|
|
Low-maintenance lawns can be high qualityBy David Koch Professor emeritus and agronomy specialist What you expect from a lawn and what you get from a lawn can be very different. Before launching into a full-scale low- or lower-maintenance lawn, consider what you want. Probably most important is keeping the soil in place, particularly on steep slopes and with high wind exposure. A lawn that is uniform, relatively free of weeds and aesthetically pleasing is usually desired. Kentucky bluegrass, the standard in northern climates, is on the high end of the maintenance spectrum. If you consider mowing, fertilizing and watering chores not relaxing, you should probably consider a lower-maintenance grass. Another driving force for lower-maintenance lawns is the need for water conservation. Bluegrass varieties with lower water needs and good drought tolerance are available. Another way to save water would be to restrict bluegrass to the area immediately around the house. The fine fescues--sheep, chewings, hard and red--are good substitutes for bluegrass, providing comparable turf quality with half the watering and mowing. Fine fescues, particularly red fescue, are more shade tolerant than bluegrass. One disadvantage is that they do not fill in bare spots in a lawn nearly as well as bluegrass. On the other hand, this lack of spreading means they are less likely to invade flower beds. Turf-type tall fescue varieties are coarser leaved than the fine fescues, but they have similarly low water needs and are capable of holding up to lots of traffic. If part of a lawn receives heavy traffic, this may be the grass. Native grasses are on the other end of the spectrum. The wheatgrasses--thickspike, streambank and western--are all sod-forming, provide excellent soil protection and can survive on their own. For best results, cool-season grasses, including fescue, bluegrass, and wheatgrass, should be planted in the early spring or late fall. Two warm-season grasses - buffalo and blue grama--do well in many areas of Wyoming featuring lower altitudes (less than 6,500 feet) and hot, dry summers. These fine-bladed grasses are very drought tolerant, but they green up several weeks later than the cool-season varieties listed above, and they go dormant after the first hard frost. Warm-season grasses should generally be planted in early summer. For details about grass varieties for your area, contact a local University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service office (http://ces.uwyo.edu/Counties.asp), conservation district office (www.conservewy.com/), or a seed store. For more information on grasses in Wyoming, see Landscaping: Turf in Wyoming at www.uwyo.edu/CES/PUBS/B1129.pdf. Low-maintenance Grasses for Revegetating Disturbed Areas and Lawns is at www.uwyo.edu/ces/PUBS/B1070.pdf. Date: 9/21/07
Copyright/Privacy
Copyright 1995-2012. High Plains Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Any republishing of these pages, including electronic reproduction of the editorial archives or classified advertising, is strictly prohibited. If you have questions or comments you can reach us at High Plains Journal 1500 E. Wyatt Earp Blvd., P.O. Box 760, Dodge City, KS 67801 or call 1-800-452-7171. Email: webmaster@hpj.com |
|
