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Lawns & Ground Covers

Lawns take a lot of our time, money and effort. And all that water and fertiliser and grass clippings take their toll on the environment. We can still have a place to play and relax with smaller lawns or open spaces with ground cover, and find other uses for what used to be large expanses of green. Once you start rethinking whether you really want or need your lawn, you'll be a long way towards a low-waste garden.

Grass lawns are just one of many ground covers. Different parts of a garden get different amounts of use and you can plant ground covers that can cope with different levels of wear and tear. When your lawn needs mowing, the best thing you can do is to let the clippings fall as a mulch. This will reduce your mowing time by 40 per cent or more as there's less weight to push and no need to constantly stop mowing to empty the catcher. It also mulches your lawn, reduces water use, improves your lawn's health, reduces fertiliser use by 25 per cent or more and fully re-uses the clippings, which saves time, effort and the cost of disposing of bags of grass.

Use low-growing perennial plants and shrubs as groundcovers to cover slopes and rough ground or to replace high-maintenance lawns. Choose plants that thrive in your particular soil and climate.

The most practical and thoughtful opinions have suggested that a lawn is well worth the energy and expense it requires, in any region of the country, if it is actively used as a surface for outdoor living and playing. If, however, you do not intend to use the lawn for game-playing and entertaining, by all means consider planting another type of ground cover, one well adapted to your area.

Once groundcovers are established, they require far less maintenance than a lawn. Ground covers make perfect sense when all you require is an even visual expanse of green to fill in the area between the house and the fence. If you determine that a grass lawn makes sense for your yard, planting the right variety of grass at the right time of year will go a long way in making yours a healthy, easy-care lawn.

Practical, Eco-Friendly Lawn Maintenance
If you've decided on a lawn, even though your climate is ill-suited to supporting it naturally, there are four steps you can take to reduce its high-maintenance requirements and all but eliminate any negative environmental impact. Instead of bagging the lawn clippings, let them compost in place, right on the lawn. Research has shown that leaving the clippings on the lawn actually benefits the soil and the lawn. As the clippings decompose, they improve the structure of the soil and return nitrogen to the lawn.

The shorter the clippings, the more easily they fall to the soil (as opposed to lying on top of the grass), and the more quickly they decompose. Optimally, you should never cut more than one-third off the total height of the grass. This means you may need to mow your lawn on a slightly more frequent schedule, but it's a small price to pay for improving the health of your lawn while eliminating the effort involved in bagging and hauling clippings around the yard. Second, never apply too much fertilizer at once, and use only slow- or controlled-release fertilizers.

Instead of trying to achieve that nearly impossible perfect grass lawn, completely free of dandelions, crabgrass, clover, and whatnot, why not leave the herbicides on the shelf and simply enjoy what you've got? A lawn with a few weeds in it is not going to stop anyone from having a grand time playing touch football, badminton, or hide-and-seek. Leave perfection to the greenskeepers and their putting greens. Finally, if insect pests become a serious problem in your lawn, opt for a natural control. Great strides have been made in the science of organic pesticides.

Today there is an effective, natural control product available for every lawn pest. These products make sense not only from an environmental point of view, but from a personal one. All you have to do is imagine the number of times kids fall facedown in the grass during an active game of volleyball or football, or just how close babies or toddlers are to the lawn as they crawl or wobble across the grass, and the choice of insect remedies becomes clear-cut.

The All-Important First Step
Nothing, repeat nothing, is more important to the successful growth of any plant than proper advance soil preparation. Skip this all-important first step, and you're asking for trouble. Abide by it, and you've taken a huge step in ensuring a thriving, easy-to-care-for lawn or garden. Briefly stated, no matter what type of soil you find in your yard, from the sandiest sand to the heaviest clay, a liberal addition of organic matter works miracles. The organic matter can be anything form compost to well-rotted leaf mold, fine fir bark, or peat moss. Almost every area of the country lays claim to some indigenous, inexpensive organic material, readily available to homeowners for free, the material having been made from the leaves gathered by municipal crews in the fall. The amount of organic matter you add should be equal to the depth that you intend to turn the soil.

Something wrong out there on the lawn?

A lawn that is watered deeply, properly fertilized, and mowed a little on the long side will be able to fend off much common adversity. Many people tend to over-water lawns. Sydney Water's advice is to not panic if your lawn starts to turn brown. Most established lawns will survive without extra watering and turn green again with autumn rain.

Poor maintenance is responsible for thatch (too much nitrogen fertilizer, shallow watering) and stress caused by poor mowing practices or inadequate watering. Rake thatch out with a hand or power rake. Compacted soil may be responsible for poor water and fertilizer penetration, resulting in thin and uneven lawns. Aerators can be rented for do-it-yourselfers or the task can be contracted to a landscaper.

With a couple of exceptions, insect infestations rarely demolish a lawn. Some exceptions are sod webworms, grubs, and chinch bugs. A good remedy for solving insect problems is to collect a few in a bottle (you may need to go out with a magnifying glass, or at night) and take them to the cooperative extension service at your state university or to a garden center for identification. Learn all your options. Organic treatments are available for almost every problem.

While insect damage often shows up as foliage that is chewed, lawn diseases are usually a form of fungus that shows up as gray, tan, brown, or black spots or damage on the blades. Poor fertilization, mowing, and watering practices contribute to some diseases. They can be difficult to identify specifically, so it may be necessary to take a sample to your garden center to determine a course of action.