ABSTRACT

Swathes of the human world are covered in ornamental grass lawns; they are the single most commonly encountered horticultural feature on the planet. Unfortunately, they are now often viewed as resource-draining green deserts due to the lack of plant and animal diversity, the need for frequent mowing and watering, and addition of lawn greening products to keep them looking at their best. It is a venerable horticultural feature that is essentially frozen in time, and with few alternatives to whet the appetite, the lawn has languished in its current grass-only format for decades. Until now.

Tapestry lawns are a new, practically researched and timely development of the ornamental lawn format that integrates both horticultural practice and ecological science and re-determines the potential of a lawn. Mown barely a handful of times a year and with no need for fertilisers or scarifying, tapestry lawns are substantially richer in their diversity of plant and animal life compared to traditional grass-only lawns and see the return of flowers and colour to a format from which they are usually purposefully excluded.

Tapestry Lawns: Freed from Grass and Full of Flowers traces the changes in the lawn format from its origins to the modern day and offers information on how and why the tapestry lawn construct is now achievable. It provides guidance on how to create and maintain a tapestry lawn of your own and champions the potential benefits for wildlife that can follow.

Features

  • Accessible and informative to all types of readers from academic to amateur
  • Includes a refined and tested set of useful tapestry lawn plants
  • Contains step-by-step instructions for creation and management methods of grass-free lawns
  • Illustrated in full colour

If you have ever thought about mowing your lawn much less, making it much more colourful and wildlife friendly, then this book will inform and guide you to create a perfect, grass-free lawn.

chapter 2|39 pages

Tapestry Lawns

Form and Functioning

chapter 3|8 pages

Species Roles in Tapestry Lawns

chapter 4|9 pages

Wildlife

chapter 5|17 pages

How to Make One

chapter 6|9 pages

Maintenance

chapter 7|19 pages

Outcomes

chapter 8|87 pages

Tapestry Lawn Plants

entry |2 pages

Acaena inermis Hook.f.

entry |3 pages

Achillea millefolium L.

entry |4 pages

Ajuga reptans L.

entry |3 pages

Argentina anserina (L.) Rydb.

entry |5 pages

Bellis perennis L.

entry |3 pages

Campanula rotundifolia L.

entry |3 pages

Chamaemelum nobile (L.) All.

entry |2 pages

Dianthus deltoides L.

entry |3 pages

Glechoma hederacea L.

entry |2 pages

Leptinella dioica Hook.f.

entry |2 pages

Lobelia angulata G. Forst.

entry |3 pages

Lobelia pedunculata R.Br.

entry |3 pages

Lotus corniculatus L.

entry |3 pages

Lysimachia nummularia L.

entry |2 pages

Mazus reptans N.E.Br.

entry |3 pages

Mentha pulegium L.

entry |3 pages

Parochetus communis D. Don

entry |3 pages

Pilosella aurantiaca (L.) F.W. Schultz & Sch. Bip.

entry |3 pages

Pilosella officinarum F.W. Schultz & Sch. Bip.

entry |2 pages

Potentilla reptans L.

entry |3 pages

Primula vulgaris Huds.

entry |4 pages

Prunella vulgaris L.

entry |5 pages

Ranunculus repens L.

entry |2 pages

Stellaria graminea L.

entry |3 pages

Thymus praecox Opiz.

entry |3 pages

Trifolium pratense L.

entry |6 pages

Trifolium repens L.

entry |3 pages

Veronica chamaedrys L.

entry |3 pages

Veronica officinalis L.

entry |2 pages

Viola banksii K.R. Thiele & Prober

entry |3 pages

Viola odorata L.

chapter 9|27 pages

Other Useful Plant Species