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bpgreen

Update on my native lawn experiment

bpgreen
15 years ago

I have good native grass coverage (and green grass) in an area that used to go dormant fast. It was always problematic and last year, a sprinkler head died, so it got worse. But since it died, the natives took over.

I've been under watering this year and have lots of dormant (maybe dead) patches. Most of them have some native green spots scattered throughout.

I turned off the water. I'll be aerating the lawn, then seeding in late August/early September. I'm also keeping some seed in reserve for dormant seeding.

If there are any areas that aren't native dominated next year, I'll get sod from BioGrass Sod Farms and fill them in.

Comments (20)

  • jaliranchr
    15 years ago

    Glad it is doing well for you, bp. Mine is still kinda sparse in areas but since I'm selling the place, I'm not gonna mess much more. I am pleased with it. I have watered once since spring just to see how it would do. It is still green but very dry. Good luck with the seeding.

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    You've only watered once? That's even better than I had hoped. I was expecting to need to water about twice a month.

    I would think that having a lawn that only needs to be watered once a year would be a good selling point in Colorado.

  • jaliranchr
    15 years ago

    Yeah, bp, I've been most pleasantly surpised. It is really dry and we've only had one really drenching rain, but it has held up beautifully. And I've only cut it twice this summer. THAT is really nice. I am an absolute believer in the wheatgrass for this semi-arid climate. :)

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    I usually water about once every 3 or 4 days in the summer (I've tried the once a week and couldn't get it to work). This year, I never watered more than once every 5 days. I meant to stop completely on the 23rd, but forgot to shut it off, so it ran a week later.

    Even at once every 5 days, I had some pretty significant brown spots. Now, much of the lawn is brown.

    But the spot where the wheatgrasses have taken over is still green, even though it used to be one of the first to go brown.

    I thought the wheatgrasses would grow to a foot or two, but I was told that only the seed heads grow that tall, and the grass will only get to about 8 inches, so it makes sense that it wouldn't need much mowing. I hadn't really thought of that part, but now that I think about it, the wheatgrass part of the lawn has stayed pretty short.

    I'm really looking forward to this.

    I've also started telling neighbors what I'm doing. I don't want somebody to get concerned and "help out" by hand watering the dying lawn.

    Most of my neighbors have unmetered water for irrigation and pay a flat fee for water. I'm paying about the same amount as they are for my water, but letting parts of the lawn go dormant. I really want to pay significantly less for water and have my lawn stay green all summer.

  • jaliranchr
    15 years ago

    bp, after a couple of weeks of substantial monsoonal rains my lawn is just as green as all the fescue and kbg lawns that have been watered all summer. This decision is pleasing me more all the time. :)

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Jali--I forget which wheatgrass you have. Do you have both western and streambank or just one of them? If you have both, is there more of one than the other? If just one, which one?

  • jaliranchr
    15 years ago

    I have both, bp. Were I to do it again, knowing what I do now, I would go totally with western wheatgrass. It seems to stay a more uniform height and grow more slowly than the streambank. But even with the blend, I'm very pleased with the results and I can't complain about the water bill anymore. :)

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Thanks for the info. I was considering using only western wheatgrass, but I've had more trouble getting it to germinate. It used to be a lot more expensive than streambank, but it was pretty reasonable at Round Butte seed this year.

    My lawn is now mostly brown and I'm planning to wait another two weeks to seed, so it should be pretty dead by then (we don't seem to get the monsoon rains).

  • jaliranchr
    15 years ago

    Good luck, bp. Yes, it is harder to germinate but worth it and I got my western wheatgrass from Round Butte on your suggestion. :) Hope it all goes well for ya!

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    I put the seed down today. Some of the "traditional" lawn grass was still green, but not much. I'm hoping next year the really dead spots will be completely native and that there will be native grasses throughout the lawn. If so, I think the rest of the fescue and KBG will die over the next few years. If they don't die, there's always Roundup.

    I bought 4 lbs of sheep fescue and 1 lb of creeping red fescue for the back yard and 10 lbs each of western and streambank wheatgrass for the front. The total lawn is 4k sq ft, and for ease of calculation, I'm assuming it's 2k for each (although it probably isn't).

    I also had about 3 lbs of sheep fescue and 2 lbs of western wheatgrass left over from last year (I was going to dormant seed it, but we got lots of snow before I put the seed down and the lawn stayed snow covered into spring). I tested for germination and the seeds were still good. I also had a small amount of blue grama (I think I got 1 lb and still had almost all of it).

    I'm saving 2 lbs of the sheep fescue and 5 lbs each of the wheatgrasses for dormant seeding.

    I'm also trying something different with the wheatgrass seeds this year. I read something about "presoaking" grass seeds to speed germination. So I poured 5 lbs of each wheatgrass seed into 5 gallon buckets and filled them most of the way with water. I also added the leftover western wheatgrass seed. I soaked the seeds for a little less than 24 hours. This is supposed to improve germination.

    The grama went into the hellstrips along with both wheatgrasses. It's late to be planting grama, so it may not do well, but I figured I'd use it up.

    I've been saving Starbucks Used Coffee Grounds (UCG) for a few months (my wife doesn't like the smell when it's hot out). Tomorrow, I'll use those as a top dressing.

    It was in the upper 90s today, but it's supposed to cool off tomorrow and we have possible rain the next few days. I'll operate the sprinklers manually if we don't get rain, then switch to automatic once the rain possibility is over.

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    Good luck. My experiment with the Bt to control the sod web worms wasn't all that successful, given that yesterday, walking around the lawn, the clouds of moths were even denser than before.

    OTOH, the results from over-seeding with clover has been impressive - everywhere the seed germinated, the holes from the web worms have completely disappeared.

  • jaliranchr
    15 years ago

    Best of luck, bp.

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    I'm not sure, but I think this is the blue grama poking through the compost and/or coffee grounds. I planted some leftover grama in the hellstrips, mixed with the two wheatgrasses. I've only seen a couple of wheatgrass seeds that germinated in the rest of the lawn (I think they're wheatgrass seeds, anyway), so I'm pretty sure this is grama. I tried to get a picture of some germinated wheatgrass, but it was kind of gray and didn't show up well against the dead grass/compost around it.

    There aren't many seedlings here (and they're really tiny), but it's in better focus.
    {{gwi:115520}}

    This one isn't focused as well, but shows more seedlings.
    {{gwi:115522}}

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    The sheep and red fescue isn't germinating in the back, or at least not much. But I'm seeing wheatgrass germination throughout the front lawn in addition to the grama in the hellstrip. I'm not sure whether it's streambank, western or both germinating, but I'm pretty sure presoaking the seeds sped up the process.

    Since I was manually sifting the grounds (they got pretty clumped up sitting in the plastic bags), I didn't get the entire lawn covered. The seeds germinated better and faster where there was top dressing, but it's starting to germinate where there's no top dressing, either.

    I still plan to dormant seed with the seeds I set aside for that. I think next year I may finally have enough native grass coverage to leave the sprinklers off for the summer or maybe just water a couple of times during the summer instead of twice a week.

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    Bp, when you're out there spreading huge bags of coffee grounds all over the lawn, do you notice that the neighbors start calling in their children and pulling the shades?

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    "Bp, when you're out there spreading huge bags of coffee grounds all over the lawn, do you notice that the neighbors start calling in their children and pulling the shades?"

    One neighbor came over and asked what I was spreading and when I told him, he said something like that was what he thought, but didn't believe it until he asked. Then he told me about some fertilizer he uses that makes it grow so fast in the summer that he can hardly keep up with mowing and watering. I didn't bother pointing out that I thought that was counterproductive.

    Another neighbor said he might try it after I told him they give the grounds free even if you don't buy coffee. But so far, I haven't seen him actually do it.

    Many of my neighbors think I'm nuts anyway, since I compost, I don't bag my clippings, I mow my leaves into the lawn and I didn't get the unmetered water. My water bills are already lower than they would be with the unmetered water, and I don't have nearly as many problems with weeds as I'd have with that water (it's not filtered very well and is full of weed seeds).

    I was walking around this morning and it looks like I'm finally getting sheep fescue and/or red fescue germination. Still not a lot, but at least some of it is germinating.

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    The commercially available UCG market around here has been sewn up by the Compost-Coffee bar-Mafioso, the bums who run the coffee shops also have big gardens. So I'm left with my own grounds, so every morning, after finishing off the pot, I take the basket out and fling the grounds over the grass.

    This can cause a pause in the conversation when we have guests over. "What did he just do???"

  • jaliranchr
    15 years ago

    :D bp, yeah, know the looks. They all thought I was nuts until my water bill stayed at the minimum this year. And buying soybean meal for fert blew their minds too. hehehe, now the feed store is selling quite a bit of soybean meal to townsfolk for their lawns.

    As I recall, the streambank germinated more quickly than the western did. Good luck with it! It is definitely worth it down the road.

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    I planted the streambank and western wheatgrass in the same areas, so I can't tell if only one is growing or both, but there's quite a bit of it, so I think it's both.

    And it finally looks like I'm getting a fair amount of fescue germinating.

    I'm even seeing germination in areas where the existing lawn didn't go brown, and I also still have seed left over for a dormant seeding, so I think next year I'll be able to get by with either no water or just one or two times. I'm tempted to try to let it go completely so more of the old grass dies off, but I'd like to keep the lawn fairly green, and I think I'll need at least a little water for that.

  • bpgreen
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    There's now a lot of wheatgrass growing, even in areas where the existing lawn stayed green for the duration. There are a couple of bare spots that aren't greening up, but for the most part, I've got a lot of new grass growing.

    The fescue germination isn't as good (the opposite of what I expected). But the back yard is more shaded and has never needed as much water anyway, so I'm less concerned with that.

    I'll wait until next year to post updated pictures because I think that's when the natives will really start taking over.

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