Lawn alternatives

[PrettyCandles]

Is there any plant other than grass that can be used to make a 'lawn'? That's to say, a planted area that can be walked on.

What would happen if you planted an area with clover, for example, or daisies, or - what's that pretty flower that colonises lawns? Bird's foot trefoil or something like that?

[gingerbear]

camomile lawn? wasn't there a book with this title?
Smells lovely when walked upon.

Or astroturf?

[PrettyCandles]

I think so. Don't know it though. I just thought it was a poetic-licence title. Can you really plant a lawn with camomile - the ordinary tea sort?

Astroturf - I don't see dh going for that, somehow .

[Levanna]

we're having a section of chamomile lawn. It should be a certain type of chamomile though, this is the lawn type . A friend of mine had one and it was lovely.

[KristinaM]

What do you have against grass PC?

[Avalon]

As well as the 'Treneague' type of chamomile, you can use thyme (Thymus serpyllum) this is the one which keeps close to the ground, or white clover (Trifolium repens). Hand weeding, though.

[nailpolish]

camomile lawns are not really very hard-wearing though, they are only nice to look at. so not very useful if you are going to be walking about on it.

whats wrong with grass?

[PrettyCandles]

Nothing whatsoever wrong with grass, love it myself (especially the smell of freshly-cut lawn), just wondering what the alternatives were. We've seen a couple of houses where the front 'garden' has been completely paved over - not our cup of tea. A replacement lawn would be relatively small, and not excessively walked upon. I love the idea of a fragrant lawn - chamomile, thyme and clover all sound wonderful.

Avalon, could you expand upon your 'hand weeding ' please?

[nailpolish]

ive seen paved gardens with missing stones and camomile in the spaces. what about that?

[PrettyCandles]

Not too sure - I think that looks a bit twee.

[nailpolish]

maybe! lol! hope you find something nice!

[Avalon]

PrettyCandles, you can't use weedkiller on them because these lawn substitutes count as weeds. And the was at the thought of all that work, sorry.

[PrettyCandles]

Phew! I was having visions of crawling around on the lawn weeding fingers to the bone - frequently! I've done that several times trying to help my mum clear her lawn of clover...eventually even we managed to run out of conversation .

But what you said about weedkiller makes sense, which is another reason why I was wondering about making a 'lawn' out of lawn weeds.