While many plants power their way though growth in the heat of the summer, lawn grass is a different beast. Making their push in the Spring to reestablish themselves, the fescues, ryes and other varieties slow down this time of year. The light bright green of early growth gives way to a duller, deeper shade during the long languid days of July.
There is still lots of activity for those plants attempting to establish themselves. The dandelion seedlings from the white, puffy heads of late Spring are trying to break through and establish themselves in the thick grass before they go dormant in the Fall. New white-clover leaves are supported on spindly stalks above the grass that is resting on its side; white flowers poke up looking for a pollinating insect. Its four-sectioned leaf seems to hover above the rest of the lawn.
Bits of creeping thyme sit hidden in different patches offering fragrant steps to a walker. Rubbing them with your hands or bare feet releases a subtle scent atypical to a stroll on the grass.
Small mints have since flowered and their blue appendages are a Spring memory. Chickweed is in absence this year but more than made up for by Japanese stilt grasses and crabgrass (to a lesser extent.)
Plantain is in its prime now. It continues to spread its broad, fat leaves in an attempt to smother anything under it. At the same time a phalanx of seeds is rising looking for pollinators to become viable. Left to its own devices, plantain would take over the lawn smothering the grass leaving bare spots in the Fall and Winter. But the clover and other occupants are having none of that as they too fight for space. And the fescue, uncut for weeks, sits lazily resisting intrusions, thick on the ground.Â
I do little in this quiet war save remove some of the plantain invaders once their leaves have become too wide or phalanxes too tall. Otherwise the lawn sits requiring little care waiting for the next rain or welcoming morning dew.
