In the garden - What's in my lawn!?

Well perhaps, lawn is a bit too grand a term for our patch as it's just an area that even grass struggles to survive.Being clay it is often damp and waterlogged - when it's not dry to the point of cracking.

I scuttled over to have a quick look at the Oxford English Dictionary website, which my to surprise provides quite a few definitions of lawn, so perhaps I'm not so far off the mark, including:

"A portion of a garden or pleasure-ground, covered with grass, which is kept closely mown."

" A stretch of untilled ground; an extent of grass-covered land."

and

"An open space between woods; a glade" (OED Website)

Anyway! I decided to perform an experiment, whereby we stopped mowing the lawn for a period of a month or so. We could then see what, and how many, plant species are growing in our lawn, whether it be grass species or other species of plant.

It's similar to an experiment that Darwin performed in his gardens at Down House, which a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker (responsible for the Victorian rhodedendron mania), describes:

"I have let 34 sq^e feet of old Lawn grow up, & 18 plants in 17 genera have flowered during this summer. Exactly same numbers as in whole Keeling islands, though so many miles in length!—" Darwin Correspondence Project.

Our experiment wasn't as successful in terms of genera, or even species, but it was interesting all the same. Our findings included: Grass species consisting of a species of Meadow Grass, Yorkshire Fog, Crested Dog's-Tail, and Perennial Ryegrass. Along with other flowering plant species: A dock and a thistle (not in flower yet), Field Madder, Common Mouse-ear, Creeping Buttercup, Red Clover, White Clover, Dandelion (past flowering, so only a rosette of leaves remain), and Daisy. 

Our lawn and a bird's-eye view showing buttercup, red clover, daisy, and grass.

Here are Crested Dog's-tail and a species of Meadow grass.

Another bird's-eye view showing how dominant White Clover can be if left to its own devices.

Yorkshire Fog to the left and an ant's-eye view of the lawn. It's interesting to see the 'canopies' created by the various plants. 

Field Madder and Common Mouse-ear - commonly seen as pest's, but when you get close to them they have a certain beauty to them.

So even though we only had 13 species, I had a great time watching the lawn grow over these past few weeks. It's exciting to see that even after a years of being kept short, all of these plants were just waiting for their time to shine. I'm glad that we gave them that time.

Have you performed a similar experiment in your garden? If so, I'd love to hear about it in the comments - especially any links to posts you've written about it.