'Ecology Lawn' as an alternative?
Bevo
21 years ago
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john_mo
21 years agofroggy
21 years agoRelated Discussions
Incorporating ecological land care principles
Comments (36)After a long absence from gardenweb, I stumble on this new forum. What a coincindence because I have been absent because I told myself no cruising the web until I had finally eradicated the ivy that is threatening to strangle the north border of my property. I bought a 40 year old home from the original owner. This owner had done the original landscaping way back when so i had some very nice, well established plants...mostly natives. Pinus contorta contorta, Doug Fir, Redwood, Coffeeberry, Manzanita, a glorious and huge ceanothus, Port Orford Cedar. But I also got ivy plants that went on forever, a dying pear tree, a dying Monterey Pine, liquid ambers and norway maples planted way to close together. I have thought of the seven year process more a rehabilitation process. I went at it like triage: remove the dying pine, thin the maples, prune and try to bring back the pear. Little by little remove that damn ivy. I finally got back to the two mother plants.....with stems as big around as my upper arm. IT has been a three year process gettign rid of it two lawn waste bins a week. I have had great fun replanting that denuded area....using natives only....tiarella, saxifrage, heucheras, dicentra, ribes, Oso berry, ceanothus, evergreen huckleberry, more manzanita, native hazelnut, mountain mahogany. I am glad it took me so long to remove it all because it gave me time to reallythink about what I wanted there. 7 years ago Iwas largely ignorant of CA natives having moved here from the midwest. I have always been an organic gardener so ecological principles go without saying.What I have noticed during this whole process is to get it done right takes enormous patience, hard work and knowledge. OR lots of money so you can hire the right folk to do it for you pronto. Unfortunately the average person seens not to have any or all of the above. Not that it is theei fault. Americans work longer hours than most of our first world counterparts. Because we want to or because we must just ot make ends meet. So when I look around my forty year old neighborhood I see either sadly neglected and overgrown yards....or unispired bonsaid/poodle cut plants tended to by mow/blow/go guys. There are a few folk who like to garden and have "restored" their yards but only after patronizing the big box retail/hardware places and ending up with the safe things: margurites, junipers, roses, agapanthus, etc. The natives dont seem to be considered even though we have at least 3 wonderful native plant nurseries nearby. I hope this can change and look upon my little back yard restoration as a step in the right direction. Claire...See Moreseeking advice for lawn alternative sun/part sun
Comments (53)I think it's amazing this thread went on so long with no mention of St Augustine. UC Verde and all the other buffalo and prairie grasses are for full sun. Kikuyu is one of the most invasive imported pest plants short of kudzu. The others mentioned are ground covers that do not repair themselves. Dichondra will die annually from flea beetle. They wipe it out faster than you can diagnose it, but it returns from seed. Fescue, in my opinion should be formally outlawed in CA unless you live west of the 5 in San Diego and Orange counties and west of the 405 in LA. North of the 10 it can be grown on the west slopes of the coastal range, but not in the valleys. St Augustine is a real turf grass, unlike many of the alternates mentioned. It spreads to repair itself under the dog feet, is very shade tolerant, also sun tolerant, and it will crowd out other grasses when mowed at the mower's highest setting. St Aug comes as pieces of sod on a pallet. Cost is about a dollar per piece covering about 2 square feet. It spreads 10 to 15 feet per year in all directions, so if you don't cover the entire area at one time, it will take over and cover for you. St Aug takes as much water as any turf grass if you want it to remain green. If you stop watering it for more than a month, it might die completely, so it differs from other grasses in that regard. But I have revived it from beyond the grave at my my new residence in the Texas Hill Country. St Augustine is considered to be a water hog, but that is pure myth. All grasses need 1 inch of water, once a week, in the hottest heat of summer. This goes for the cool season grasses in the north and the warm season grasses in the south. In Phoenix both bermuda and St Augustine need 1 inch every 4-5 days, but in the rest of the country it only needs it once a week. This time of year in your area you should be watering 1 inch, all at once, every 2-3 weeks. The problem with fescue is it needs water 3x per week in the summer and that dries up your aquifers and lakes. Not sure why you think you have clay, but you likely don't. I don't recall any brick factories in your area, so I'm skeptical. After 12 years of moderating three lawn forums, fewer than 10 writers really had clay. Your soil might have clay like properties, but those can be fixed. Even real clay can be fixed, but you have to have a good soil test along with a good reading of the soil test before you can fix it. 9 times out of 10 people who think they have clay have no clay at all but they do have fine silt and a salt imbalance (calcium, sodium, magnesium, and potassium). You can't know what the problem is without the chemistry test. A secondary issue causing hard soil is allowing the soil to dry completely such that the beneficial microbes in the soil are depleted and unhealthy. That can be fixed by spraying the soil with any clear shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Follow that with 1/2 to 1 inch of water and let it go for 3 weeks. At the same time feed the soil with an organic fertilizer like alfalfa pellets, corn meal, soybean meal, or even Milorganite. Compost and/or manure won't do the same thing as the fertilizer. The deep moisture creates a perfect environment for the microbes. The organic fertilizer feeds them. Hard soil is easy to fix. The best soil test in the US is from Logan Labs in Ohio. Yes, it's been tested against all the other labs. Get their $25 test and post the results on the Lawn Care forum and you'll get about $250 worth of free advice from people who know specifically what to apply, when, how much, how often, and where to get the stuff. If you want to see some alternate grasses in action, visit Descanso Gardens and the Huntington Library in Pasadena....See MoreGrass alternatives for large lawn with dogs
Comments (3)Yep, no way on earth turf grasses will grow in that much shade!! There's a couple of ways you could approach this. First, get rid of the path - not attractive and awkwardly laid out at best and plot out a better pathway that actually leads somewhere. Paths need to have a destination! Not sure what the concrete pad is to the right, but if used for a dining area or similar, that makes a reasonable destination. You could also take it all the way down to the end of the garden and create a small seating area. Make the path generously wide, fill it with wood chips and plant any variety of low growing shade plants as you like on either side. Dogs and wood chips get along well together - they are the go-to surfacing material for all the dog parks around here - and the dogs will tend to stay on the obstacle-free pathway rather than rampage through the plantings.....after you show them the ropes. If you have no need of a path through the whole garden (no destination), you could also try some hardy, woody stemmed groundcover, something that will thrive in shade, like wintercreeper, vinca or in my area, salal. Possibly even English ivy if an appropriately non-invasive species in your area. But you would need to plant in blocks protected from the dogs until the plants get established - several months at least. Very few groundcovers starts have any ability to stand up to dogs or other foot traffic immediately after planting. And if the dogs have a preferred traffic pattern already established, you may never get any groundcover successfully established in those areas - it will always show wear or usage so expect that or just make these the primary pathway....See MoreHelp finding Low growing lawn alternative
Comments (12)I've seen the groundhog nibbling through the pachysandra.. Could be a deer.. The yard is fenced but they do jump. The soil is dense. Closer to silt than clay. I did plant vinca in a heavy shade area five years ago but it struggles. It was suggested to extend the concrete pavers that you see in the photos but I still need to fill in the sparse grass. i feel like I'm missing the obvious (other than clover and violet) What else is low growing and can be mowed?...See Moreken_mce
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