Lawns

The largest non-native invasive species in America is fescue. Manicured turf grass lawns cover up to 50 million acres of land in America. Every year across the country, lawns consume nearly 3 trillion gallons of water a year, 200 million gallons of gas (for all that mowing), and 70 million pounds of pesticides (NRDC.org).

Lawns are NOT eco-friendly as they

provide no habitat to other animals
create potential substantial harm to birds and other animals who ingest seeds and berries covered in persticides
runoff excess fertilizer and pesticides run off lawns into streams and rivers not only polluting them but distrubing the balance of plant and animal life
have shallow and compact root systems creating essentially a hard surface for water runoff not only bad for the ecosystem but also expensive to keep the plants watered
are expensive and time consuming to establish and maintain

So what to do? There are many options

Contine spending the time and money to work with turf
change the maintenance of the grass to more eco friendly (and better for the turf) process
use native grasses that are let to go wild
Use low growing turf grasses that require little grooming
replace turf with native gardens

Continue spending the time and money to work with turf

If you realy want turf grass, you can continue to do what you are doing. However, changing the practices used to manage turf will not only conserve water and decrease herbicides and pesticides but also save time and money.

Change the maintenance of the grass to more eco friendly (and better for the turf) process

This is actually easier than it looks. Consider assessing the lawn for hours of sunlight, low spots that collect standing water, runoff patterns and a soil test. Once you have identified issues, then a comprehensive maintenance plan can be developed.

Use native grasses and let them grow wild

Caution here as the tall grasses usually violate city or homeowner restrictions for lawns. Clumps of them strategically placed, however, become garden accents while replacing at least some turf. Note though, grasses readily spread their seeds and may start cropping up in the neighbors’ yards if not cut before the seed spreads. To limit this, it is important that seed heads are removed before they have a chance to open. When these are added to the gardens in the parks, they will be managed when the gardens are mowed in the fall.

Use low growing turf grasses that require little grooming (generally NOT available at local hardware stores) and tolerate our range of temperatures

Hard and fine fescue mixes require little mowing (1-2x per year) such as red fescue, bunch forming and chewings fescue. This is the mix we will overseed the current grass in the parks with.
Zoysia tenuifolia

Replace turf with native gardens!

This is one of the key principles we are using in designing the parks. By replacing turf grass with native gardens we increase water absorption thus decreasing standing water as a breeding ground for mosquitos and water runoff issues for the combined sewer system.

Example: Lewis Place Park and Mural Wall

Will add when we have the plans

Example: My House

The process for the public park was extensive and time consuming. It does not have to be so immense an undertaking for the average homeowner. We will use my house (image above) as an example of how I addresses multiple issues in the lawn.

Before I tackled the lawn:

Almost an acre of turf grass.
compacted heavy clay soil, pH of 6.5-7
standing water in the basement, part of the backyard (even in August!) and water runoff creating paths in the lawn.
Steep hill in the backyard.
Dry areas where the lawn would not grow especially under trees and on the tops of ridges along one side of the yard.
Dense shade on one side of the house, primarily light shade in the front, full day burning sun in the back.
EXPENSIVE! Lawn care companies wanter $75 per visit for a minimum of 6 visits every summer plus additional for weed and sedge control. Water bill was over $200/month in the summer.
Areas were overgrown with bush honeysuckle choking the woodland at the back of the property and limiting native birds and butterflies.
It was time consuming, taking more than an hour and a half to cut on a riding mower.

Creating the work plan

First, I needed to establish the priorities. Top two priorities were the maintenance costs and the water in the basement.

Water was entering the basement because the ground was graded toward the house! Since I could not regrade the ground, drains were added both under the basement and along the outside of the house. I used heavy plastic sheeting as a trough to hold small stones to catch the water runoff along the house itself and directed the drains underground to tie to the creek behind the house. Cuttin back vines and undergrowth also decreased the water running along their roots into the basement.

A water runoff path seemed to be a permanent fixture from the gutter of my neighbor’s house to the permanent swamp in part of the backyard. Could not ask the neighbor to reroute the water runoff from his roof, so put in a raingarden on that side of the house to slow the water runoff and absorb most of it before it got to the backyard. The rain garden is a strip of ostrich ferns, May Apples, columbine, Rose Turtle head, wood sorrel and some periwinkle. In the area of the backyard that tended to retain water, I extended the rain garden concept. I replaced the dying sweet gum tree that was drowning with a curly leaved Weeping Willow. Weeping Willows love wet feet and absorb most of the excess water. By adding significant manure/humus to the soil around the tree, the compact soil contributing to the runoff was broken up. Then I added worms (available from any fishing source) to continue to tunnel and also feed the plants iwth their castings (waste). I was able to kill out the turf grass that was not doing well and install a native shade garden that preferred moist soil. The garden consists of my grandmother’s peionies (in a higher area), butterfly bushes, aliums and naked ladies, Marsh mallow, swamp mallow, daffodils and bluebells. Gound cover is periwinkle. The bluebirds, humminigbirds and butterflies are all over it and it provides color from March through October. I also put my potted citrus trees out there on stepping stone. Potted annuals will also work but I prefer not using annuals as much as possible and the citrus trees love the spot.

While adding compost and manure to the limited rain garden area worked well, it would be prohibitive to do that throughout the compacted yard, especially on the steep hill where everything would simply wash down the hill. By aerating the yard and adding compost at that time, less compost was needed and the organiz material was able to reach deeper into the ground. But to really get the compacted soil broken up, I added lots of worms throughout the yard. While this approach takes a couple of years to have a large effect, once the worms created the tunnels and left their castings (waste) the yard was much more manageable and what turf there was, did much better.

The steep hill was the next project to tackle. It was not only steep but in full burning sun so it tended to dry out. It was too steep for both a push mower and a riding mower and certainly too much for me to manage. Instead, I killed out the turf and planted natives along with daffodils, irises, peonies and roses.

With the damaging issues of water runoff addressed, it was time to tackle the ridge and the overgrown woodland to the back of the house. The ridge was scalped when the lawn was cut allowing nothing but weeds to grow. And the woodland to the back? It was filled with bush honeysuckle and dying trees the honeysuckle was crowding out. Grass won’t grow? Create a garden there instead. The ridge used to be full sun but the pine trees and bushes have since grown up limiting the amount of sun to the ridge. While the area does have water access through the sprnklers, most of the water tends to runoff the slope. Time to plant natives and others that require less water but will thrive in hot sun. I planted dogwoods, lilacs, Crepe Myrtles, lavender and rose verbena (a native groundcover that blooms from April to October). On either side are ground cover roses to fill in around the bushes. This area tends to be drier and I added less compost etc as none of these plants are fussy about rich soil. Going slightly east of the ridge though is an area that gets a bit less sun and more water as it is in a low spot. A perfect spot for the herb garden! Since caterpillars are particularlu found of many herbs, this area is very active with insects. When the caterpillars mature to butterflies, they have their food supply with all of the natives they like throughout the yard.

The woodland was a mess and I needed some help. There was almost 250′ by 20′ of bush honeysuckle that had to be removed so that I could assess if the trees could even be saved. It did take a couple of years to remove it, but the trees improved in the first year and periwinkle groundcover appeared on the ground once some light was able to get through. With the thick tree roots, there was no tilling, aerating or even digging that could occur. Plan B: seed with native seeds. Within a year the natives had taken over the area and were even expanding into the woodland floor. And, the birds were back! Bluebirds, robins, cardinals, sparrows, nuthatches, chickadees and even a red shouldered hawk live there now. Hummingbirds cluster in the area on their migration. And the butterflues! The trees that were in the woodland included Black Cherry, Elm, Mulberry, box Elder dogwood and pin oaks throughout the yard: all resources for caterpillars and birds.

Implementing the work plan

Lest anyone think this was all done in one year, it was not. The water issues were handled the first year as they had already created potential structural issues. The rest of the beds took several years to install and monitor with weeding and feeding for them to get established. It took three years to cut out all that bush honeysuckle before I could even consider doing anything else along the back of the property.

And the amount of turf grassalong with cost and cutting time was reduced by more than half! Changing the maintenance plan for the turf was straightroward. My lawn is primarily a mix of fescues. In early spring, around the first of March, crabgrass preventer goes down. I use the prefessional grade available at Hummerts (wholesale) as it has more active ingredient per volume than in the packaged brands from hardware stores. Grass needs about 1-2 inches of water per week. I seldom water before end of May or the beginning of June. It isn’t necessary unless we have a long dry spell in the spring. During the summer I supplement the rain with water. It takes about 20 minutes for the average garden hose and sprinkler set up to put down an inch of water. Unless you are maintaining a golf course, if it is excessively hot and dry in August, you are probably fighting a losing battle so let the turf go dormant. It will green up when the temperatures fall into cool season grass range and rain falls in Spetember. Overseeding with high quality grass (again, Hummerts not the stuff from the hardware store) and fertilizing with fall fertilizer occurs when the temperatures break in late August or early September. Since fescue roots grow in the fall when the ground is warm and the air is cool, that is when to fertilizer. General rule of thumb is to use a fall/winter fertilizer on Labor Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving. No need to fertilize in the spring though fertilzer is generally included with crab grass preventer. Fertilizing in the spring and summer simply encourages more top growth which then needs to be mowed more often!