Watering Lawns

[Tom J]

A few days ago there was a lengthy discussion about how often lawns needed to be watered. My current lawn, small monkey grass (liriope), the kind that has fine blades and grows to about 8 inches, was sprigged in the spring of 1995. I have photo links below. This grass has not had water applied since the day it was sprigged in and has never shown any signs of distress, even when we were going through the worst dry months these past 4 years here in Georgia. It is always the dark green color year around and weeds can't make their way through it. I do have to walk over it in May & June and pull up tree seedlings that sprout up through it, mostly pine, tulip popular and sycamore. This takes 1/2 day each time. That, and cutting with the lawn mower in March and again in September is the total lawn care needed for this lawn. I do apply a light application of 8-8-8 fertilizer mixed 50% with dolomite limestone just after cutting in March.

The photo here is an overall view from the street

view here is a close-up showing the texture of the grass and the current height of 6 inches. dirt before starting this lawn was North Georgia red clay. I hauled in enough well rotted horse stable cleanings to cover the whole lawn to a depth of over 10 inches. I then used a rototiller to work it into the soil to over

12 inches deep from the original clay surface, giving me a soft loamy soil over 16 inches deep. Nothing has needed to be done since.

Tom J who likes his lawn

[Mary Marzano]

How is it for wear and tear from kids/animals? Has anyone heard of it being used in the north central Texas area? By Dallas? Is it expensive? Easily available? Sorry for the shotgun questions, just curious....I've got half an acre of bermuda grass, and an acre of...well...weeds. Trying to figure out what to do....wondering if this would work in my region.

Mary

[Tom J]

This grass is not for a lawn that has traffic on a regular basis. It will only stand light foot traffic, and because of the height it needs to maintain, is not for kids play area. The normal use of this grass is for border around other plantings.

I'm sure it would be available in your area, but is very expensive ($2.49 per

2" square in my area) unless you do what I did, and that's buy a couple of square feet and pull it apart into individual plants to sprig an area at the rate of about 5 or 6 inches each way, wait for it to shoot out the underground runners in each direction and produce many more plants, and repeat until there is plenty to sprig the whole lawn. My lawn is about 60 X 80 feet, so it took me about 3 years to grow enough plants to sprig 3 inches each way, then it took 2 years for it to go weed free solid.

Tom J

[Die Spammer !!!!!]

the tips of your grass blades dont look as good as they should. I see some that dont look cut evenly. They look like they been whipped off with a weed wacker or a dull mower blade. I see tan coloring on the tips. Hows your mower blade?