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Lawnscaping Benefits

Benefits of Thoughtful Lawnscaping

As with all other landscaped areas of your land, the benefits of following these guidelines are the same.

  • Beautifully thriving
  • Low (or Lower) Maintenance, depending on turf type
  • Low (or Lower) Water-use, depending on turf type
  • and Ecologically Friendly

Plus one additional benefit -- envy of your neighbors!

Ways to Conserves Water in your Lawnscape

  • Reduce areas of high water-use groundcovers to no more than a third of the landscape.
  • Use a variety of buffalo grass for the most efficient use of water.
  • Amend the soil properly for your turf type.
  • Avoid creating lawn berms for high water-use plants, especially bluegrass and fescue.
  • Avoid placing turf in narrow strips between streets, sidewalks and strips less than 10 feet wide.
  • Also avoid placing turf next to surfaces that reflect summer’s heat, such as the driveway, or narrow strips between buildings and sidewalks.
  • Avoid placing turf at the bottom of slopes where it meets the sidewalk. Low water-use plants that are terraced at this lower end are a better choice for conservation of water and long-term maintenance.
  • Create buffer zones of low water-use plants next to sidewalks, driveways, etc. to avoid irrigating the concrete.
  • Irrigate in the morning and early evening to minimize evaporation.
  • Irrigate for longer periods, less often to encourage deeper root growth/drought tolerance.
  • Avoid watering on windy days.
  • Choose a sprinkler system that sprays water closer to the ground, not high into the air. Adjust sprinkler for larger droplets. Drip irrigation is the most efficient for water conservation.
  • Know how long your watering system takes to water an inch. Test for uniformity.
  • Set timers to avoid over watering.
  • Adjust timers with precipitation received, and with the seasons.

Practical Turf Areas Overcome Extreme Conditions

Our extreme conditions can be easily overcome by installing low water-use plants that are suited to our climate and conditions, whether it is a variety of buffalo grass, a low water-use groundcover, or a shortgrass prairie. Using plants native and adaptive to one’s region is always the lowest maintenance and most water conserving way to go. Properly amending the soil will allow them to be healthy and thrive beautifully.

If you decide to commit yourself to a higher maintenance lawn scheme, limit those areas to a third of the landscape. Avoid high water-use turf on berms and in narrow strips close to hot areas -- sidewalks, driveways, streets and heat reflection from buildings. Low water-use plants are a better choice for these areas.

Follow the 10 guidelines to establishing the lawn and maintaining it for a healthier and more beautifully thriving lawnscape. Proper amending with organic and inorganic matter is a key to overcoming soil and climate deficiencies for some turf choices. The 10 guidelines aid you in providing conditions necessary for the plant (rather than the gardener forcing the lawn to the gardeners will).

Angie Hanna

 

Points of Interest

Basic Gardening Principles (Xeriscape Principles)

  1. Plan and design
  2. Analyze and amend the soil
  3. Create practical turf areas
  4. Efficient use of water
  5. Choose appropriate plants
  6. Use mulches
  7. Practice appropriate maintenance

Ecologically Friendly

  • Plant best adapted species
  • Plant in preferred season
  • Balance mineral content of soil
  • Build and maintain soil organic content—humus
  • Do not harm beneficial soil life
  • Consider insects and diseases as symptoms of a violation of one of the above guidelines.

Benefits of Turf Areas

  • Visually appealing
  • Effective way to separate beds and borders
  • Practical and pleasing to walk and play on turf grass
  • Reduces blowing dust and dirt
  • Lessens soil erosion.
  • Fresh cut turf grass releases pleasant fragrance, memories

Three main aspects to creating practical turf areas

  1. Determine how much of your landscape will be dedicated to a turf grass.
  2. Choosing your turf grass.
  3. Proper maintenance for your turf grass type.

Turf Grasses

  1. Cool Season Turf Grasses
    1. Bluegrass turf grasses, Poa pratensis
    2. Fescue turf grasses, Festuca arundinacea
    3. Perennial Ryegrass, Lolium perenne
  2. Warm Season Turf Grasses
    1. Bermuda grass, Cynodon dactylon
    2. Buffalo grass, Buchloe dactyloides
    3. Zoysia grass, Zoysia japonica and Z. matrella

Groundcovers - Sun

  • Aegopodium podagraria variegatum, Bishop’s weed
  • Cerastostigma plumbaginoides, hardy blue plumbago
  • Callirhoe involucrata, winecups
  • Ipomea quamoclit, cypress vine
  • I. x multifida, cardinal climber (vine)
  • Marrubium rotundifolia, silver-edged horehound
  • Oenothera speciosa , O. speciosa “Rosea’ showy evening primrose
  • O. berlandiera, Mexican evening primrose
  • Thymus ‘Ohme Garden Carpet’
  • T ‘Pink Chintz’
  • T ‘Reiter’
  • Veronica pectinata, wooly veronica with blue flowers
  • V. pectinata, ‘Rosea’ wooly veronica with rose flowers
  • V. ‘Blue Reflection’
  • Vinca major and minor
  • Zinnia grandiflora, prairie zinnia

Groundcovers – Shade

  • Aegopodium podagraria variegatum, Bishop’s weed
  • Ajuga reptans
  • Cerastostigma plumbaginoides, hardy blue plumbago
  • Mahonia repans, Creeping Oregon Grape Holly
  • Stachys byzantina, Lambs ear
  • Hedera, English ivy
  • Vinca major and minor

10 Turf Tips

  1. Properly amend soil for turf type
  2. Reduce slopes and berms
  3. Lawnscape to avoid runoff situations
  4. Match turf type with appropriate maintenance
  5. Select efficient irrigation system
  6. Decided on seeds, plug or sod
  7. Properly feed your turf
  8. Proper mowing
  9. Water efficiently
  10. Aerate and reseed if necessary

Follow Integrated Problem Management Steps

  • Observation
  • Recognizing and accessing the problem
  • Monitoring the effects and evaluating the damage
  • Management of the problem
    • Appropriate cultural practices
    • Mechanical methods
    • Biological methods
    • Natural and synthetic chemical methods

Ways to Conserves Water in your Lawnscape

  • Reduce high water-use groundcovers to a third of the landscape
  • Use a variety of buffalo grass
  • Amend the soil properly for your turf type.
  • Avoid creating lawn berms for high water-use turf
  • Avoid placing turf in narrow strips between streets, sidewalks and strips less than 10 feet wide
  • Avoid placing turf next to driveways, or narrow strips between buildings and sidewalks
  • Terrace areas using low water-use plants at the bottom of slopes where it meets the sidewalk
  • Create buffer zones of low water-use plants to avoid irrigating the concrete.
  • Irrigate in the morning and early evening
  • Irrigate for longer periods, less often
  • Avoid watering on windy days
  • Choose a low spraying sprinkler system
  • Adjust sprinkler for larger droplets
  • Drip irrigation is the most efficient for water conservation
  • Test sprinkler systems for inches/hr. and for uniformity
  • Set timers to avoid over watering.
  • Adjust timers with precipitation received, and with the seasons

Suggested Reading

  • The Perfect Texas Lawn, by Steve Dobbs, Cool Springs Press, 2002.
  • Gardening With Prairie Plants, Sally Wasowski, University of Minnesota Press, 2002
  • The Wild Lawn Handbook, Alternatives to the Traditional Front Lawn, Stevie Daniels, Macmillan, 1995.