BOOK REVIEW specific intent - the cultivation of the lawn is a political statement . Oddly though the author does not go into the details of the making of public parks with vast expanses of lawn ( Zoo Lake or Joubert Park for example ) or the bowling greens of the city ( bowls , the sport of an older generation and now on the decline ) or what about the more than 20 golf courses of the city . All of these are the ultimate expression of the green lawn writ large .
At the end of the book I could not decide whether it sets out to kill the concept of the lawn or divide the literature writers , garden advisors , scholars into two categories - those to be severely criticized as having ideas beyond the pale and those to be cheered and lauded . Cane is keenly interested in how lawn cultivation and its importance has been written about and nurtured by gardening experts such as Sima Eliovson , Marion Cran and Joane Pim ( a trio of old fashioned ladies ). The book explores how the art of the lawn has been portrayed in the work of photographers and artists such as David Goldblatt , Terry Kurgan , Brett Murray and even Moses Tladi . How did the town planners and architects view the possibilities of using pocket-sized garden square where the new township house was placed in the middle of the stage and what this meant for social arrangements ? We meet the pioneering academic students of township layout such as DM Calderwood . We learn very little about Roelof Uytenbogaardt ' s NG Kerk at Welkom and its architecture but the author argues that this modernist church and modernist masterpiece was a monolith planted in the veld and it really should not be there at all .
It is excellent when a keen university student steps forward to write a provocative thesis and the final product is a book to enlighten and change minds .
Suburban house owners who have tried so hard and failed with a lawn , and I am among that number , will read this book and join a cheering chorus because the analysis is spot on . The Highveld is not for taming , why bother with a lawn and cultivated grass .
There is a slight nod to botany but the far bigger and more serious untold story about grass on the Highveld is the excellent work done by the botanists at universities in laboratories and the vegetation department of the Chamber of Mines to research and grow different kinds of grass seeds ( with a multiple of wonderful exotic names such as Rescue Grass , Star Grass , Cows Foot , Weeping Love Grass , Yorkshire Fog , Kentucky Blue , Creeping Salt Bush , Sour Fig and many more ) which were researched and cultivated . The objective was to find and grow grass that could be planted on the mine dumps or mine tailings of the manmade Johannesburg landscape . The memory of dust storms from the mine dumps is no longer in living recall but we can read about it and there are even photographs of billowing blinding dust storms down Eloff Street . The mine dust was hazardous . The excavated mined soil came from the bowels of the earth , impregnated with poisonous chemicals making breathing dangerous . My own memory goes back to the sixties at Wits . I recall the beds of experimental grass down the edge of Yale Road which were cultivated to find and develop the best grass to cover the industrial mountains around us . It was all before the dumps were re-mined for uranium and those final traces of gold dust . The mine dumps were used as foundation ballast for the motor ring roads of the sixties and slowly they disappear .
But let ' s not forget the work of the Wits botanists and their search for grass and lawns of a different type to improve health and cover the mine dumps . Prof
Edward Roux was an impressive botanist and an activist political figure who was cruelly treated by the apartheid state . I remember attending a lecture he gave on the Wits campus shortly before his death . The botanical work of those hardworking scientists is also part of the story . Without gold right here in the earth , there would have been no reason for a gold rush , the growth of a mining camp and the peculiar geography and intertwining of mining activities , mine dumps , grand motorways , segregated housing and those northern suburbs with their disappointing or brilliant lawns .
Jonathan Cane ’ s study is thought-provoking , entertaining , interesting and provocative . Most important of all , he presents his sense of the multiple places and landscapes of a wonderful tortuous , fractured city .
ABOUT THE REVIEWER : Kathy Munro is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand . She enjoyed a long career as an academic and in management at Wits University . She trained as an economic historian . She is an enthusiastic book person and has built her own somewhat eclectic book collection over 40 years . Her interests cover Africana , Johannesburg history , history , art history , travel , business and banking histories . She researches and writes on historical architecture and heritage matters . She is a member of the Board of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation and is a docent at the Wits Arts Museum . She is currently working on a couple of projects on Johannesburg architects and is researching South African architects , war cemeteries and memorials . Kathy is a member of the online book community the Library thing and recommends this cataloging website and worldwide network as a book lover ' s haven .
Figure 5 : Mine dumps from Soccer City ( Heritage Portal – 2013 ).
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