Take better care of your lawn

Have a lawn? Although I don't have an exact statistic, my guess is 80% or more of homes have some lawn. What is sad is how many of these home owners don't know how to properly and efficiently manage their crop of grass.

I have lambasted the standard American lawn as one of the greatest wastes of our society (see this article). Personally, I think they should all be ripped out and replaced with basketball courts. Even a swimming pool would use less water in the long run. But if you had to have a lawn, if you can't live without your crop of grass, then please do it right!

There is lots of crime in my neighborhood. Not crimes against home owners, but crimes against their lawns. Lawn abuse is an awful problem, and I see terrible wastes. If there was a lawn police, there would citations galore!

(Time to mow)

A Cut Above the Rest

The biggest abuse I see on lawns is improper cutting height. Most people cut their grass too short. Here on the high plains, the sun can be brutal. Not only are we closer to the sun, but the air is thinner with fewer clouds, giving us more UV radiation. The suns cooks the grass mercilessly. It's not so much the grass blades you should worry about, but the roots. The roots are just like us: When they get hot, they get thirsty. When they can't get the water they need, they become stressed and suffer.

When you cut your grass too short, you are exposing the roots to more of that punishing sunlight. The grass blades aren't there just to look pretty. They are there to collect sunlight for photosynthesis, which gives the roots life. In the process of collecting this sunlight, the grass blades are also shading the roots, keeping them cooler. Cutting too short makes your grass more susceptible to heat and drought, and forces you to water more.

People should go for about 2½ to 3 inches in length for their grass. Yes, that's the length after cutting. For many, this means putting your mower on its highest setting. You are not maintaining a putting green. A longer blade will make your grass healthier and lusher. You may think this will cause you to cut more often, but I haven't seen this as the case. I typically cut my grass every 12 days or so, whereas my neighbor cuts his every week, like clockwork. He also cuts it down to about 1 inch, often "scalping" his hilly spots.

Water the Roots, Not the Blades

The other abuse I notice is shallow watering. For healthy grass, you want the roots to go deep into the soil. This is true for any plant, especially trees. When a plant develops shallow roots, it suffers more from heat and becomes totally dependent on surface water. In the West, adequate and reliable surface water must be artificially provided by you. If you miss a day or two, your plants will suffer. Deep watering encourages deep roots.

Sometimes I see people walking around their yard with a hose, squirting a little water here and a little water there. Guess what? This does absolutely nothing except moisten the grass blades. Most of that water will evaporate. For a deep watering, you need to saturate the soil down about 6 - 12 inches. How long to water depends on many factors, like your soil type and watering system. Experts say you should water for an hour, sometimes two. While this may seem like a lot a water (it is), remember that deep watering allow you to water less frequently.

Which leads to the other watering abuse I see often: Watering too frequently. As mentioned above, shallow watering results in shallow roots, which require more watering. Roots are lazy; they won't plunge deep into the soil if they don't have to. If you keep watering them every day, they won't, which means you have to water every day, else your grass will suffer. Not only is your grass unhealthy from this watering pattern, but you get a constantly damp surface, which encourages weeds, fungus, bugs, and mushrooms.

Be Smart with Smart Irrigation

Some homeowners take advantage of irrigation systems with timers. I know of people who set their timer once in spring and turn it off in fall. Throughout the summer they never look at it. Certainly if you go on vacation, you should rely on your timer. But if you are home, why do this? Your watering schedule should not be based solely on time. Your grass is not like some 500 pound gorilla sitting in your yard; you don't look at your watch and say, "Oops, it's time to feed Mongo." Your lawn's watering needs are dependent on weather, not time. Lots of wind and sunshine and low humidity will mean higher water needs. Cloudy days or rain means lower needs. And as you know in the West, the weather changes daily, so you can't stick to a regular watering schedule.

Here is what I've learned from the experts, and my lawn does quite well. I wait until my grass is really thirsty. You might say it's on the brink of death. Then I water it. As cruel as it sounds, this is really the best technique for your grass. You know the old cliché: "What doesn't kill us will only make us stronger." This is true for your grass.

So how do you know this "brink of death"? Wait until your grass begins to wilt. It might take on a bluish-green tint, and footsteps don't spring back immediately. During this wait, you might get lucky and you get some rain. Rainwater is always better than city water, so take advantage of it when you can. But when no rain has been seen for awhile, and my grass is on its last gasp, I water.

I have an irrigation system with a timer, but I shut off the automatic watering when I am home. When I determine that the grass needs watering, I set the timer to go off the next morning around 4:00 am and have it run for 30 minutes (I have a small yard with lots of spray heads, so it doesn't take an hour to saturate). Early morning watering is best because that's when the wind is light and the air is at its maximum humidity level. The idea is to saturate your soil with the least amount of water being blown away or evaporating.

After I water, I let several days pass before I watch for the Grim Reaper again.

With deep, infrequent watering, I water on average every 7 or 8 days. I say "average" because sometimes it's 4 days, and sometimes it's 2 weeks. With monsoons or hot, dry spells, it is impossible to have a set watering schedule. I water when I need to, and don't water when I don't need to. I save water and have healthy, beautiful grass. It's that simple.

We've had a fairly wet spring this year and I have only watered the lawn once this year. In contrast, my neighbor waters every day. Sure enough, he has mushrooms and plenty of runoff, which goes into my yard. I'd tell him, but I kind of like all the frogs and dragonflies that have gathered there. Mongo likes to play in the water, too.

Waste Not Want Not

When I see trash bags full of grass clippings, I see a tremendous waste. The EPA estimates that yard waste amounts to 18% of the garbage that goes into landfills. That figures increases to 50% during the growing season. What's worse, this "waste" is free, organic fertilizer, thrown away by ignorant home owners.

So why do you bag? Many people like the look of a perfectly manicured and clean lawn. Some don't like the unsightly piles of clippings. Others believe that uncollected clippings cause thatch. And everyone else does it simply because that's what they've always done, without thinking about it.

Unless you are a museum curator or a golf course groundskeeper, I invite you to rethink your formal garden with its perfect symmetry and manicured lawn and hedges. Since the 1990's, the trend is to have yards look like they want to look--natural. Stop following the style of Victorian lawns.

If you cut your grass and get huge piles of clippings, I have to ask why are you cutting so much? You should never cut off more than a third of your grass. A mulching lawn mower will chop up your clippings into tiny bits and spew them back down into your lawn. These bits decompose and provide a slow-release source of nitrogen. It also builds up your soil, improving its water-holding ability.

Grass clippings also do not cause thatch. This myth has been debunked years ago. Thatch is formed when dead roots and stems build up faster than can be decomposed.

Although the clippings provide some nitrogen to your grass, your lawn could benefit with a little extra fertilizer. I usually give my spring lawn a light sprinkling of fertilizer to jump start it after the long winter. After that, I put the spreader away and let the clippings work their magic for the rest of the summer. My eventual goal is to retire the fertilizer completely and rely on "compost tea", once I figure out how to adequately distribute the liquid.

The only time I ever catch my clippings is when I have been away, or the rain has been nonstop, so when I finally get a chance to mow, it is already very high. Even with mower on the highest setting, this will amount to clumps of clippings, which my dog loves to eat (and invariably throws back up). So I do bag this. However, I put the clippings onto my compost pile. There really is no need to ever send your clippings to the landfill. If you have no compost pile, find a neighbor who has one. I'm sure he or she will gladly take your clippings.