Clarifying my view on lawns

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I’ve spent some time thinking about my opinion on lawns. I like water-wise landscaping and being environmentally conscious, so that means I don’t like lawns, right? Well, not really. I was going over some old school notes, and saw the good points of lawns. Here they are:

  • Tolerate traffic, and lots of it
  • Protect soil and adds organic matter
  • Prevent erosion
  • Sequester carbon (Getting rid of the growing CO2 and greenhouse gases)
  • Keeps down the heat
  • Prevent weeds
  • Productive

In many situations, the replacement for lawn would be pavement. No other plant can take the abuse that we give to our lawns. What other surface is as playable, usable, and as pretty as lawn? It is better to have a living, purposeful thing than weeds or pavement. And lawn itself is not bad for the environment: as a plant it is very GOOD.

So what’s the big deal about getting rid of our lawns. Well, here’s the bad about lawns.

  • Chemical use, including pesticides and fertilizers
  • Water use, especially culinary water
  • Mono-cultures: nothing but lawn
  • Emissions from lawn mowers, weed whackers

In this list, I think a lot of it goes back to management. Chemical use can be reduced to virtually nothing, and water use decreased. We don’t have to get rid of the lawn to get rid of the bad effects of our lawn. I think more education is warranted on better, sustainable management of a lawn.

But that doesn’t mean I like to see large fields of useless lawn. Although it is better than weeds or pavement, lawn is better used incorporated with other plantings. Trees, shrubs, and perennials should all be incorporated in every landscape. Lawn is not a filler plant. Give it more credit. It is the solution for large traffic areas, and the only one that involves plants. Large areas that seem to have no functional use would be better adapted to solutions like shrub and perennial beds. My last post is a great example.

Sum up: Lawn is good. Just don’t use it everywhere.

Corner Garden

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So I wanted to start a new idea on my blog. My own garden is small and not always that interesting to write about. So each week I will feature a garden/landscape that I find interesting. I think I’ll try to keep it on Wednesday, but if it doesn’t show up until later don’t feel too sad. To start this off, I would like to share a garden created on an awkward corner in Springville. I saw this earlier in the year and thought it was a big patch of weeds. Look at it now:

Not at all what I thought it was. The “weeds” I saw earlier were actually a bunch of wonderful perennials. Now that they’ve started to bloom, this garden is a unique, inviting place. I’m not actually quite sure who owns it, so have very little information on the care and creation. The perennials have been allowed to naturalize, along with the trees and shrubs. I’m guessing the largest maintenance task is weeds, but not a lot else. And with the more casual look, a weed here and there (and there are few weeds) don’t look that bad. There are some annuals planted, a step I think is unnecessary due to the beauty of the perennials. The ground is covered in back mulch (which I need to do in my own garden). Mulch is GOOD and helps keep other maintenance tasks (like weeding) down.

They’ve used aspen, and several of the trees are dead. I kind of like the aspen in a situation like this. They can be allowed to sucker, and old dead ones are easily removed. There are also several native Rocky Mountain Junipers. The woody material provides a great backbone for the rest of the plants.

This is a great way to use extra garden space–naturalized perennials, with a woody plant backbone. Much better than lawn, and you might be surprised with how little maintenance you can get away with. Be sure to pick vigours perennials. Here they have Jupiter’s Beard (Centranthus ruber), Golden Marguerite (Anthemis tinctoria), Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), Yarrow (Achillea), Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantina), Blue Fescue (Festuca glauca), and Feather Reed Grass (Calamagrostis acutiflora). There are some others that aren’t blooming that and I haven’t bothered to identify. (I had a tricky time with golden marguerite. I was thinking “marguerite” looked up marguerite daisy, and it wasn’t it. Took me a while to get it right).

What’s wrong with this tree?

I was walking through the neighborhood, and passed by some pretty horrid looking sycamore trees. They looked very dead. I had also seen a similar looking tree by my grandmas. After working for the Extension service for many years, I had to find out what was causing it. I got on my computer, and in about 2 minutes (Working for the Extension service made me fast. I don’t know everything, but I’m fast at finding answers.) I found the problem. Anthracnose.

I thought the trees were dead but I have some great news: they aren’t. (Although it looks pretty severe and it can eventually result in death. Just not usually.)   So, little background. Anthracnose is a fungal disease that attacks a variety of shade trees. The one I saw was sycamore anthracnose. The reason it is so dramatic is the very cold wet weather we have been having lately.

For control: keep trees healthy. Use sanitation by destroying fallen leaves/other debris to prevent overwintering. Prune out dead branches. You can use fungicides to prevent it if you know it’s going to be a cold wet spring. (But try spraying a 30+ foot tree. It probably won’t do that much anyway, and it’s hard to predict cold wet springs). It’s a plant disease, usually non fatal. One thing about plant diseases is there is simply no miracle way to control them.

Check out this link for more info: Anthracnose

Update

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None of my pictures are working. I am hoping this isn’t permanent.

Anyway, life is normal. It is finally getting hot. My garden is growing. I ate my first radish today, the first produce out of my garden. I don’t like radishes. But it was still fun. Peter is very close to crawling. He tries…and goes backwards. Very frustrating for him, and I want him to crawl because I think I will have a happier baby. I’m not looking forward to him getting into everything.

This is Peter helping me garden

So lately, I’ve done two things to save money that I’m a little proud of. I started cloth diapers after talking to a lady in my ward who did them. I am only doing it to save money, and it isn’t horrible. I think the worst thing about them is getting started. There are way too many products out there. The second thing I did was cut my own hair. I have a long history of bad haircuts, and my hair was awful. Curly hair is hard to cut, and everyone’s curly hair is a little different.  So after much deliberation, I cut in some random layers. Now I love my hair.

Here’s a picture from a hike with my sister, Rissy. We went up the left fork of Maple Canyon for about a half mile. Carrying Peter, that was plenty long.

Central Utah Gardens

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The water conservation districts around here have all formed demonstration garden showcasing waterwise landscaping. I’ve been to the Weber Basin and Jordan Valley gardens, but had yet to go to the one now closest to my house. It is only a few years old. I’m used to new landscapes, and it felt very familiar to the Utah Botanical Center were I interned for a summer.

They had lots of good plants, irrigation demonstrations, kitchen gardens, signs and more. One of the coolest demonstrations they had was two mock houses. One was a traditional, non water-wise landscape; the other was better designed and more water efficient. I hope to transform many yards from the first to the second. Or something along the same lines. I’m a bit more of an eccentric designer. Some of the differences was more planting beds that had shape to them, less lawn, and tall fescue instead of kentucky bluegrass.

A traditional yard. Not too interesting.

This one looks much better. Why doesn't everyone do this?

They did have a good selection of plants on display, and better marked than I have seen before. The only downside was their plant list, readily available at the entrances to the garden, was organized by common name. Which doesn’t help if what I know as Jupiter’s Beard is something else entirely. It also keeps things like different types of geraniums all in different places. Jordan Valley did this too. It’s a good plant list, but not one I’ll use because of the difficulty in finding anything.

On my way out, I noticed a native plant garden that I completely missed. Good reason to go back. If you are in the area, I highly recommend going. Best garden I’ve seen this year.

The Garden

All I have left to plant is a couple of Geraniums in my patio garden. It’s been a nice little project, and I’m hoping for some produce later on in the season. I planted my vegetables in large planters. I’ve put way too many plants in each pot, but I’m not sure what I want just yet. I’ll pull out the extra later. I found a good deal on two Lamium plants. I’m not sure exactly what they are do to poor labeling at the garden center, but one has pink flowers and the other white. I’m hoping they will grow together now.

I fertilized a couple of days ago. I’ve found that in potted gardens fertilizing is crucial to have good plants. The potting soil just doesn’t hold onto nutrients the same as regular soil, and it is usually devoid of them to begin with. Previously, I’ve just used miracle-gro, but this year I tried a polymer-coated slow release fertilizer. The analysis was 18-6-8, much better than a balanced fertilize like 16-16-16. Plants don’t use equal amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, so a fertilizer like I have is better.

After using it, I realized I had just ruined any claim I could use to call my produce organic. Chemical fertilizers are on the list of things to not do. But they extremely convenient. My other alternatives would be compost or fish emulsifier. One needs to be incorporated, and the other stinks (literally, not figuratively). So chemical fertilizers won out this year, but I’ll still try and avoid other chemicals like nasty pesticides.

Camping

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We went on our first camping trip with Peter this past weekend. I decided to go up Hobble Creek canyon to Cherry campground because it was close, but mostly that’s where I found a campsite. So on Friday, we loaded up and headed out. It went very well too. Peter slept fine, we had fun roasting huge marshmallows and eating tin foil dinners. The next morning, we packed up and went on a hike.

The hike was the left fork of Day’s Canyon, and it left from the campground. I printed out the USGS map, but didn’t look at it. Turns out the trail involved crossing the stream 15 times! This wasn’t over bridges but wading right through or using an occasional log. I’m glad Joe was carrying Pete–we wouldn’t have made it far if I was. I get a bit scared crossing on logs. At the end of all the crossings was a beautiful meadow where we had lunch. Great hike for a hot day, just make sure you are wearing something that can get wet. We had our Chaco’s on, so it worked great.

Diamond Fork Hot Springs

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I went on a hike with my two wacky brothers a couple of weeks ago. We went up to the hot springs up Diamond Fork Canyon. It was a good hike to the springs, and then we had hot dogs for lunch and soaked in the hot springs. The pools we were at weren’t that hot, so Peter got to join us. He had lots of fun kicking and splashing in the water.

Mishaps

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So, Joe and I went Frisbee golfing one evening. There’s a course not too far from our house I discovered on a walk with Peter. When we got there, it was a little windy. Now the advice for the day…Don’t go frizbee golfing when it’s windy. We were okay until hole 5, although our disks tended to fly quite far and in the wrong direction if you through it up to far. Joe throws his with his muscular power, and it flies away to a think a new record distance for him, although not towards the hole. He went to go find it, and I throw mine. I threw it into some bushes, but at least not over the fence. Upon further investigation, I threw it right in the middle of this monstrous wild rose bush.

So I go to get it, trying to bypass the thorns, and the boggy mess surrounding it.  I stumbled into the boggy mess, and instead of getting my show muddy…I ended up stepping in a big hole and fell up to my chest in mud and water. It was cold, and wet, and gross. I also scratched up my arms due to the roses and getting out. But I did get out. And Joe got my frisbee. Some other people finally found his, very far from where he was looking. We stopped playing, and I walked home.

Here’s how I looked:

Another funny story:  I went to do some hand dishes, and got distracted. I come back, who knows when later, and there was soap a foot a half high and water spilling onto the counter and floor. I felt very I Love Lucyish.

Final thing: Peter finally figured out he could roll from his tummy to back. Strange little kid, glad he’s figured it out.

Invasive Species

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A post at garden rant got me thinking today. And then I went and read another article that they pointed me to. The whole subject is weeds again. Those horrid things that we would all like to get rid of…or do we?

In my weeds class, we spent an entire lecture going over the definition of a weed. There is no easy answer. My favorite is a plant in an unwanted place. It’s one you want to get rid of. But do we really want to get rid of all our weeds? The post pointed out that many weeds provide the benefits of plants in places that would otherwise be bare–like a dandelion in a sidewalk crack. That is a good thing, really. And I’ve always been a fan of things like clover in lawn. It fixates nitrogen, and can reduce the need for the tremendous amount of fertilizer we like to put on our lawns. It forms a nice, symbiotic relationship with the grass.

But I thought they were drawing the line a little too far going on to say that tamarisk is a good plant. It’s drying up our stream beds, and replacing other, better species. I know there is an endangered bird nesting in them. But there were nesting trees before tamarisk–ones that didn’t dry up the stream beds, and create a monoculture of a single plant.

Where do I draw my line? If a plant helps biodiversity, it’s good. So a dandelion in a sidewalk crack–good. The hordes of maples planted as street trees–not so good. Invasive, like purple loosestrife that take over acres of previously biodiverse wetland–horrible. We need as many plants as we can get, but they should help encourage a nice, biodiverse ecosystem. Biodiversity means everything works better, it survives better, and it looks better.

We need diverse plantings in our yards if we keep replacing wildland with them too. So try not to fill up your yard just with Kentucky bluegrass.