Growing a More Sustainable Lawn

People who know me very well or who have been reading this blog for any length of time know that I am not a big turf person. I think I inherited the trait from my farmer daddy. Farm work kept him so busy that he wanted a home lawn that was as low maintenance as possible. His choice? Centipedegrass. The lawn is still in place after more than 50 years of mowing. I am not sure that it has ever been fertilized.

My family lives in the home my husband's grandparents built on 6 acres more than 50 years ago. About four of those acres were originally pasture and were planted mostly likely in common bermudagrass. One small patch near the house is in centipedegrass, but the majority of the lawn is in zoysiagrass. Dr. Beth Guertal, who is a turf scientist at Auburn University, told me years ago that it's probably a variety called 'Matrella.'

My husband and I both work full-time and we have a young daughter so, like my daddy ,we want a lawn that is as low maintenance as possible. Mow it. Fertilize it sometimes, but not often. Now, it does not look like a hole at Augusta National, but it suits our family. There is ample, healthy lawn for my daughter, her friends and the dogs to play on. We have made choices that fit our lifestyle.

Who knew that meant we were growing a sustainable lawn? We live with the weeds or hand pull the ones that bother us. We let the clippings stay on the lawn to return nutrients to the soil. We don't have an irrigation system so when the drought set in several years ago, we let it go dormant. Yes-I mean we let it go brown in the middle of summer. But you know what? When the rains came in the fall, it greened back up.

These are just a couple of things that Dr. David Han, a turf specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and I talked about recently when we visited more in-depth about sustainable lawns.

To hear more from Dr. Han about making your lawn more sustainable, listen to him on Backyard Wisdom here.

Now is the Time for Seed Catalogs

Weather may be cold across the South, but a horticulture specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System says now is the time to check out the seed catalogs. Dr. Raymond Kessler, who is also an Auburn University professor of horticulture, says gardeners should take time now to review seed catalogs.

"There really is nothing better to do on a cold winter night than to settle into a comfortable chair and shop the seed catalogs for flower seeds," he says. "For serious gardeners, it's akin to years ago when children pored over the Sears Wish Book picking out what they wanted for Christmas."

He says whether gardeners are shopping from catalogs or online the options can be mind-boggling.

To learn from Dr. Kessler about the ins and out of catalog shopping, listen to him on the Backyard Wisdom podcast on the Auburn University iTunes site.