, no matter your assigned grouping, when you reach middle age you are required to start giving a damn about lawns and/ or gardening.

Owl-memoried readers will remember last year when my wife and I agonised over whether to lawn or not to lawn.

On the one hand: lawns are just so gosh-darn bad for the environment. On the other hand: we love croquet.

So, last spring, we wheelbarrowed 30 tonnes of soil down the hill, levelled the ground and installed a lawn.

I can confirm that a lawn, and especially a new lawn, is the most wasteful use of water I have seen outside of Big Dairy.

In fact, I can’t help but wonder if our lawn may have single-handedly caused the water restrictions we now find ourselves living under.

Christchurch is now on Level 1 water restrictions. This means you can water your lawn/ garden every other day.

If you live in an even-numbered house, you can water on even-numbered days of the month, and the same for odd numbers.

And nobody can water between 3pm and 9pm. The council says it’s not that we are short of water, it’s just that so many people are trying to use the water at once that it’s worried the method of delivery will fail.

I’m sure they will just put the rates up and fix this at some point but in the meantime we all need to pitch in.

Was it Morrisey who said ‘‘some lawns are bigger than others?’’ My observation of the past few years has been that the more magnificent a lawn/garden, the more water has been added.

Those beautiful roses – water. That lush vege garden – water. That magnificent lawn, level like a pool table and begging for croquet – water.

I know a few keen gardeners and water use is just one of their dirty little secrets.

It’s not a criticism, just an observation. Because overuse of water isn’t restricted to time-rich middle-class suburban housewives and househusbands. No, there’s a bloke who lives a couple of doors up from my dodgy brother-in-law who doesn’t fit the description of house proud, or of middle-class gardener, at all.

And this scruffy bloke clearly hasn’t received the memo from the water police.

He runs a particularly sloppy house. You know the kind – the house you walk past and can’t help but fantasise about waterblasting.

Well, this bloke’s got a soak hose out on his front berm that stays on 24/7. The only time it’s not oozing away is when he’s moving the lush, green grass which spends most of its life doing a damned good impression of a rice paddy.

Won’t somebody please pop in and tell this bloke about the restrictions? I’m too scared to as it appears he has a cat that I fear will attack me once it realises what my position on domestic cats is.

Because, if we all apply the restrictions, it should ensure we can keep watering our wasteful follies for a while longer yet.