Clovergrown

Anyone who’s read the Grumpy Gardener’s Handbook will know that I don’t need much of an excuse to delay doing things in the garden.

But then again cutting the lawn can’t be put off too long before the grass becomes like a small meadow. Prince Charles may love it, but when you get small shrubs emerging, then that’s a tell-tale sign that the natural ecosystem is taking over.

In 2013 when we moved to the current Good Life-size garden we have now, the back lawn was a nightmare. To walk on, it was a pleasure. It was like treading on a beautifully sprung floor. Like a gymnast’s floor mat, the kind that Beth Tweddle would tumble across performing three flicks and a double somersault. You felt like doing a cartwheel.

The reason for the bounce was not due to an enterprising mix of rye grass and poa annua, though. The vast expanse was completely riddled with moss. Along with the moss there was a variety of low nodal perennial weeds that had successfully ducked under the mower blades of the previous gardener for many years. It was about 10% grass, 90% other.

I dread to think what would have happened if I’d applied one of the tougher ‘weed and feed’ solutions to the lawn. They’re the packets on the garden centre shelves with startling, improbably dark green stripes, cut to military precision. While the weed-killer element would devastate everything that was not a grass, the feed would boost the remaining grass. Put that on my lawn and it would have been carnage.

In the 1970s I witnessed the dreadful result of a disgruntled, sacked greenkeeper who took his revenge on the golf club by spraying paraquat on some of the best greens. It was a devastating sight, like a napalm strike. My lawn would have been the same.

Suffice to say that in the intervening two years it has only got marginally better. However one positive thing about the species mix is that it has a lot of clover, and bees love clover. And I love bees. So, I see it as a criminal shame to cut off the heads of clover when so many waggle dances have been performed in hives all over Surbiton.

Imagine the disappointment if you were handed (actually bees distribute samples mouth-to-mouth so the verb is probably ‘mandibled’) some great clover nectar while hanging out on a comb in the hive, watched the dance to show where it was located, flew out to that location all keen, only to find that it had all been chopped down.

I feel a duty of care in this regard, so lawns should be left just a little while to let bees take advantage of the clover. It’s an act of altruism, because clover honey, if you can get it as a monofloral honey, is absolutely gorgeous. Monofloral honey is, as it sounds, honey made up exclusively from one source. In the UK you can get oilseed rape honey, clover honey, blossom honey and heather honey based on bees working actively on one particular flower in a short time frame. Further afield you can get acacia honey (false acacia), orange blossom honey and manuka honey.

Much of the honey sold in UK supermarkets is blended blanded ‘honey-flavoured spread’ . I once had a furious correspondence with the Rowse company about them labelling one of their products ‘blossom honey’ when it didn’t taste anything like it. It tasted like bog standard, mass-produced sunflower seed honey. Something to be avoided if you like genuine, British beekeeper-produced spring blossom honey which has a delicate taste and smell all its own. And true clover honey is wonderful.

In keeping my clover for just that little bit longer I like to think I’m adding to the mix. I just have to make sure the grass gets done before my 84-year-old senior lawnsman comes round and asks me if the mower’s broken…again.