[PCA] NEWS: Goodbye to grass

[Simmons, Mark T]

I really like my lawn - my low maintenance, species-rich, drought-adapted native lawn.

While I agree that lawns can be replaced with alternative vegetation, I think that the lawn is entitled to a place in the American landscape and we should be careful of following the current fashion of demonizing turf.  It's not the lawn that's the problem is how lawns are manufactured. We take a usually single non-native species that's been bred to rely on a life-support system of water, fertilizer, pesticides herbicides, and a crazy mowing regimen.  If you look at native short grasslands around the world its clear that, in contrast, they are low nutrient, species-rich, systems which are at ecological quasi- equilibrium usually maintained by grazing and or fire. Here at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center we adopted an ecological approach to turf by testing different mixes of native turf grasses and against a commonly-used non-native turf lawn species (bermudagrass) and measured performance.  The multispecies native mix needs less mowing, had less weeds and was a denser, finer (better looking) turf. The results were just published in the journal Ecological Engineering.  Sure it can go drought-dormant and brown in summer if it's not watered.  But if that may be an acceptable alternative to no lawn at all.  

My young children can't play baseball in gravel and agaves. And I want to sink a beer on a Saturday evening bare foot in soft, cool turf. Let's keep doing lawns, just do them smart . 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VFB-52P3GPC-1&_user=108429&_coverDate=04%2F22%2F2011&_rdoc=29&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_srch=doc-info%28%23toc%236006%239999%23999999999%2399999%23FLA%23display%23Articles%29&_cdi=6006&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=61&_acct=C000059713&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=108429&md5=7cb49619575e745221c9314f7dce9b17&searchtype=a



-----Original Message-----
From: native-plants-bounces at lists.plantconservation.org [mailto:native-plants-bounces at lists.plantconservation.org] On Behalf Of Olivia Kwong
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 8:00 AM
To: native-plants at lists.plantconservation.org
Subject: [PCA] NEWS: Goodbye to grass

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/121578549.html

Goodbye to grass
By KIM PALMER
Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Updated: May 11, 2011 - 7:41 AM

As the less-lawn trend takes root, a few gardeners are going all the way, eliminating turf grass entirely.

See the link above for the full article text.


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