A lawn in the tiny coastal community of Birdlings Flat in Canterbury has been named the ugliest in the world, beating contenders from Europe, Africa and Australia.
Winner Leisa Elliott prefers to call the strip of dying grass in her front yard “blonde” – rather than dry – and refuses to water the grass, come what may.
“I mow it, and that’s it,” she said.
The plants in her garden receive the same treatment, all in the name of water conservation.
“You can either work harder or smarter. I’ve chosen smarter. I just let nature do it, because it knows way better than what I do,” said Elliott.
Her attitude has won international praise from the World’s Ugliest Lawn competition — run from the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.
Organiser Mimmi Gibson from Gotland was trying to create a new definition to the word ugly, saying Elliott has crafted something “beautiful and natural”.
The competition promoted the idea that water was a precious resource, that shouldn’t be poured on grass.
“It gets you thinking, is it worth keeping this norm of a green lawn? Is it worth the price that we’re paying globally to do this?”
The contest was created as a tongue-in-cheek response to a water shortage on Gotland and soon went global. Anyone could enter by email, with a jury assembled to decide on the ugliest of all.
The organisers were hoping other Kiwis would join this coming year’s contest.
“It’s not going to solve everything about the climate crisis and the freshwater, but it’s one way everybody could participate,” Gibson said.
“We only have this amount of water on the planet, and we need to be really careful about that.”
Elliott’s passion was linked to how difficult it was to get drinking water to the remote Birdlings Flat community where she lived, as it had to be pumped in for residents.
“I just couldn’t bring myself to water the garden from something that’s taken so much time and energy and resources to actually get pumped here,” she said.
That meant it was not only the grass that went thirsty at her place. Elliott chose plants for her garden that were suited to hot environments and leaft them to nature.
Many have thrived, including several huge agave plants.
“Even though it might be called ugly, I still think it’s beautiful,” Elliott said.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder — ugly is in the eye of the beholder as well.”
