Take a look at my designer “cottage lawn,” one of the hottest garden trends of 2012.
Don’t be jealous. It’s taken me years to achieve this look. Note the highly desirable color combination of yellow (dandelions) and sky blue (Creeping Charlie).
It's not easy to achieve this loose, relaxed, neglected look. But looks can be deceiving. These dandelions are actually in the exact formation of the Horsehead Nebula.
Just finishing up their show are henbit and hairy watercress. And now, wild violet is blooming and pokeweed is just beginning to peek out of the ground in every single place where any bird crapped in 2011. Pokeweed is especially unique — not many plants have a taproot the size of an elephant’s tusk — it’s one of a kind!
I will have to post another pic again in midsummer, when the thistle and horseweed are in full glory among larg-ish patches of dirt. This combo really works together for a complex yet minimalist look. I’m not into labels or anything but it’s very post-postmodern.
I know what you’re thinking: “but how can I achieve the look of an abandoned soccer field in my garden?” I’m sorry to say it takes a practiced hand to achieve the sophisticated weed tapestry you see in the photo. But with a little time, some small children, daily dousings of dog urine, and some really focused indifference you too may achieve the “cottage lawn” of your dreams.
Black Walnut Dispatch 
I’ll be looking at our lawn in a whole new way!
Just do it, Patricia!
The bees and the butterflies like it too.
Yes, Carole! My neighbors? Probably not so much!
ROTFLMHO, Mary G!
Your lawn looks like mine except mine has less grass! I feel so much better about my “lawnscape” now!
Thanks!
Hey, astronomy and lawnscaping, you might just be onto something big there, a itch in the landscaping market that hasn’t been scratched yet.
And don’t forget how “Green”, “Sustainable”, and “Eco-Friendly” your masterpiece is! 😉
Julie,
Yeah, my lawn also “blurs the line” between suburban landscape and vacant lot.
You did it again Mary! Totally enjoy the laugh at the lawn’s expense.
Thanks, Tracy. My lawn is pretty laid back so it won’t be offended. ;o)
Ha! It looks ~amazingly~ natural. 😉
Hey, you could harvest those dandelions to make salad and/or wine! Yours is a productive lawn! Take that, lawns that take take take (chemicals, energy) and then just sit around being green.
Thanks, Liz. If you have a recipe for dandelion wine, please share. I could start a vineyard over here.
We cultivate dandelions over here in our weedscape. My children are on the seed dispersal team and take their work very seriously.
Funny! Do you lift and divide them, too?
Oh, no! They resent being transplanted. 😉
Still looks better than what I need to go out and weed…at least you can mow your designer cottage lawn! It kind of looks nice – I like an Atlanta designer’s name for it, “Tara Turf”!
Another commenter called hers a “flowery mead”…I kinda like the dandelions in the lawn when they’re yellow flowers, but then after they’ve seeded and the seeds have blown away and there are hundreds of bare stems sticking up….not so much.
This made me laugh! The beauty in weeds, eh? Although since I eat dandelion greens and sometimes make a tea out of the creeping charlie/ground-ivy… I would call what you pictured a productive garden!
One of these days I am going to actually try eating dandelion greens…do you eat them raw or cooked?
I’m impressed by your weed (i.e., naturalized plant material) identification skills.
I highly recommend “Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast” — much of my weed knowledge came from that book!
I know I keep saying it, but I am so impressed! Really incredible PR, and amazing seeing how drastically you improve every year. Gives me hope for myself! You trained hard and did awesome and you definitely have sub-4 in you, you were really close and yo8#ru217;&e always getting better. Mazel tov!!Dori recently posted..