Video: History of Grass

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The history of grass begins with fields of wild herbs and plants, but developed into a common lawn plant in the 1700s when people started owning property. Discover the development of grass into a modern landscaping medium with information from a sustainable gardener in this free video on gardening.

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Video Transcript

Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen. And in this segment we're going to talk about the history of grass. Now we love our beautiful green lush lawn. And we enjoy them all summer long and enjoy them all winter long as well. And we wouldn't have the golf courses that we have today or the resorts or the hotels, or even public parks. They wouldn't be the way they are if we didn't have grass. Now we; grass is not always used as a lawn. Back in the Elizabethan times only people who owned castles had great areas of land where they could have grass. And it wasn't grass as we know today, it was just wild fields. A lot of times wild fields of Chamomile or beautiful; any types of herbs. Just wild flowers. And so a lot of times in the castles they would have sheep and goats that would graze upon these fields, and then the fields would be nice and short, and would look like a beautiful grass lawn. And that is how the first lawns were really created. And then really people didn't own lawns until they own property and that didn't really happen until the late 1700's and even into the 1800's. Before then people just had small cottages and they had maybe a little garden with herbs and a few flowers. But usually even if they had some land they could afford to cut the grass because back then we didn't have lawnmowers, so if they cut the grass they'd have to actually cut it with a sheath. So they'd have to actually cut it with a sword or type instrument. But now everything's changed and that really happened in the late 1800's when the lawnmower was created. Not the mechanical lawnmower but the lawnmower that you can just push that has the metal blades on it. So even in the early 1800's it was created but not until the late 1800's were people really has access to lawnmowers. And once people had lawnmowers they wanted lawns. And the American Gardening Association helped in that area. And they put adds out all over the country encouraging people to plant lawns. And it worked, everyone wanted to plant lawns and they wanted the most expensive neatest lawnmower, and then they needed all the materials that went with lawns. Well now that we're in the 2000's lawns are really popular today as well. So in the late 1800's people really starting owning property and building nice homes, and had some money. So they; even people that were middle class had some money, so they built beautiful homes and they had a short lawn, and they had mechanical lawnmowers so they could mow them. Then after World War Two when the real housing boom blew up in America, everybody had a small house in the suburbs with a small yard. Today many people still have lawns. And everyone that has a nice plot in the suburbs, they're dream is to have a beautiful lawn. We're getting away from using fertilizers, insecticides and any chemicals and we're realizing with good compost you can have a beautiful lawn. The history of lawns are directly related to class. So in the olden days only the rich could afford to have a lawn. But today not that we have suburbs most people that own a home can afford a nice small lawn if any lawn at all. So I'm convinced that the history of lawns will continue for many many generations.

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History of Grass

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