Like Persephone, I spend long stretches of time in the dark
chambers of the underworld, periodically coming out into the light of day and
human society for a season. My own personal underworld has been constructed partly by the
rhythms of academia and partly by my own doing, with the result that I spend
considerable stretches of time toiling away like a mole digging through solid
rock, trying to find a little soft spot where I can surface for a while and
catch my breath. This beautiful morning is one of those brief times when I can
pop my head out, sniff the fresh air, and wave to you from my blog with my
grimy mole-paw.
It’s warm and sunny in the Pacific Northwest, but definitely
getting to be fall. Last night we went for a walk and were practically physically assaulted by the smell of bone-dry grass and weeds, brought out by the touch of
cool dampness rising from the nearby wetland. At intervals along the way there
was the unmistakable musky, jammy smell of ripe blackberries. Even though I
couldn’t see them, I know exactly where I would go this weekend if I wanted to pick
blackberries and had the time to do so.
For some reason, everything feels peaceful and “right” to me
when the air is dry, the sky is clear, and the grass is dry and tawny-brown. I’m
not a fan of green grass. I remember last spring walking across the highly
manicured, damp, cool, green lawn at the Seattle Center in flip-flops and
suddenly thinking to myself, “This grass feels dead!” There’s something a
little morbid about your feet being touched by anything so damp and cold. Grass
like that usually has a hovering smell of death, too, a combination of
vegetation that is too unnaturally green, and earth that is too full of
fertilizer and whatever other chemicals are sprayed on perfect, green lawns to
kill everything but the grass.
I won’t get into the ecological issues related to the
obsession with green lawns today, just the aesthetics. In a part of the world
where there are so many green trees and plants in summer and so many evergreen
trees and plants all year round, we are constantly surrounded by green on
green. To me, the dry, brown grass of late summer is a welcome break from the
sight of way too much green.
[Photos of green lawn, dry grass and star-nosed mole from Wikimedia. Blackberry photo is mine.]
I love these days of cripsy, brown grass and dusty roads. This year WA state has had a bumper crop of grapes, the best ever, I believe. Personally I am very happy with the yield from my potato patch. The potatoes are a great success, sans the rot associated with too much end of summer rain. Gail
ReplyDeleteThe obsession with grass lawns? I think that has to do with people of European background, British-derived in particular, who wanted to emulate the grassy estates of the nobles back home. Now grass does grow easily in England, but here on Florida sand dunes, it's just a joke! A very toxic joke, actually, considering the nasty bucketsfull of poison and artificial fertilizer that must be dumped on them. And the worst is during droughts in the US when you see people spray-painting their brown yards green. Mass insanity?? Oh yeah.
ReplyDeleteMarla, I think you're absolutely right about people in the US wanting to emulate the grassy estates of Britain, as well as some other peculiarities of British origin. Walking around campus the other day I saw a really funny sight - a completely brown and dormant lawn with one sprinkler going, creating a small circle of green in the middle of the brown. Why?
DeleteSpray-painting? Really? Why not just install Astroturf for the ultimate green lawn?
I agree, Marla. This yearning for green grassy lawns is a direct result of the work of Capability Brown and, these days, the chemical companies It is too bad that more people don't understood that, in most places, grass was not meant to be green all year long and that brown grass does not necessarily mean dead grass. It seems to me that we should enjoy the months of the year when the grass is dormant and we don't have to mow. Gail
ReplyDeleteGail, I had to look up Capability Brown, but it sounds like his method was to take the natural landscape and clean it up so that it looked artistic. In England, where there's rain year-round, green grass is a permanent feature. Maybe I'm wrong, but if one adapted his aesthetic to the Pacific Northwest, we would have salal and evergreens and madrones growing all over the place, with green grass in winter and brown grass in summer.
DeleteI'm certainly enjoying the September landscape this year!
That's true, Gail. I grow lemongrass and vetiver, and they have their brown seasons! That's the Nature of Grass. But how far people want to run from nature....I'm with Doc Elly, brown grass is OK!
ReplyDeleteMarla, I don't think lemongrass and vetiver are in the same league as that green, force-fed, water-bloated, poison-saturated mutant abomination that people grow on their lawns. Vetiver and lemongrass are noble plants that can fend for themselves.
ReplyDeleteHi Ellen,
ReplyDeleteWhile C. Brown was responsible for the idea of simply improving on the natural english landscape, he was also involved in introducing a vogue for vast expanses of lawn. Perhaps these lawns were natural to the english landscape? Some people visit those manor gardens and lawns and imagine that their American homes need the same treatment. While his natural garden aesthetic would make sense here the results of much of his work in english gardens has been an unrealistic model for PNW, FL etc. Gail
By the way, I have unwittingly adopted the landscape designer Todd Haiman's views on C. Brown and lawns. Mr. Haiman suggests that while Brown's landscapes might be natural looking they were extremely labor intensive, not unlike our typical suburban landscapes today. G.
ReplyDeleteI guess I always assumed that those huge, pasture-like expanses of grass around English country houses were "mowed" by farm animals - sheep, maybe? Did someone actually mow the grass by hand back in Capability's day?
DeleteYes, I believe they used some sort of equipment (scythes?) as well as sheep and many gardeners to maintain these "natural" grounds in the the most pleasing and planned style. Haiman suggests that the nobility in those days prided themselves on displaying acres of what had the potential to be productive farmland as land used exclusively for their own enjoyment of the fashionable "pastoral" lifestyle. A lot of beautiful things have been created by conspicuous consumption of one resource or another usually at the expense of the quality of life of general population. A high price for C. Brown's "naturally" beautiful aesthetic?
ReplyDelete