How do you care for your lawn?

[dennis thompson]

I usually just use Scott’s 4 bag system,I’m just wondering how others here might care for their lawns?

[Larry Frank]

So much depends on where you are!!! My yard is Blue Grass, Fescue, and perennial rye. My yard is almost 2 acres with areas of sun and shade and use different blends of grass in different areas.

The price of fertilizer has gone way up. I compared the price of me doing the fertilizing versus having someone do it. I ended up having someone do it 4 times a year.

I have a well and water some parts of the yard but others I will let go dormant in the summer.

[George Bokros]

I compared the cost of me doing it four times per year with the cost of having it done. My service does it FIVE times per year for what it was costing me for FOUR times. My lawn is green all growing season. They use granular fertilizer which is superior to liquid spray fertilizer because it lasts longer.

[roger wiegand]

Ours is just about gone, replaced with low growing, low maintenance native plants. The critters are much happier as a result, we have booming numbers of fireflies and butterflies as well as myriad native bees again. Water bill has dropped precipitously and we're not adding all that crap to the runoff into our river, which helps the fishing. Mowing once a year is a pleasure. Abandoning the wealthy European style lawns for a more natural landscape with American plants is a real win-win situation.
The remaining lawn is liberally seeded with white clover to provide nitrogen as well as small flowering plants to provide some color. The clover stays green even when the European grasses have turned brown for the summer; it all seems quite happy with no additional inputs in terms of fertilizer, water, and pesticides.

[Dave Fritz]

We love in the country and just mow whatever grows. I'm thinking of renting a roller however to use in spring to knock down all the mole runs as well as mouse runs to level things a bit. Farmers around us add enough chemicals to the soil.

[Stan Calow]

Hats off to you, Roger. I would be tarred and feathered by my neighbors if I did anything unconventional with my lawn.
I had a service treat it for last few years, and it looks good - when it rains. Thats the problem, water being the most critical chemical for a good lawn. I refuse to install a wasteful irrigation system, which is almost mandatory to have a green lawn all summer.
I am going back to DIY with the four bag system although using store brand fertilizer (it's the same stuff) for half the price of the name brands. Even though the local gardening experts say fertilizer only once or twice (in September) is sufficient.

Two quotes from HGTV (when it was about homeowners maintaining a home, not house flippers):
- Think of your lawn as a meadow - accept diversity
- I dont like to kill weeds, they're often the only green I see.

[Jack Frederick]

On our foothill property we mow from mid-March until about the first week of June. then the lawn dies back until the Nov/Dec rains. I mow really just to keep the foxtails down as our sweet dog just absorbs them. The green photo is from May 4th. The other is June 19th the same year. Flash fried! All my neighbors have 2500 gallon storage tanks for their water as the wells are so poor. for the sale of the property we pumps our well at 15 gpm for three hours and could not run it dry, but for lawn, well, you just don’t push the well.

[Jim Becker]

I mow it when it needs it. We do not use chemicals, fertilizers or anything else on the lawn.

[glenn bradley]

I removed it when I realized how much I spent to grow it, water it, mow it, and haul off the waste. In some parts of the country lawns are unnatural and we get to do things like desert landscapes and so forth.

[Jamie Buxton]

Lawn? Nope. My yard is native trees and shrubs, which are adapted to California's weather pattern. I weed-wack once a year in early summer.

[Brian Elfert]

I mow the grass when I get around to it. No fertilizer, chemicals, or irrigation. Two acres of grass is too expensive to do any of the three.

The house was a foreclosure and the bank was saving money by not mowing close to an acre. I have never mowed that section either. It would be a lot of work at this point after eight years to bring that section back to lawn. It would also add more time to each mowing and not add any value.

[Tom M King]

We have about ten acres of grass to keep cut short. It's all warm season Bermuda or Centipede. It goes dormant in cold weather, and turns brown, but is nice and lush from Spring through Fall. I just cut it. If it doesn't get enough rain to grow, it just waits. No fertilizer or irrigation.

Our Pastures are about the same-mostly Bermuda. The horses normally graze from Easter until Thanksgiving, and then eat hay. This year they only ate 9 bales of hay each from just before Christmas to a couple of weeks ago, and have turned their noses up to hay now. While a lot of the country got cold extreme, we'd had the opposite.

Pasture picture is from last week. Shoreline a couple of years ago before I rebuilt that dock.

[Myk Rian]

I put down crabgrass control as soon as the snow is gone. Then pretty much leave it alone after that.

[Brian Elfert]

I removed it when I realized how much I spent to grow it, water it, mow it, and haul off the waste. In some parts of the country lawns are unnatural and we get to do things like desert landscapes and so forth.

I would do a rock lawn if it wouldn't just fill up with weeds here.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I have a push reel mower and try to remember to mow the lawn before it gets too tall. At our former location it took me about 2 hours to mow, here it's only about 15 minutes.

[Bill Dufour]

There are companies that will come out and spray paint your lawn or gravel. The house we bought is almost all gravel. Do not use round small gravel. It is hard to roll things. The leaf blower can move it. Make sure they dig out the dirt so the gravel is not above the level of the sidewalks and driveway. Ours slides down to cover the concrete all the time.
BillD

[Mike Soaper]

You might want to look into a fertilizer with slow release nitrogen, Greenview's Fairway is one, once in the spring and fall, Lesco also offers some.

Regarding the tar and feathering for going back to nature, you might get away with a small save the bees and monarch butterfly garden, then just expand the garden a bit each year.

[Lee Schierer]

I cut it when needed.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I dethatch, fertilize, water using an in the ground sprinkler system and mow as necessary.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Had to make the choice today, over seed, or weed control. Went with weed control as I will have time to over seed in May. By then weeds would have gone to seed. Front lawn, with exception of wild onions, is mostly moss. Here you fertilize Fescue grass on the holidays, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Valentines day. Used to maintain twice as much lawn. Because we live in a forest, I try to maintain a green buffer around the house for fire protection in case of a forest fire.

[Ken Platt]

I am among those trying to get rid of my lawn grass and replace with native plantings. Never applied chemicals or fertilizer. In spring my "lawn" is full of wildflowers, mostly violets and is (IMO) beautiful. . I mow when I absolutely have to because it's getting too high to walk across - mostly just the small front of house area. Backyard areas I let grow while I try to identify the native good stuff and leave it while trying to kill the non-native stuff including lawn grasses. I am trying to slowly get rid of lawn grasses using the cover with cardboard and let suffocate method, with the occasional fit of physical removal, subject to my available energy and strength.

In case folks don't know, there are many grass-ish-looking plants (mostly sedges) that stay low, don't need fertilizer, can be mowed (or not) if one wishes a time or two a year, look a lot like traditional lawn so as to not upset the neighbors, and can be walked and played on like a traditional lawn. Quite a few websites detail the process for converting over.

Ken

[Jim Becker]

Ken, bravo!!!!

[Jim Barkelew]

Our lawn is whatever survives mowing. Most of it goes dormant in late summer and is starting to perk up now. The best mowing is the first because the wild onions are going strong and it smells great as they are chopped up. Most of the green right now is onions. When we first bought our property, the grass was 5 ft tall.

Jim

[Jim Becker]

AH...the spring onions... :)

[Keith Pitman]

Lawn? What lawn? We moved to a house in the woods twenty years ago. I do rake pine needles from near the house every Spring.

[dennis thompson]

Thanks for the responses, I like the "I just cut it" option.

[Jim Becker]

Thanks for the responses, I like the "I just cut it" option.
It makes a lot of sense, both in level of effort and financially. The amount of money that some folks spend to maintain their lawn while at the same time supporting what is often non-native vegetation instead of beneficial plantings that help pollinators and beyond is pretty high in some areas! A "yuge" number of things that many folks think of as "weeds" are beneficial plants to wildlife, other plants and even humans. Take the simple dandelion. It's an edible (and delicious) food source for animals including humans, has medicinal properties and is often the first food that honeybees and other pollinators have access to in the early spring after not having anything fresh to eat for months.

[Stan Calow]

It makes a lot of sense, both in level of effort and financially. The amount of money that some folks spend to maintain their lawn while at the same time supporting what is often non-native vegetation instead of beneficial plantings that help pollinators and beyond is pretty high in some areas! . . .

Absolutely! I calculated that I spent >$600 last year on lawn care, not counting the water used on newly seeded areas. Then there's the time and equipment needed to mow it to acceptable heights. In other words, I am paying money to make the grass grow faster, so I can then cut it. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense.

[Malcolm McLeod]

...Take the simple dandelion. ...

An invasive plant to N. America.

[Jim Becker]

An invasive plant to N. America.

It's true they are non-native, but only considered invasive in two US states...Alaska and Oregon. At the Federal level, the plant is not considered an invasive danger and they do serve as an important food source in the ecosystem at this point. Tasty, too. :)

[Bob Borzelleri]

Have not dealt with a lawn in nearly 30 years. Currently on 5 wooded acres with 1.5 acres fenced and landscaped with native plants.

[Bill Dufour]

I think it is bizarre and an accident waiting to happen when cities grow lawns in the middle of streets on the divider. Also big buildings with lawns next to the sidewalk next to the busy streets. The kind of buildings that would chase kids off if they were playing in the parking lot. "leave kid, go play in the street".
More then one commercial gardener has been hit by a car while mowing a nature strip.
Bill D

[Jim Becker]

Some of that is to reduce heat in the city, Bill...even small amounts of green space can help with that. But yes, there are hazards that come with it, too.

[Brad Chenoweth]

Hi Roger,
Can you expand a bit on what plants, etc that you utilize?

[Christian Hawkshaw]

I use a service for fertilizing/pest control. I do all the mowing myself which has to be done a lot...a minimum of once a week after temps get in the 90s. The grass is St. Augustine, which I think is native grass. However, it takes a lot of maintenance. I would love to replace with something that does not require sooo much maintenance. Unfortunately, we have limited choices due to the homeowner’s association.


497260

[Bill Dufour]

Some of that is to reduce heat in the city, Bill...even small amounts of green space can help with that. But yes, there are hazards that come with it, too.
There are green choices that do not induce kids to play in the middle of the street. Ivy and junipers come to mind.