6 AUGUST 1954, Page 12

Patches of Grass

We have in all, in our small garden, five patches of grass. They are on the slope of a hill and, with the exception of one patch, I put them all to grass myself. They are not lawns in the sense that a lawn is a neat, even piece of turf something like a bowling green. My patches were meant to be lawns but the years have defeated me. When I prepared the ground I knew the slope was well drained. All I had to do was to level the areas to be sown and roll them well, and this I did as thoroughly as any expert.

The preparation was carried out according to the book, but it was when it came to seed

thin in others. I discovered after the first cutting with shears that I had bald spots. I hurried off and bought seed to sow on these bare places. The new seed was of a coarser grass. It thrived and stood the mower well where the finer grass did not. The fine grass did not wear well and shrank from the sun. In a year it was plain that clover was encroaching everywhere. Clover covers ground as well as grass, I suppose. I should have lifted the poor turf and started all over again but, to tell the truth, trimming and mowing kccp me busy enough and, since I have nothing to be vain about, I am content to speak not of my lawns, but of my bits of grass, which is what they are