This ain't your daddy's lawn

I attended a great seminar last month hosted by EBMUD and featuring designer/builder Suzanne Arca and nurseryman/ornamental grass expert John Greenlee.  John is a passionate speaker on the evils of traditional turf grass, and gave a podium pounding presentation that at times felt like a political rally – you’re either for lawn or against it, and John doesn’t approve of crossing party lines.

 

Not that I’m arguing.  By some estimates, almost 80% of residential water use goes towards landscape irrigation, much of which evaporates or disappears into storm drains as run-off (often polluted with fertilizers and pesticides to boot).

John advocates using California native and non-native sedges as an alternative to a traditional lawn.  

 

Two of his favorites, Carex pansa and Carex divulsa, form a dense green mat that require much less water than lawn.  As Carex pansa only gets around 1’ tall vs. 2’ for C. divulsa, it has a more lawn like feel.  Both can be mowed (or weed-wacked) occasionally for a more lawn-like appearance, or left unmowed for a meadow effect.

Here is a photo of a deer resistant, full sun front yard I designed that was installed several years ago incorporating a wide swath of C. divulsa in the front.  It gets cut back to the ground in the winter and usually trimmed back later in the summer.  The second trimming isn’t really required, unless you don’t like the look of the flowers, which I don’t.  This is a good grass for mimicking the green “negative space” aspect of a lawn, but you can see by its height, doesn’t really look like a lawn.

 

The plant around the hydrant is Blue Wonder Catmint - the Carex divulsa is along the curb at the top.

 

I haven’t designed a Carex pansa lawn for a client yet, but as the recipient of a $50 gift certificate for John’s grasses at the seminar, I took home a ½ flat and a few weeks ago used it to replace my small chamomile lawn.  A shout out to a fellow master gardener Carla Preisler and her friend Rose, as Rose was the original winner and passed her winnings on to me. 

 

We did not use plugs, but just broke the 4” pots into four sections, which seemed to work fine.  This was installed based on what I had on hand, so wasn’t very carefully amended.  I will probably add additional compost later to improve the drainage a bit.