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These areas under the trees are no longer
part of the lawn.
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Reducing the Lawn in Your Landscape
By Ginny Stibolt
When we moved into our house here in northern Florida, much of
our property had been sodded with St. Augustine (Stenotaphrum
secundatum) grass, and some of it wasn't doing very well. We've
been reducing the amount of lawn on our property, section by section.
We also changed strategies from the previous owner's method of poisoning
and fertilizing to... If it's green; it's probably a welcome addition
to our yard, Catbriar (Smilax spp.) and Poison Ivy
(Toxicodendron
radicans) notwithstanding.
Roughly 30% of the water used in urban areas in the East goes to
irrigate plants, mostly lawns. In these days of water restrictions
in many areas of the country, reducing your lawn and modifying its
care makes good sense. Lawn reduction saves water, saves money,
saves time, and improves the quality of our rivers and streams.
In my previous article on native
plants, I discussed the importance of increasing diversity in
our landscape. Having a huge lawn with a row of bushes planted along
the foundation of your house, doesn't offer any diversity and it
doesn't provide enough cover or food for birds, butterflies, and
other interesting wildlife. Lawn reduction is the first step to
enrich and to diversify your landscape. In this article I cover
some strategies we've used to start our landscape diversification,
and provide some starting points for you to use.
But first some history: How did we come to value lawns anyway?
Lawns became a status symbol in Great Britain where the privileged
class created acres of lawn around their estates to demonstrate
that they had more land than they needed. Lawns didn't gain popularity
in this country until the early 1900's when the American Garden
Club set the standard with their annual contests for the best looking
yards. By this time, we also had push lawn mowers and garden hoses.
Before then, if you wanted a lawn, you'd need grazing animals to
keep the grass at a more or less even height. Woodrow Wilson had
a herd of sheep keeping the White House lawn trimmed and fertilized.
Now single species lawns are standard fare for well-to-do American
neighborhoods. Some communities have even set standards for lawns,
which if not met, means fines for the residents! In this region,
the St. Johns Water Management District has started a campaign recommending
that you water lawns only once or twice a week. One woman said that
she'd been fined by her community association because her lawn turned
brown when she followed this practice. (Her lawn had probably developed
very shallow roots because of frequent, light waterings. A gradual
change in her watering regimen would have avoided the shock.) As
gardeners, we need to get on those boards of governors to ease up
on lawn restrictions to promote water conservation and to improve
the environment. In my opinion, we should leave the fine turf for
all those golf courses.
Lawn care strategies
I'm realistic enough to know that most people (including myself)
are not going to completely eliminate their lawns, but here's a
strategy for making the lawn you have, work better for you and the
environment. I wrote an article for an Annapolis magazine about
the thirty-year history of my natural lawn in Maryland.
Let Your
Lawn Go Natural. Although many things are different here in Florida,
most of what I accomplished there will work here in northern Florida.
· Mow less often and set the blade on your mower to four
inches to allow the grass enough leaf area to photosynthesize, and
to shade the soil.
· Water deeply once a week in the dry
seasons, and not at all the rest of the time. This encourages deep
roots and preserves our precious water supply.
· Stop the
poisons and herbicides. They are not good for you, your kids, your
pets, and they damage the environment. (I've listed resources at
the end of this article that detail some pretty gruesome effects.)
· If you must fertilize, do it once a year late in the fall
(after the hurricanes), and use the type with a slow release formula.
You don't want any of your lawn fertilizer to leak
into the lakes and rivers, so make it very light. This light amount
of fertilizer means that you won't have to mow so often. I'd also
mix some lime with that fertilizer to reduce the acidity in the
soil and that white trail makes it easy to see where you've been.
When you follow this regimen, you'll have a more diverse lawn with
more than one species of grass and other plants that take to mowing.
When something attacks an area in your lawn, some other plant will
grow there for a while. Areas sodded with St. Augustine three years
ago, when our house was built, now include several other grasses
and fair number of broad-leafed plants, but as you can see in these
photos, the lawn is quite presentable. Mother Nature abhors a monoculture
and will do what she can to penetrate it with other plants. It's
best not to fight Mother Nature, and you'll still have those barefoot
areas for outdoor activities.
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Several areas out back are now meadows.. |
Creating wild areas
We stopped mowing sections where the grass was not
doing well on our 1.5-acre lot. We've de-lawned under trees, at
the edge of the pond out front, along the edge of the woods on the
way down to the lake, and on top of that large mound out back. (While
it may look like a elephant burial ground, it's our septic drain
field.) The open, sunnier areas are now entrancing small meadows,
alive with wildlife. The areas directly under trees are mulched
with leaves and pine needles, and I'm in the process of planting
shrubs here to create more interest. I've created mulched paths
that meander through our new wild areas. (Note: I'm sure my neighbors
think I'm crazy, because I scrape the pine needles from the street
gutters and storm drains. But this way, I have a never-ending supply
of free mulch and our lake doesn't have to absorb all that extra
organic material. I never, ever bag fall leaves for the landfill
or (gasp!) burn them to pollute the air. I always use Mother Nature's
fall gifts to improve the soil. More on composting in my next column.)
Moving through the seasons for last 18 months has produced a fascinating
display as a wide array of plants, insects, and animals have made
their appearances. The meadow areas in particular have provided
a wonderful show. The plants have included Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes
praecox), Lawn Orchids (Zeuxine strateumatica), Meadow
Beauty (Rhexia mariana), Blue Curls (Trichostema dichotomum),
Beggars Ticks (Bidens
alba), Goldenrod (Solidago
odora), Dog Fennel (Eupatorium capillifolium), and
many more. I have been taking pictures, of course, but there are
too many to include in this column, so I've created a webpage with
a more detailed look at each of the wild areas, and long list of
plants that have grown without any aid from us, as well as some
that we've planted.
www.sky-bolt.com/garden/meadow.htm
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A female moth and her eggs on a blade of grass.
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Here's a July adventure: In one of our new meadows, a newly emerged,
four-inch female moth climbed up and hung onto a small Magnolia
(Magnolia grandiflora)
for a few days while she waited for her wings to dry. Her wings
never did smooth out, that we could see, but she must have attracted
a male with her pheromone-laden siren-song, because we found her
eggs on a blade of grass. This entertaining scenario could not have
played out if the area had been mowed.
We are fortunate to have
wooded lots and trees around our house, so seeds in the ground are
abundant-it's our seed bank. Plus rhizomes, runners, and other invading
plant parts were just waiting for the mowing to stop. If you live
in a newer development where the soil may be more sterile or where
the grass is thicker, just letting the grass grow may not produce
the diversity that we experienced.
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We will incorporate this poor lawn area into the adjacent mulched
bed.
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Start
with a plan
Start with a plan for removing lawn from edges of your lot, under
trees, in wet or low spots, along slopes, and in ditches. Look for
areas where the grass is not doing well and merge these areas with
adjacent beds or meadows. For example, this photo shows some poor
grass growth. The next time I go around this area with my low-tech
edger, aka my shovel, I'll dig it up and mulch it. In this shaded
area, I'll probably plant some ferns
next to the Saw Palmetto (Serenoa
repens).
Plan for pathways, benches, and water features that people will
use and enjoy while viewing the diversity you'll have created. Then
plan for dense shrubbery areas for wildlife cover, for privacy screening,
and for sound barriers. It won't happen all at once and rearranging
is allowed. The path I established in the front meadow had to be
rerouted, because the original location retains water for a long
time after a hard rain. This is a little-at-a-time type of project,
especially if you remove the grass with a shovel.
Fall is the
perfect time for lasagna gardening
Lasagna? When you create
lasagna, you use layers of noodles, cheese, and sauce, right? Lasagna
gardening uses layers to cover and kill existing vegetation. In
this case, the layers consist of old newspapers or corrugated cardboard
covered with leaves and mulch. This allows you to de-lawn a larger
area with less strain on your back, less invasion of the soil; and
the dead plants under the paper layer create another layer of mulch.
This is not the same as using a weed barrier in areas where you
don't want plants to grow.
For the mulched areas under trees and
around shrubs, mark out the area-remembering to add some gentle
curves to the border for interest, flatten the weeds, and cover
the area with cardboard or at least eight layers of newspaper. Dampen
the paper, cover it with leaves and/or mulch, and dampen again.
This will kill most plants under the layers in a couple of weeks.
If you are planting shrubs or trees in your new, wild area at this
time, you will need to remove all the grass and weeds at each planting
site. Surround your new plantings with this layered mulch.
For the
meadows, if you wish to give your wildflowers a better chance, you
may also use the lasagna approach to kill the grass and weeds. You
will need to add a layer of topsoil and tamp it all down. There
are a number of wildflowers that are sown in the fall and another
group that are sown in the spring. Go for a mix that will provide
flowers through the seasons for you to enjoy, and will provide continuous
sources of pollen or nectar for the insects and hummingbirds. Pay
attention to the plants' need for sun or shade for this project.
For our meadows, we did not kill the existing plants: we just stopped
mowing. This is a riskier method because we had no idea what we'd
end up with, but then, we don't have neighborhood regulations to
deal with. It's been an interesting adventure.
Resources for
further information:
www.sky-bolt.com/garden/meadow.htm This page has more details
and pictures of our meadows.
www.floridanativeplants.com/articles/lawn_gone1.shtml#art_top
Lawn Today... Gone Tomorrow A.K.A. Assisted Sodicide!
www.epa.gov/reg3esd1/garden/what.htm This EPA site provides
a selection of articles on ''green Landscaping.'' While targeted
toward the Mid-Atlantic region, there is some great material here
for us, too.
www.american-lawns.com/history/history_lawn.html This site is
a mouthpiece for lawn service companies, but its lawn and lawnmower
histories are widely quoted.
www.nwf.org/backyardwildlifehabitat/cutlawn.cfm
National Wildlife Federation's take on reducing the size of your lawn.
www.naturework.com/articles/apr_17_2002.htm This article by
the owner of an organic lawnscaping company who writes about the
poisons and their effects on people.
www.history.vt.edu/Barrow/Hist3144/readings/pollan.html An essay
by Michael Pollan on his lawn shrinkage.
www.beyondpesticides.org/pesticidefreelawns/resources/index.htm
National Coalition for Pesticide-free lawns. If you want to read
some scary material on the effects of pesticides, click here.
www.foodnotlawns.com/lawns_to_gardens.html A movement to convert
lawns to vegetable gardens.
http://arboretum.conncoll.edu/salt/challenge.html SALT: Smaller
American Lawns Today! The challenge of the 21st century.
www.sky-bolt.com/MarylandNaturalLawns.htm An article I wrote
about the thirty-year history of my natural lawn in Maryland.
www.americanmeadows.com
A good source for native wildflower seeds and lots information.
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