Like other members of this group, I believe that the contemporary model of lawn has got to go. It does have its virtues, though we critics tend to overlook them. For example, traditional lawn provides a relatively inexpensive and easy way to maintain large expanses of the landscape in a green and domesticated cover – I can think of no other landscape treatment aside from meadow that can cover an acre or two of sunny ground and demand only a couple of hours a week of maintenance, and though I prefer the beauty and biodiversity of a meadow, it is not appropriate for heavily trafficked areas. Lawn also provides a nearly ideal play space for children and a relatively tick-free zone – an important benefit where I live, 30 miles from Old Lyme, Connecticut, the original epicenter of the Lyme Disease epidemic.
What if we could eliminate many of the environmental defects of lawns while preserving its benefits? That was the question I asked myself 5 years ago, and one that I have been exploring ever since. Other types of cultivated landscape used to be environmental disasters but have since been updated. When I began my career as a horticulturist 40 years ago, rose gardens were toxic from the constant application of pesticides, but that has changed with the introduction of disease- and pest-resistant cultivars, and a more environmentally sophisticated style of design and maintenance. Likewise, the average vegetable garden was dependent on constant inputs of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides a generation ago. Could the lawn be similarly updated, I wondered.
My first pursuit was to identify types of grasses that in the Northeast where I live that are less demanding of mowing, fertilization, irrigation, and pesticides. A few emails put me in touch with turf breeders at Rutgers, Cornell, and the University of Connecticut who very generously shared the under-utilized low-maintenance turfs that they had created. A visit to Dr. Stacy Bonos at Rutger’s turf-breeding station was particularly eye-opening.
I soon came to focus on mixes of different fine fescue cultivars as the most promising alternative for my purposes. Once established on a site, such blends require mowing no more than 2-3 times a year, they are drought-resistant and much less hungry for nitrogen, and, if the cultivars are chosen with care, naturally weed- and insect-resistant. However, I found these blends challenging initially because they are slow-growing (that’s why they require so little mowing) and so slow to establish.
It has taken several years of experimentation, but I have developed a routine that will convert a conventional lawn to fine fescues in just 6 weeks at a price customers can afford, and which, with occasional interventions, produces an mature, mostly weed-free lawn within 6 months.
By “weed-free” I do not mean that such a lawn is a grass monoculture. In fact, the sustainable lawn model I have been seeking demands a more diverse flora. In this case, I am defining “weeds” as plants that make the lawn unsightly, increase the need for mowing, and which will overrun their neighbors. The best way to keep such plants out of the lawn is to fill their niches with other, more turf-compatible plants. My inspiration for this came from first-hand experience, of course, but also readings in guides to lawn maintenance dating back to the pre-chemical-care era – one such book from the 1920’s, for example, included more than two dozen flowers it recommended including in the lawn.
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