Tondeuse Ecologique

Originally I got sheep to keep the grass down. A simple enough objective and Ouessant sheep have found themselves a niche as small ecofriendly lawnmowers.  Perfect then? Weeelll not exactly. The trouble with sheep as lawnmowers is that you find yourself either surrounded by fencing or destined to keep some areas in need of mowing. My mission over the  last few years has been to keep those areas of "lawn" to an absolute minimum, this has lead to some creative gardening solutions all designed of course for minimum care. The area in the photo had one small bed in it the rest was lawn,  a lawn which after the arrival of the sheep  rapidly went to a scrubby patch of grass when the effort of lugging the lawnmower in and out became too much.

Seen from the other side you can see its a work in progress there is still some planting to do and a bit of tweaking but the basic principle is that I now have a place to deposit all my fallen leaves which provides a free mulch, supressing the grass almost entirely ( leaving very little weeding - which is another plus).

The conifer is a little oversized and growing too rapidly and will soon be replaced with a more sedately growing but also evergreen Camelia but as an planting  idea its one that I like. I have reduced my mowing time with the help of the sheep in this part of the garden from  a total of four hours to zero YES!

One other area of the garden has always been a bit of a problem in so much as I really wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I have never been one for neatly manicured gardens - I once caught my neighbour planting bedding plants with the aide of a tapemeasure:-o! On the other hand it helps if the place has at least some areas that aren't complete jungle even if I am mindful that nature likes "natural" for insects and wildlife.

 This area is in shade for most of the year being under the trees on the boundry. It has been fairly simple to ensure that the leaf litter is deep enough to prevent grass growing and the bank has been left with its already planted swathe of nettles but the other invasives such as bracken and brambles are kept under control. Planting here is mainly spring flowering plants such as snowdrops and bluebells and there are plans for other woodland species. The difference can be seen with the photo below where I have yet to completely tackle this area and the grass is growing and the bank is somewhat more out of control.

There is still a way to go to see if its possible to get the lawn mowing reduced  further but one aspect of lawnmowing that I do want to explore is barrel silage LINK . Just think it might actually be possible to use those waste grass clippings to feed the sheep from  those areas where I do still need to mow. A complete circle! Ecofriendly lawnmower? Definately!