Origins : short, springy turf with spaced trees. Sheep keep the greensward closely-cropped. In Britain,
raising wool for export was very profitable (see
enclosure and
Scottish Clearances), and parkland trees provided
grown crooks valuable in
shipbuilding. This profitable landscape became associated with the landed gentry. Areas of grass grazed regularly by
rabbits,
horses or
sheep over a long period often form a very low, tight sward similar to a modern lawn. This was the original meaning of the word "lawn", and the term can still be found in place names. Some forest areas where extensive
grazing is practiced still have these seminatural lawns. For example, in the
New Forest,
England, such grazed areas are common, and are known as lawns, for example
Balmer Lawn. Lawns may have originated as grassed enclosures within early medieval settlements used for communal grazing of
livestock, as distinct from
fields reserved for agriculture. Low, mown-meadow areas may also have been valued because they allowed those inside an enclosed fence or castle to view those approaching. The early lawns were not always distinguishable from
pasture fields. The damp climate of maritime Western Europe in the north made lawns possible to grow and manage. They were not a part of gardens in most other regions and cultures of the world until contemporary influence. In 1100s Britain, low-growing area of grasses and
meadow flowers were grazed or scythed to keep them short, and used for sport. The word "laune" is first attested in 1540 from the
Old French lande "heath, moor, barren land; clearing". It initially described a natural opening in a woodland. Before the invention of
mowing machines in 1830, lawns were managed very differently. They were an element of wealthy estates and
manor houses, and in some places were maintained by labor-intensive
scything and shearing (for
hay or
silage). They were also pasture land maintained through grazing by
sheep or other
livestock.
The English lawn 's landscape design at
Badminton House It was not until the 17th and 18th century that the garden and the lawn became a place created first as walkways and social areas. They were made up of meadow plants, such as
camomile, a particular favourite (see
camomile lawn). In the early 17th century, the
Jacobean epoch of gardening began; during this period, the closely cut "English" lawn was born. By the end of this period, the English lawn was a symbol of status of the
aristocracy and
gentry. In the early 18th century, landscape gardening for the
aristocracy entered a golden age, under the direction of
William Kent and
Lancelot "Capability" Brown. They refined the
English landscape garden style with the design of natural, or "romantic", estate settings for wealthy Englishmen. Brown, remembered as "England's greatest gardener", designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure. His influence was so great that the contributions to the English garden made by his predecessors
Charles Bridgeman and
William Kent are often overlooked. His work still endures at
Croome Court (where he also designed the house),
Blenheim Palace,
Warwick Castle,
Harewood House,
Bowood House,
Milton Abbey (and nearby
Milton Abbas village), in traces at
Kew Gardens and many other locations. His style of smooth undulating lawns which ran seamlessly to the house and meadow, clumps, belts and scattering of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers, were a new style within the English landscape, a "gardenless" form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles. His landscapes were fundamentally different from what they replaced, the well-known formal gardens of England which were criticised by
Alexander Pope and others from the 1710s. The open "English style" of parkland first spread across Britain and Ireland, and then across Europe, such as the
garden à la française being replaced by the
French landscape garden. By this time, the word "lawn" in England had semantically shifted to describe a piece of a garden covered with grass and closely mown. In 1780, the
Shaker community began the first industrial production of high-quality grass seed in North America, and a number of seed companies and nurseries were founded in
Philadelphia. The increased availability of these grasses meant they were in plentiful supply for parks and residential areas, not just livestock. Budding realised that a similar device could be used to cut grass if the mechanism was mounted in a wheeled frame to make the blades rotate close to the lawn's surface. His mower design was to be used primarily to cut the lawn on sports grounds and extensive gardens, as a superior alternative to the
scythe, and he was granted a British patent on 31 August 1830. Budding went into partnership with a local engineer, John Ferrabee, who paid the costs of development and acquired rights to manufacture and sell lawn mowers and to
license other manufacturers. Together they made mowers in a factory at
Thrupp near Stroud. Among the other companies manufacturing under license the most successful was
Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies of Ipswich which began mower production as early as 1832. It took ten more years and further innovations, including the advent of the
Bessemer process for the production of the much lighter alloy
steel and advances in motorization such as the
drive chain, for the lawn mower to become a practical proposition. Middle-class families across the country, in imitation of aristocratic landscape gardens, began to grow finely trimmed lawns in their back gardens. In the 1850s,
Thomas Green of
Leeds introduced a revolutionary mower design called the Silens Messor (meaning silent cutter), which used a chain to transmit power from the rear roller to the cutting cylinder. The machine was much lighter and quieter than the gear driven machines that preceded them, and won first prize at the first lawn mower trial at the London Horticultural Gardens. Around 1900,
Ransomes' Automaton, available in chain- or gear-driven models, dominated the British market. In 1902, Ransomes produced the first commercially available mower powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine. JP Engineering of Leicester, founded after
World War I, invented the first riding mowers. . This went hand-in-hand with a booming consumer market for lawns from the 1860s onward. With the increasing popularity of
sports in the mid-Victorian period, the lawn mower was used to craft modern-style sporting ovals, playing fields, pitches and grass courts for the nascent sports of
football,
lawn bowls,
lawn tennis and others. The rise of
Suburbanisation in the
interwar period was heavily influenced by the
garden city movement of
Ebenezer Howard and the creation of the first
garden suburbs at the turn of the 20th century. The garden suburb, developed through the efforts of
social reformer
Henrietta Barnett and her husband, exemplified the incorporation of the well manicured lawn into suburban life. Suburbs dramatically increased in size.
Harrow Weald went from just 1,500 to over 10,000 while
Pinner jumped from 3,00 to over 20,000. During the 1930s, over 4 million new suburban houses were built and the 'suburban revolution' had made England the most heavily suburbanized country in the world by a considerable margin. Lawns began to proliferate in America from the 1870s onwards. As more plants were introduced from Europe, lawns became smaller as they were filled with
flower beds,
perennials, sculptures, and water features. The lawn became less associated with being a
status symbol, instead giving way to a landscape aesthetic. Improvements in the lawn mower and water supply enabled the spread of lawn culture from the
Northeast to the
South, where the grass grew more poorly.
The chemical boom After
World War II, a surplus of synthetic nitrogen in the United States led to chemical firms such as DuPont seeking to expand the market for fertilizers. The suburban lawn offered an opportunity to market fertilizers, previously only used by farmers, to homeowners. In 1955, DuPont released Uramite, a slow-release nitrogen fertilizer specifically marketed for lawns. The trend continued throughout the 1960s, with chemical firms such as DuPont and Monsanto utilizing television advertising and other forms of advertisement to market pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides. The environmental impacts of this widespread chemical use were noticed as early as the 1960s, but suburban lawns as a source of pollution were largely ignored.
Organic lawns Due to the harmful effects of excessive pesticide use, fertilizer use,
climate change and pollution, a movement developed in the late 20th century to require
organic lawn management. By the first decade of the 21st century, American homeowners were using ten times more pesticides per acre than farmers, poisoning an estimated 60 to 70 million birds yearly. Lawn mowers are a significant contributor to pollution released into Earth's atmosphere, with a riding lawn mower producing the same amount of pollution in one hour of use as 34 cars. Similar restrictions have been adopted by other municipalities, reflecting a broader movement toward organic land care practices informed by an increased focus on
Lawn metabolism and soil–plant biological processes. There are many
locations with organic lawns that require organic landscaping.
United States Prior to European colonization, the grasses on the East Coast of North America were mostly
broom straw,
wild rye, and
marsh grass. As Europeans moved into the region, it was noted by colonists in New England, more than others, that the grasses of the New World were inferior to those of England and that their livestock seemed to receive less nutrition from it. In fact, once livestock brought overseas from Europe spread throughout the colonies, much of the native grasses of New England disappeared, and an inventory list from the 17th century noted supplies of
clover and grass seed from England. New colonists were even urged by their country and companies to bring grass seed with them to North America. By the late 17th century, a new market in imported grass seed had begun in New England. Much of the new grasses brought by Europeans spread quickly and effectively, often ahead of the colonists. One such species, Bermuda grass (
Cynodon dactylon), became the most important pasture grass for the southern colonies. Kentucky bluegrass (
Poa pratensis) is a grass native to Europe or the Middle East. It was likely carried to Midwestern United States in the early 1600s by French missionaries and spread via the waterways to the region around Kentucky. However, it may also have spread across the Appalachian Mountains after an introduction on the east coast. Farmers at first continued to harvest meadows and marshes composed of indigenous grasses until they became overgrazed. These areas quickly fell to erosion and were overrun with less favorable plant life. Soon, farmers began to purposefully plant new species of grass in these areas, hoping to improve the quality and quantity of hay to provide for their livestock as native species had a lower nutritive value. While Middle Eastern and Europeans species of grass did extremely well on the East Coast of North America, it was a number of grasses from the Mediterranean that dominated the Western seaboard. As cultivated grasses became valued for their nutritional benefits to livestock, farmers relied less and less on natural meadows in the more colonized areas of the country. Eventually even the grasses of the Great Plains were overrun with European species that were more durable to the grazing patterns of imported livestock. Lawn
monoculture was a reflection of more than an interest in offsetting depreciation, it propagated the homogeneity of the suburb itself. Although lawns had been a recognizable feature in English residences since the 19th century, a revolution in industrialization and monoculture of the lawn since the Second World War fundamentally changed the ecology of the lawn. Money and ideas flowed back from Europe after the U.S. entered WWI, changing the way Americans interacted with themselves and nature, and the industrialization of war hastened the industrialization of pest control. Intensive suburbanization both concentrated and expanded the spread of lawn maintenance which meant increased inputs in not only
petrochemicals,
fertilizers, and
pesticides, but also natural resources like water. During 1948, the first spring that Levittown had enjoyed, Levitt and Sons fertilized and reseeded all of the lawns free of charge.
Australia The appearance of the lawn in
Australia followed closely after its establishment in North America and parts of Europe. Lawn was established on the so-called "nature strip" (a uniquely Australian term) by the 1920s and was common throughout the developing suburbs of Australia. By the 1950s, the Australian-designed
Victa lawn mower was being used by the many people who had turned pastures into lawn and was also being exported to dozens of countries. Prior to the 1970s, all brush and native species were stripped from a development site and replaced with lawns that utilized imported plant species. Since the 1970s there has been an interest in using indigenous species for lawns, especially considering their lower water requirements. Lawns are also established in garden areas as well as used for the surface of sporting fields. Over time, with consideration to the frequency of droughts in Australia, the movement towards "naturalism", or the use of indigenous plant species in yards, was beneficial. These grasses were more drought resistant than their European counterparts, and many who wished to keep their lawns switched to these alternatives or allowed their green carpets to revert to the indigenous scrub in an effort to reduce the strain on water supplies. However, lawns remain a popular surface and their practical and aesthetically pleasing appearance reduces the use of water-impervious surfaces such as concrete. The growing use of
rainwater storage tanks has improved the ability to maintain them. Following recent droughts, Australia has seen a change to predominately warm-season turfgrasses, particularly in the southern states like New South Wales and Victoria which are predominately temperate climates within urban regions. The more drought tolerant grasses have been chosen by councils and homeowners for the choice of using less water compared to cool-season turfgrasses like fescue and ryegrass. Mild dormancy seems to be of little concern when high-profile areas can be oversown for short periods or nowadays, turf colourants (fake green) are very popular. ==Uses==