Bill Mollison of permaculture fame is fond of saying that suburban lawns in the U.S.A. use more resources than any other agricultural industry in the world. They use more phosphates than India and more poisons than any other form of agriculture! As we are now worried about runoff damaging the reef, it would be wise for gardeners to look to the home garden before laying all the blame on the cane farmer.

Anyway, what is a lawn? It is really a groundcover made up of grass, usually a single species such as couch. It has to be fertilized, watered and mowed and one of lifes little ironies is that the more you feed and water, the more you have to mow! Who needs a lawn anyway?

One justification is as somewhere for the youngsters to play. A sandpit and cubbyhouse may be more to the point with lots less upkeep. Another argument centres upon snakes. In fact, lawns attract snakes. They come for the moisture from watering. While they may be easier to see and avoid on mown grass, they are much easier to hear on mulch, a definite plus when the snake is behind you.

There are alternatives to lawn, namely mulch, other groundcovers and native grasses. Mulch has much to recommend it. It is soft underfoot, needs very little maintenance and never needs watering. An excellent alternative groundcover for the native gardener used to be Condamine Couch, Phyla nodiflora, but this is now thought to be exotic. It is still a better choice than introduced lawn grasses.

In the Mackay district, there are a number of small legumes that appear in lawns. They are Desmodium triflorum (Creeping Tick Trefoil), Alysicarpus bupleurifolius (Sweet Alys) and A. vaginalis (Alyce Clover). All accept some foot traffic and mowing and their small pretty flowers are an added bonus. It is a simple matter to encourage them instead of treating them as weeds. Being legumes and native to the area, they need no fertilizer and little water.

Other plants that appear are the Tridax Daisy (Tridax procumbens) and Sensitive Weed (Mimosa pudica). These are introduced weeds. Sensitive Weed comes from South America and is not native to Australia, as is sometimes thought. A good dose of urea will make it very ill, but the Tridax Daisy needs to be dug out before it spreads.

Native grasses, especially local species, are very attractive and, as many of them are tufted, do not need mowing. Adapted to the local climatic conditions, they tend to die down in dry conditions, but make an extremely attractive feature interspersed with mulch or gravel.

If a traditional lawn must be had, all is not lost. Green Couch (Cynodon dactylon) is distributed over most of Australia. It is a native, even though it is also known as Bermuda Grass. Unfortunately, it is very invasive. Queensland Blue Couch, however, is an introduced species from the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean!

Lawns evolved in the cool dampness of England and their introduction into Australian landscape was as short-sighted as the introduction of the Scotch Thistle by a homesick Scot. Garden competitions also perpetuated the mystique about lawns, as a prize-winning garden must have a lawn of a certain standard. Garden competitions have a lot to answer for!