by Murray Anderson
Love the idea of a green lawn but hate the idea of using all that water and fertilizer to keep it looking that way. Well you’ll be pleased to hear you can have a green lawn all summer without all that watering and fertilizing. Here’s a couple of options for you to choose from.
Add Some Clover to Your Lawn
- Nowadays, most Americans think of clover as a weed and try to get it out of their lawns with broad leaf herbicides. However, not that many years ago (50 to 75 maybe) clover was a common part of well-maintained lawns.
- Clover is easy to introduce into a lawn, simply overseed your lawn with clover seeds (available at garden centers or on the Internet) and water them in for a week or so.
- Common strains of clover (Irish, Shamrock or Dutch White) provide a lot of positive benefits for a homeowner when used in lawns, for example -
- Clover puts nitrogen back into the soil, so it actually helps enrich the soil where it grows.
- It has a long root system making it very drought resistant.
- These same long roots mean you don’t need to be continually fertilizing your lawn. (Even if you’re using organic fertilizer on your lawn now, you still have the expense and work of putting it down).
- Clover is relatively bug free so there’s no need to apply pesticides and it resists spotting from dog urine – a major problem for some homeowners.
- Finally clover is slow growing so you don’t need to cut it as often as grass and, when you do need to cut it, clover can withstand low mowing yet still remain green.
All your years of fighting clover made it impossible for you to consider adding clover to your lawn? How about introducing a different kind of grass into your lawn – fescue grass.
- Depending on where you in the country you live, most lawns are made of a mixture of grasses that have relatively short root systems and need constant watering to stay green or they will turn brown during the summer.
- Fescue grasses on the other hand have long, deep root systems and are drought resistant, shade tolerant, and most important, stay green in the heat of summer.
- Transitioning from a traditional lawn can be accomplished in a year or two by overseeding your existing lawn (no need to remove your existing lawn and start over).
- Fescue grows best when it’s planted in the late fall or early spring. You prepare your lawn for fescue planting by first cutting it, then aerating with a spike aerator. Spread your fescue seeds and aerate once more to help cover the seeds with soil, then keep the seeds moist for a week or so.
- Germination takes approximately 7 to 10 days and the seed takes best in well-drained, weed free soil.
- During the first season you will need to keep the fescue well watered, but once it’s established you’ll find the requirement to water your lawn is reduced dramatically.
- An added bonus is most fescue grasses are slow growing so your won’t need to cut your lawn as often, meaning you’ll reduce harmful emissions and conserve energy while conserving water.
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