Our Environment: “How Green Is Your Lawn” by Scott Turner
Saturday, April 04, 2020
As April unfolds, we will have to wait a little longer for the grass to green-up at our house. That’s because repeated freezing and thawing last winter caused the little plot of lawn in our backyard to heave over and over again until the ground now looks like a jigsaw puzzle topped with silt, roots, rocks, and other debris.
When our children were young we maintained that turf for them to play on. We tilled and leveled the soil back then. Every year, we added compost, fertilizer and lime. And we watered. A lot. Without such maintenance, the lawn would wither, as it did last summer.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWith our children now older, we’ve shrunk the turf, adding semi-shade-loving perennials, shrubs and small trees around the perimeter. The backyard gets about 6 hours sun a day, which isn’t all that much.
Given that we inherited earth that is thin, dusty, infertile and high in acidity, and we don’t want to pour chemicals and water into it, we've decided to sow a blend of grass seed that will produce a green lawn that does not require a good deal of care.
We chose a seed mix that combines four low-growing fine-leaved fescues that thrive in our Southern New England climate. Together these seeds give rise to lawns that not only grow on poor soil, but require less water, nutrients, and sunshine versus traditional mixes.
When I mow, I keep the grass reactively tall—between two-and-one-half and three inches high to conserve moisture and discourage the growth of crabgrass and other weeds. Fine-leaved fescues do well at that height, often remaining green through a drought.
Given all the time I’ve spent inside during this period of coronavirus confinement, I look forward to devoting some of my schedule to fabricating something outside with my hands. Research suggests that using your hands to make things helps decrease stress and anxiety, and improve mood.
Recently, a sturdy, fun-sized burlap sack of fescue seed arrived in the mail. The instructions suggest that we plant the seed when daily high temperatures are between 60 and 75 degrees. That time is coming very soon.
Planting will require some hard work, including scrapping-off and raking-up dead vegetation and debris on the soil surface. In addition, I will need to use a spreader to broadcast the seed, rake lightly to ensure good contact with the soil, and then sprinkle a top-dressing to keep the ground moist for germination. Depending upon rainfall, I will water to maintain a light-moisture for at least two weeks.
Hopefully, if I stay healthy over the next few weeks, I will get back into a gardening groove. This would mark a way for me to be creative with my hands, which right now are mostly just scrubbed to prevent the spread of germs. And who knows, maybe from my handiwork, we might even get a green lawn—one that we can enjoy for more than just one year at a time.
Scott Turner is a Providence-based writer and communications professional. For more than a decade he wrote for the Providence Journal and we welcome him to GoLocalProv.com.
