Quest for nature-friendly gardening hits dead end

After getting to work with a sickle, Rab finds it difficult to decide whether the resulting swathes he has been hacking away at look pleasingly wild or simply unkempt

Iam the Grim Reaper. Death follows in my wake. Well, not death. More a sort of gentle trim. Yep, I’ve another new toy and, strictly speaking, it’s a sickle rather than a Reaper-style scythe. But the purpose is broadly similar, though not in this case the harvesting of souls, but the shortening of grass. It’s part of my continuing, and I suspect doomed, pursuit of quiet gardening.

I can’t decide whether the swathes I’ve been hacking at look wild or unkempt. The aim is partly to let a thousand daisies and buttercups flower. They look so cheerful. It’s a shame to be mowing them down.

Even set at the highest cutting heights, power mowers tend to chop them. But, beyond the daisies, I’ve been letting other parts of the garden grow completely wild. These are parts into which I rarely venture. Apart from anything else, deer sometimes come in, and I worry about Lyme disease from bugs that they bring. These bugs sit atop long stalks, waiting for hapless humans to wander along.

Last summer I mowed every blade of grass flat, and I think the blackbirds, thrushes and robins preferred it.

It’s all a quandary and I’ve been trying to compromise on it. Latterly, I’d used the hover-mower to make a flat path through the longer grass, and that’s a pleasant look.

But I’ve a feeling I’ll have to make everything neater in the end. Some other people’s gardens in the village feature short, manicured, traditional lawns and, undoubtedly, the swathe of pure green is also pleasing on the eye.

All that said, the sickle has been an interesting experiment. It doesn’t take much longer than mowing, though it’s sorer on the arms. My right bicep is like Popeye’s (my left remains like Olive Oyl’s).

I’m think about investing in a proper, long-handled scythe, as used by the Grim R himself. Then I’d really look the part. I might wear a black nightgown when I use it, just to frighten the neighbours.

The results from the sickle, it must be said, have been uneven and rough. It’s easy to miss bits.

In pursuit of quieter gardening I’ve been investigating battery-operated mowers, which supposedly take the edge off the nerve-shredding din of petrol and cabled models. But, when you go on yon YouTube to check out the machines in action, you find the presenter still having to shout over the racket.

I’ve high hopes of robot mowers, which are quiet and sure to be most common in future (a boon for older folk, apart from anything else), but they’re currently way too expensive.

The Russians – traditionally fond of a sickle – have a saying to the effect that “the scythe has hit a stone”. And I think I’ve hit a bit of a dead end in my quest for quiet, nature-friendly gardening. Mind you, the Russians also aver that “a priest’s beard is always soaked in butter”, so I think we’ll have to take what they say with a pinch of salt.

In the meantime, it only remains for me to say: Is that Father Time already?