Organic Lawns
Organic Lawns | Practice organic lawn care, organic pest control and maintain your eco friendly lawn with organic fertilizer.
- Lawn Design
- Care and Feeding
- Pest & Weed Control
- Maintenance Measures
Of anything in our total landscape picture, our lawns typically consume the most water, fertilizer, pesticides and labor hours than everything else in our home environment put together.
One way to reduce these resources is to minimize our lawn area and with the lawn area that is left, find ways to reduce the consumption of labor and materials used in the upkeep.
- Consider a drought-tolerant grass for less water consumption
- Provide a high-tech controller for smart irrigation.
- Use only organic fertilizers for healthy grass
- Eliminate the use of insecticides for insect control.
- Eliminate the use of herbicides.
- Provide an easy-to-mow plan for your lawn.
This is the popular grass in the sun belt states. It has very good heat and drought tolerance. Bermuda Grass has a dark side though. It becomes very invasive and has the nick name of "Devil Grass" by frustrated gardeners. The grass loves the sun and will tolerate very little shade.
This is also a drought-tolerant grass, but unlike bermuda grass it is very cold tolerant. This grass is known to survive as far north as North Dakota. It is slow growing and kind of clumpy, so it does not give you that green carpet appearance. It only needs to be mowed 3 or 4 times a year, which tends to make it more lawn-like in appearance.
Buffalo Grass is much like Blue Grama. It is a short prairie grass and is best used for a natural landscape where you mow it only once or twice a year. It needs little water as it is accustomed to the prairie setting. It has a blue-green appearance and is really quite lovely when left natural.
This grass thrives in acidic dry soil and lives through just about anything. It is very drought-tolerant, but it does go dormant very easily - giving you a brown lawn very quickly without water.
Very inexpensive. Basically stay away from these as they die out as the warm season arrives. Consider their use only for overseeding and keeping erosion down.
Well suited as a salt tolerant grass and is very drought tolerant. The grass has a very fine textures, spreads by above-ground runners, so it needs to be confined. Spread salt on your lawn to kill weeds with this grass and it only will kill the weeds, not the grass.
Most popular in the south and west. It is deep-rooted, giving it drought-tolerance. This grass can only be planted from sprigs, plugs or sod, not from seed.
Often called the miracle organic lawn grass, there are 3 species available. Japanese, Manila and Korean. While the Korean is used more for ground cover purposes the others provide a tough and resilient turf once established. Japanese varieties include Meyer and El Toro.
Manila has stiff flat leaves and a deep green color. The most common way to plant Zoysia is with lawn plugs. Zoysia is also known for it's drought-tolerant properties. This is typically used in warm climates.
It is a documented fact and a fact that I have experienced myself that a lawn that is fed with organic fertilizer is healthier, more drought-tolerant and less susceptible to disease than a lawn that has chemical treatment.
Use a mulching blade on your lawn mower. This will cut the lawn clippings very finely and spread them down into the root zone of the grass providing nourishment and drought-tolerance abilities - and guess what? No more lawn clippings to dispose of and less time spent on your lawn. (unless you consider a game of golf as time spent on a lawn).
This fine mulch will not need to be removed as is required for regular-size grass clipping, and you will not need to de-thatch your lawn. By springtime your lawn is ready for another season of these finely cut grass clipping.
Cut your grass to a longer length as the heat of the summer approaches. This will provide more shade to the sod and require less watering .
Consider all organic lawn food. This fertilizer is make from all natural materials such as Corn Meal, Steamed Blood Meal, Feather Meal, Bone Meal, Soybean Meal Kelp, Rock Phosphate, Potash and Cottonseed Meal, among others. Some products to consider are Bradfield Luscious Lawn & Garden and Ringer Restore.
Don't expect that instant green lawn overnight experience from this stuff though. The total analysis is usually something like 5-3-4. Which means s-l-o-w r-e-l-e-a-s-e and is much better for your lawn's long-term health.
Also consider adding a thin layer of compost to your organic lawn. There are a number of companies that now will spread if for you and it will stimulate your lawn, fertilize it for the season and guess what? The is a totally natural product.
Lawn irrigation technology has come a long way in the last few years. Now we have available to us controllers with very sophisticated controls including wind sensors, rain sensors and the ability to set watering times during the day and week that they give us the ultimate in controllability.
If you currently have an older controller that you plan to replace, or are looking to install a new system be sure to look for the latest technology to give you the ability to save water wherever and whenever you can.
Consider the Weathermatic SL4800 12 Zone Controller for cutting edge irrigation control. You can make complicated programming decisions very easily with this unit. It allows you to add a wind sensor and rain sensor as well.
If your controller will handle lawn and landscape beds at the same time, be sure the controller has the ability to control overhead sprays as well as a drip irrigation system control. Also, if you are going to be installing the zones, make sure you separate the lawn zones, as they have much different irrigation needs than the landscape beds.Make sure you have a main shut-off valve on your main irrigation line as well, so you can service the system very easily. Right next to the main shut-off (which would be next in line to your irrigation zones) would be a back-flow preventer. This is very important too as it eliminates contaminated water from entering into the potable water source.
Moles are attracted to grubs that feed off the roots of our grass. How do you know is you have grubs? Here are a few clues. Ever notice moths skimming over the surface of your lawn, especially in the morning? Those moths are the grubs in the mature stage. Have brown rings in your lawn? Grub damage for sure.
- Grubs are the primary food for moles and moles will carve up
your land
with an incredible vigor if you have grubs. The way most people handle
grub control is by the use of products that have Diazinon as the
poisoning ingredient - look at the package.
- DON'T BUY THIS POISON!. It will get rid of your moles and
your grub
problem but it will also kill all of your song birds and weaken the
immune systems of you and your family members in the process. Use the
safe, organic method on your organic lawn.
"Milky Spore": This stuff is magic. It's totally organic, I mean you could almost eat this stuff (don't try it though). Here is what you do... If you have any of the above conditions, or if you have any mole activity do this:
Spread Milky Spore on your lawn with their Tube Applicator which is just a cardboard tube that dispenses a measured amount of the compound on the lawn when you tap it on the ground. They usually recommend you place it in a 36" square pattern of dots on your lawn. Just take big paces and at each pace, slam it onto the grass.
- How it works: The milky spore is a naturally occurring
bacteria that
happens to paralyze the digestive tract of the grub and kills them. As
the grubs die the bacteria spreads millions of spores and eventually
covers all areas of your lawn.
- Again, don't expect instant results and be patient. It takes
several (like 6) weeks to a few months to work. If you have severe mole
problems, spread it on in the early spring for results by mid-summer, with total
control by the next growing season.
It appears to be more expensive than the poison, but it's not. Once it's applied properly, it will last from 6 to 10 full years and possibly longer. I use it all the time and haven't had a mole or grub in my lawn for 30 years. Now That's a true organ lawn!
Read a complete review on Milky Spore in Green Living Made Easy's Green Product Review Section.
- Again, most people typically go to their local garden center
or super-store and pick up that good-old bag of "weed and feed". Look at
the package --- Yuck! Are you really spreading that stuff on your lawn
where your kids play, eat grass blades, dogs and cats roll on that stuff? The secret is easy.
- Hit weeds hard in the spring and do it naturally with a
natural pre-merge that I have found. It is called Corn Gluten and is available
at any well-stocked nursery center, farm and garden center, or even
some of the big box stores.
Some of the commercially available pre-merge is also Corn Gluten - again read the ingredients to be sure. Another plus of this stuff is that it is a fertilizer for your organic lawn and landscape beds as well.
Read a complete review of Corn Gluten in Green Living Made Easy's Green Product Review Section.
Another thing about weeds is that they need sun to grow. Ever notice that you hardly have any weeds in the shady part of your yard, but in the sun - Wow! This would be another reason for having a long, thick organic lawn. The longer blades of grass also shade the weed seed from germinating.
Stay on top of the weed situation in your lawn too. Get them early in the spring when they are first appearing. Then is when it is easiest to get the weed, root and all. And if you don't get the all of the root - the weed pops up again and again.
I don't know about you, but the fun of getting out and mowing your yard that first few times in the spring wears off pretty quickly and the enthusiasm that the kids have to help wears off even quicker. Therefore, the easy-mow lawn is a plan you may want to implement. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.
If you plan on re-designing your lawn, design it in such a way so there is little or no grass trimming at any beds, structures etc.. Also, design sweeping curves that allow you to mow without stopping and minimizing your turning. Don't laugh now because it really works. I have 25,000 square feet of manicured lawn and I can cut it in 23 minutes.
Have a small lawn to take care of? Consider this great eco friendly electric mower and minimize noise, and your carbon footprint. Check out the Neuton Electric Mower. Also check out our Neuton Electric Mower Product Review.
Ok I DO have a 48 mower deck but that is even the more reason to minimize square corners, tight turns and trimming up against buildings, beds etc. Another side benefit? I use a lot less gas, not to mention the time and energy spent by me. Heck, I'd rather play golf, go fishing, walk or ride my bike than spend 2 hours on my lawn. Thing is - my lawn looks fabulous!
How to change your square lawn into this sweeping organic lawn of beauty, with lots of curves, beds and landscaping? That is something we will discuss in the landscape bed design. We will cover installation of a bed in an existing lawn area and all the steps necessary to do it.
So now we know we have to have lots of curves and no square corners. What about the trees in the lawn and structures? Whether it's a single tree, or multiple trees close together, place a landscape bed around the tree(s), being careful of the radius so you can follow the bed and allow a slight overhang, of the mower deck over the bed to eliminate trimming.
Utilize the same design method with structures, including your home foundation. Place beds surrounding your home in a sweeping and rolling pattern so you can easily mow and trim at the same time.
Should you have a lawn edge that separates your lawn area from your landscape beds? That is a personal preference. There are many options available from the Black Diamond flexible plastic edging to aluminum sheets, poured concrete and pavers.
I didn't use an edge at all. What I do is use a small rear-tine Troy-Bilt Roto-Tiller and till around the entire lawn edge. When I'm done, it gives the lawn a very nice crisp look because the Troy-Bilt cuts the turf almost like a knife and the resulting tilled "path" consists of dark, fluffy-looking soil that is nicely contrasted with the emerald lawn and mulched planting beds. I treat the lawn about 4 times a year and it only takes me about 1/2 hour each time.
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