A TYPOLOGY OF THE ANTI-SLARK

 

'Slark' is the consequence of cars parking a soft grass at the side of the road. I made the word up, but it needed inventing - it's a portmanteau of ‘slab / slippery’ + ‘park’, for a verge that’s been turned to slab (a dialect term for slippery mud) by the parking of cars.  Here's a dried-out slark: 

What's needed, then, is an anti-slark. A local survey revealed the options: 

1. Variable grass length. Unlikely to hack it long term, though it seems to have worked so far in this case.

2. Daffodils. Won't deter the less polite motorists, and rather too seasonal.

3: A request. Worth a try.

4: Wooden notices, quite nice but at least in this case they were simply driven over.

5. Traffic cones: nice and visible, if too easily moved.

6. Rocks are nature's traffic cones?

7. Probably the minimum likely to have a significant effect. One trusts they haven't been there long, else they have evidently failed. The fluorescent tape is a thoughtful touch.

  

 8. These look well sunk, and have perhaps the minimum width of which one can say: you really couldn't drive over those! And serious enough to go beyond tape to reflective material.

9. The addition of a little sculptural presence.

10. Substantial form and weight plus floral interest: an amalgam, effectively, of (2) and (9) above. 

11. Now the anti-slark starts to get intrusive.

12. Scale plus reflectors. Anything more than this would read as military rather than domestic. You need a motorbike or a tank to slark here.

13. The natural: branches spread with a near-accidental look.