THE laurel lawn is not often met with nowadays. A feature of Victorian gardens, it survives in a few places, perhaps the most notable being at Fernhill in south Co Dublin. As a means of covering ground in a simple and bold gesture it is stylish and effective under a canopy of deciduous trees. Strictly speaking it is not so much a lawn as a table with the evergreen shrubs trimmed in a flat plane about three feet high so that they merge and form a flat green sea below eye level. Then the eye drifts over the scene calmly noting the trunks of trees rising from the elevated carpet enjoying the cool, and the green light filtered through the leafy canopy high overhead.
For the classic laurel lawn to work well, space is a requirement; three laurels clipped under a small beech tree will not give the desired result and atmosphere. But where ground is available this can be a relatively easy and low maintenance option. Once the laurels are established weed growth will be suppressed by lack of light and an annual clipping will keep the lawn at the desired height.
The plant used in this exercise is the common cherry laurel Prunus laurocerasus. It comes from areas around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and has been in cultivation here since the early 17th century. Normally I am not mad about it, although I have plenty of the thing about as a tall hedging screen or left to grow freely into a tall shrub. My main objection is its lack of refinement and the rather bright brash green of the leaf which may blend in to the background during the growing season but which looks just too cheerful and inappropriate in winter and early spring.
This quibble apart, I especially enjoy free grown plants which can go up to 20 or more feet in height. Grown like that they can flower freely and grow loosely unhindered by hedge trimmers or clippers. When the white flowers have faded in June the berries begin to form and with the help of birds and wind these will be distributed in autumn. Left to its own devices in woodland or an abandoned place the laurel will eventually spread and colonise to form a jungle. However, such a scenario will not bother those of us with smaller gardens where one or two laurels may be indulged on the fringe.
THERE is a small German raised laurel of which I am very fond: Prunus 1 `Otto Luyken'. This makes a compact shrub of spreading habit. The leaf is smaller than in our usual type and is pleasing dark green. Altogether it has a civilised look without the coarseness of its relative. The flowers are, as one might expect, white, held in panicles which appear in profusion in May. It can make a nice second show in autumn when conditions are right. Flower arrangers love it, and so do people engaged in amenity landscaping, but that does not put me off it in the least.
In a dark corner under a few old beech trees I have tried to emulate the laurel lawn and the result is pleasing. Otto Luyken obliges by making a dense ground cover plants are about three feet apart. In the 15 or more years since planting it has been topped once when it showed an inclination to go above three feet in height. The general appearance may not be as neat and precise as that of an annually clipped shrub but no matter: the gentle undulation is more akin to a rippling lake than a calm, still pond.
They may need clipping again soon but such an exercise will be required only every three or four years now that they are well established. Otto gives much pleasure for almost no effort.