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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/11/tasmanian-garden-wins-prize-for-worlds-ugliest-lawn>
"It is not so much a lawn as a moonscape: pitted craters dug by bandicoots,
exhausted tufts of withered yellow grass plucked by wallabies and pitiful
plants shrivelled brown under the Australian sunshine.
But Kathleen Murray is the proud winner of the first World’s Ugliest Lawn
competition after the Swedish contest to encourage water-saving,
environmentally-friendly gardening went global.
Murray’s lawn in Sandford, Tasmania, beat competition from parched grass
patches in Germany, France, Canada, Croatia, Sweden, the US and the UK.
“It’s pretty shock-and-awe,” said Murray of her lawn. “The bandicoots love
digging – that’s how they find their favourite food. Now my back yard looks
like a real-life
Hungry Hungry Hippo game. I also have an echidna that helps,
and some chooks.”
Murray lives in an area without mains water, and so rainwater collected in
tanks is too precious to waste on the lawn. If she and her four teenage
children run out of water in summer, it can be a two-week wait before more
water is delivered via tanker.
“I used to think the bandicoots were wildlife of mass destruction invading my
lawn, but now I see that they’ve actually liberated me from ever having to mow
it again,” said Murray, who is the proud owner of the inaugural trophy – a
commemorative T-shirt. “I’m all for guilt-free weekends, especially since my
ex-husband left with the lawnmower back in 2016.”
The competition began in Gotland, Sweden, two years ago, after the popular
holiday island came within hours of running out of water the previous summer.
The contest, devised by the municipality of Gotland, became global news after
the
Guardian picked up the story. Water consumption in Gotland has fallen by
5% thanks to the competition and other measures."
Via Clarice Boomshakala Bouvier.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
