For years, yard work was at the bottom of Kathleen Murray’s to-do list.
Wallabies and kangaroos would feast on the grass in the middle of the night, out of sight from predators. Quill-covered echidnas and rodent-like bandicoots dug tunnels underneath the backyard fence. Parrots and blue-tongue lizards paid visits, too. The animals made her lawn, which she never watered or mowed, their “own private Disneyland.”
The result was far from the lush, green aesthetic most aspire to — and last week, it earned her the title of “World’s Ugliest Lawn.”
The contest, designed to bring attention to water scarcity, invited homeowners worldwide to compete for the unusual title. Of the more than 30 “hideous, yet heroic” entries, a six-judge panel selected Murray’s lawn, where “not one dust-covered decimeter is wasted on watering,” contest organizers announced last week. Sweden’s Region Gotland ran a local version of the contest in 2022 before opening it to global submissions in 2023.
Murray promptly and proudly displayed her new “World’s Ugliest Lawn” certificate on her fridge after winning the challenge.
“It’s a bit like women who choose for the first time to stop dyeing their hair and their hair starts to go gray and they freak out and start dyeing it again,” said Murray, 53. “Well, I chose to let my lawn go gray.”
She hopes others will follow suit.
Water scarcity has been a growing problem in recent decades as populations have boomed in areas with limited water supplies, said Jay Lund, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of California at Davis. That has led officials in dry areas, such as California and Australia, to restrict the amount of water used for landscaping.
“If you want to have a large, nice, green lawn, it takes a lot of water,” Lund said.
Murray’s lawn looked like the exact opposite. But that’s what prompted Lesly Pyle, a Dallas-based author and copywriter who was on the “World’s Ugliest Lawn” jury, to give Murray her vote.
“I mean, it is a truly horrendous-looking lawn,” Pyle said.
Beyond the photos though, Pyle said what drew her attention to Murray’s barren yard was the written part of the submission, which detailed how it had become so unkempt.
“She captivated us with her story,” Pyle said.
Murray grew up in Victoria, Australia, where her family lived on a farm with cows, horses and chickens. They owned a small white car, which Murray’s mother, Patricia Myers, had covered in stickers with messages about saving the planet. They barely used it, preferring to walk or bike to most places. Myers, who was active in environmental protests in Australia, taught Murray about sustainability.
“She always raised me to see the big picture that we are all just caretakers of this land,” Murray said.
Murray, who has a doctorate in forensic soil science, has tried to instill those same lessons in her own children. She and her family now live in Sandford, Tasmania, a dry area where they collect rainwater in large tanks.
When she stopped mowing her lawn in 2016, watching the wildlife it attracted became her daily entertainment.
“They bring joy to my life that no Netflix subscription could ever bring,” she said.
Murray entered the “World’s Ugliest Lawn” contest in December, after hearing about it on the radio. The contest judges sought submissions from people with dry lawns who were saving water, and Murray thought to herself: “Well, that’s me.”
She said she hopes she’ll inspire more “ugly” lawns like hers — and for homeowners to consider keeping only native plants in their yards and shutting off their sprinklers.
Along with her certificate, Murray has sported the brown shirt she was given when she won the award, which reads: “Proud owner of The World’s Ugliest Lawn” — a prize she’ll pass down to next year’s winner, another nod to the contest’s focus on sustainability.
She has no plans to start watering the land so it keeps attracting the animals that have made it their own.
“They don’t think my backyard is ugly,” she said. “They think it’s beautiful.”