I'm not a lawn fiend. My own stretch of grass - and daisy, dandelion, plantain, moss and threadbare earth - is a sorry thing. Irascibly mowed each week or so by an otherwise affable husband, it is more like a big green bone of contention than a lawn.
But I do love other people's lawns - who could not? A lovely lawn is a beautifully-crafted thing, drawing your eye to it as to a work of art. That king of all lawns, the Wimbledon Centre Court, is the product of a rigorous, year-round regime. During the tennis season it is mowed daily, and in the runup to the tournament, no rain is allowed to fall on its sacred blades. Watering is precisely controlled with the help of a computerised weather station beside the court which gauges temperature, precipitation, wind and sunlight.
Here in Ireland, on the other hand, no electronic equipment ever comes near our most beauteous sports lawns at Carrickmines Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. The carpet-perfect croquet courts are looked after by Simon Williams, a groundsman whose mental database on grass-care rivals any microchipped machine, and whose rapport with the verdant surface is obvious. Actually, explains Simon, what goes on underneath the surface - the unseen engineering of the lawn - is just as important as the green stuff on top. The croquet lawns at Carrickmines have roots that reach down twelve inches (your average domestic lawn might have a root-zone of 3 or 4 inches, if you're lucky), and somewhere below that a layer of gravel spread over pipes ensures good drainage.
The lawns were made 90 years ago, and have never had to be relaid since. In fact, much of the Carrickmines club dates from then, and if it were not for the sodium lights over the well-concealed artificial courts and the crop of antennae on Three Rock Mountain in the distance, you might well have walked into a fragment of Edwardian Co Dublin. Nicely-clipped privet and laurel hedges surround the various courts, while the green-and-white clubhouse, a perennially summery building, started life as the Norwegian pavilion in the Great Exhibition of 1907 in Herbert Park.
The four croquet lawns - each measuring the regulation 28 by 35 yards - are transformed into eight tennis courts for the Championships of County Dublin, which starts next Saturday. To my eyes, it seems a small sin even to tread on these mesmerising, green-striped, horizontal planes, and a mortaller to subject them to the bouncing around, running and - forsooth - skidding of a week of hard tennis. But the sturdy grasses in the turf - red fescue, Chewings fescue, browntop bent and dwarf perennial rye - and the endless, careful maintenance make it able to cope with a good deal of wear and tear.
Simon Williams's flawless lawns are kept mown to a suede-like 6 or 7 millimetres during the playing season, with an 11-blade bowling-green mower giving the finest cut. Some of the other tools required to service the sward include a battery of rakes, brushes, scarifiers, drag-mats and fertiliser spreaders. An immense iron roller is "an important piece of equipment, giving 15 to 20 lbs of pressure per square inch". (Just for the fun-facts file, a human foot delivers about 10 lbs per square inch).
The immovable-looking, brown cylinder used to be pulled by a donkey wearing leather shoes, "Now it's pulled by me - and you can make of that what you will!" says Simon with amusement. "But it's the complete workout, between one thing and another. It's good for your health." Which is not a bad thing for this particular groundsman, because as well as being the guardian of this impeccable grass, he plays on the Ireland croquet team. "I used to hate gardening before," he admits. "I came to this job through croquet", a game he's been playing for 17 years.
And when I spoke with him a couple weeks of ago, he was preparing to captain the players in Southport in the Home Internationals Championship. I'll bet there are not a lot of sports in which the captain of the national team is out mowing the home pitch the day before travelling to an international tournament.
Diary Dates:
Today until July 3rd, at The National Botanic Gardens: "From Lady Pupil To Lady Gardener, A Glasnevin Centenary", an exhibition celebrating the contribution that women have made to Irish horticulture. 11 a.m.4.30 p.m. weekdays, 25 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Ferns Flower Festival, today (10 a.m.7 p.m.) and Sunday (noon7 p.m.) at St Edan's Cathedral and St Aidan's Church. Organised by Co Wexford Garden and Flower Club. In aid of the National Council for the Blind. Admission £5.