The grass left longer

Text A: an original contemporary personal-essay-style practice extract.

When the park workers left a broad oval of grass uncut, I assumed they had been interrupted. The short lawn ended suddenly, and beyond it the taller blades looked like an unfinished sentence. A week later, a narrow path had been cut through the middle and a clean border followed the oval's edge. The difference was deliberate after all.

As the weeks passed, the area changed more noticeably than the ordinary lawn. Seed heads rose above the grass, and wind travelled across them in visible bands. I began choosing the path through the oval instead of the quicker route beside the road. The longer grass did not provide another activity for the park. It altered the pace of an activity already there: walking from one gate to another.

I would not want the whole park treated in this way. The football area needs a short, even surface, and families use the open lawn for games. The oval works because it interrupts that neatness without replacing it. What first appeared unfinished became a reason to look more carefully. The park had not abandoned order; it had made room for a different kind of it.

Text B: an original contemporary local-report-style practice extract.

At the residents' meeting, the phrase reduced mowing sounded tidier than the trial looked. Grass leaned across the path to a bench, and discarded wrappers disappeared beneath it until the wind moved them. The only notice explaining the change was fixed to a gate at the opposite end of the green.

Some speakers demanded that every part should be cut immediately. Others said that complaints proved people wanted public spaces to look artificial. Neither argument described what I had heard. Most residents were not objecting to longer grass itself. They were objecting to being unable to tell where the plan ended and neglect began.

The council kept the central area long but cut a wide border, cleared the bench and placed a notice beside each entrance. The result did not satisfy everyone, but it made the trial understandable. A public space has to communicate with people who use it. Longer grass can be a deliberate choice, but the choice should remain visible in the paths, edges and care around it. A policy should not require residents to guess whether anybody is still responsible for the place.

Compare the writers' ideas and perspectives on allowing grass to grow longer in public spaces, including how these are conveyed. Support your response with detailed references to both texts.