Shaggy lawns
Outside the building where I am staying in Prague, the lawns are long, and full of tall weeds. That’s not what I’m used to from my landscaping work in British Columbia. Yes, we do stop mowing lawns in summer, but only when they go dormant.
Mowing brown, dormant lawns is pointless; it just damages the grass. We patiently wait for fall rains. Patiently. As the climate warms, in some years the fall rains come later in the fall. But we can confidently say that the rains will come, and the grass will perk up. Then we resume mowing until early November, when the grass stops growing with lower temperatures.
Prague
On my way from the mall one day, I spotted a landscaper in front of the building so I asked him about the shaggy lawns with tall weeds. He told me it wasn’t neglect. It was deliberate. With heat waves hitting Czechia, people prefer not to mow residential complex lawns.
Cutting would expose the grass to heat and dry them out. It’s better to leave them long and green. Or is it?
Very short lawns do dry out, and then the advantage goes to weeds. I see private clients who detest mowing, so they cut their lawns very short. Then their lawns dry out and weeds take over, and I get a phone call asking me for help. It happens every year. Perfect lawns take a lot of time and money; and precious resources like water.
What about the weeds?
Now, I understand the part about short grass drying out and looking brown, but what about the weeds? In my own private practice, I would cut the summer lawn high to make it look tidier, and to remove any weed flower spikes.
It’s the mature seed heads that produce and spill out copious amounts of seed. I hate that. If I was in charge of lawn care at the old communist block housing complex where I am staying, I would cut the grass high. No weed seeds.
I should add that the lawns in front of this complex are the responsibility of the municipality, not the residents. The actual work is off-loaded onto subcontractors, which is why the workers are low paid. New landscapers clear about C$2,000 per month. That’s very low by Canadian standards, even if the cost of living is marginally lower in Prague.
Since I spoke to the landscapers, we’ve had a few showers, but we’ll need more rain for everything to perk up. Europe is very dry at the moment, and major rivers are running low.
