In North Carolina, we remain in severe drought conditions. I have a newish house where the lawn never took.
Besides eroding swales I need to fix, part of the "lawn" slopes and the top soil is eroding. I need to stop the erosion and get something to take. No jokes about Kudzu please. :-)
My plan is to till the worst areas with a gas powered cultivator (I've done this for other parts of my lawn, when I could still water, and this has worked well), lay down some top soil, and use annual ryegrass. Annual ryegrass, though it will die in one season, germinates fast, and seems to germinate with very little water.
My questions are these:
1) Would it be a waste of money to mix-in some sort of a creeping grass seed with the cheap annual ryegrass seed? Centipede and bermudagrass seem to thrive here in central NC--and require little to no water, fertilizer, or anti-weed chemicals. Once established, the centipede and bermuda grass are so thick that they choke out the weeds, and grows slower than other grasses (less mowing). Only "downside" is the lawn goes dormant / brown in the winter. I'm not running a golf course, so who cares.Centipede and bermuda grass seed is terribly expensive. And I wonder if it would safely lay dormant until it got enough water.
Am I throwing money down the drain, quite literally, by mixing in expensive seed with annual ryegrass? Or should I do the ryegrass now, then aerate / overseed in spring of 2009, when hopefully water restrictions will be lifted.
2) Are there any good online videos or resources, or books, for methods on stopping erosion on swales?Mike