-to work out a clean form and to populate it-
[...] The lawn, here, is simply a good pretext to recall that, in our countries, the French garden is an imposing illustration of a distance in relation to plants which predates Lenôtre. Grasses and trees have become malleable elements of a decor, deprived of the only kind of freedom to which the plants can lay claim - to work out a clean form and to populate it –they cease to be possible interlocutors for society : slaves cannot speak. From Versailles to the suburban house, the living beings we see most are obliged to remain dumb. The grass which does not have the right to grow, definitively excluded from spring, is the exterior continuation of the living-room fitted carpet. Only their maintenance distinguishes them (combined vacuum-cleaner-mower to be studied). [...]

Pierre Lieutaghi, « L’ethnobotanique au péril du gazon »,
Terrain, Number 1 - Les savoirs naturalistes populaires (octobrer 1983)