World’s Ugliest Lawn Winner Leaves Watering to Mother Nature
There are competitions for lush beautiful lawns and gardens around the world. But one contest has a very different standard. The World’s Ugliest Lawn competition, now in its second-year rewards lawns that are only watered by Mother Nature. In 2024, reported The Guardian, a sun- scorched lawn in New Zealand won the competition.
About the World’s Ugliest Lawn competition
The competition was launched by the Swedish Gotland Island municipality as a way to recognize and celebrate people who conserve water by not using it on their lawns, The New Zealand Herald reported.
But Mother Nature was actually responsible for the conditions that led people on the island to stop watering their lawns. A water shortage in 2022 led to an irrigation ban, according to The Guardian. This was a fun way to recognize those who continued to let nature water their lawn.
The competition started as a local event but due to popular demand the local competition went global and it was taken very seriously by the competitors. The winner receives a pre-worn T-shirt that is then passed to the next year’s winner.
Mimmi Gibson, the brand director at the Tourism Agency Region Gotland, who helps organize the contest, told The Guardian that competition for the title was fierce. “I mean, they’re all so bad,” she said. “They’re so terrible.”
But this was just one initiative that Gotland undertook to save water and it worked. Water consumption was reduced by 5-to-7 percent each year.
The 2024 winner
The 2024 winning lawn belongs to Leisa Elliott who lives in Birdlings Flat, near Christchurch, a place that has very little rainfall and a harsh climate.
“I live in a small coastal community,” Elliott said. “Our drinking water is pumped from a well in nearby Kaitorete Spit. In my mind, drinking water is drinking water, not watering-the-lawn water.”
Elliot designed her garden with plants that are well suited to the climate and do not need to be tended. There include verdant cacti that are hardy enough to survive without irrigation.
Mother Nature does the watering here,” she said. “When the rain comes, the transformation is stunning. An oasis after a desert is a sight to behold.”
Her property contains a pond where wildlife thrives and birds come to drink and bathe in it. it is a place for birds, pollinators and geckos to call home.
Elliot found out about the competition in February 2024 from a morning show and realized that her lawn fit the bill. The judges – who are all Gotland residents – agreed. They said that her lawn wouldn’t win a beauty contest but it won their hearts with its message about sustainability.
“We all have to channel this anxiety about environmental issues and the challenges we’re facing as a global population,” Gison said. “And this is one way to do that, not by making people feel bad but making them feel good.”
