Let’s kick perfect-lawn theory into the long grass, says garden guru

THE smell of freshly cut grass may be one of the joys of summer, but according to a leading garden designer mowing the lawn is a complete waste of “energy, time and money”.

The award-winning garden guru Dan Pearson told homeowners at this year’s Hay Festival to let their lawns get wild enough so the daisies can grow and to only mow a path down the middle.

“The energy, time and money we spend on simply mowing our lawns is a big investment,” he said. “You’ve only got to allow your lawn to get four inches long to get daisies and prunella and all those little things. Simply mow an edge or a path and you get an aesthetic that is 100 per cent better.”

Pearson advises his clients to sow yellow rattle, a parasitic annual. “If you tread it into the soil in the autumn, it then gets hold. It weakens the strength of the grasses and allows windows for other things in the meadow, other interlopers – the wildflowers.”

He said gardeners should cut back lawns just once, at the end of summer.

Many people use pesticides to maintain perfect lawns and, for Pearson, this is another reason to let them grow. “Chemicals are applied to lawns – I don’t do that or advocate it,” said the winner of several RHS medals at the Chelsea Flower Show and who redeveloped the gardens at Althorp, the Spencer family estate in Northants.

Pearson previously lived in Peckham, south London, where he turned his back garden into an urban oasis. He now has a 20-acre plot at his farm in Somerset.