Take This Lawn and Shove It

I have come to a decision. I will not mow my lawn anymore. This last summer I struggled with temperatures in the high 90's for a near record number of days in a row. So yesterday, after not mowing the lawn for a month I sprayed my front turf area with glyphosate (more on this controversial subject later) and started the long road toward a sustainable yard. Over the last fifteen years at this residence I have removed nearly 70% of the turfgrass that swathed the property when we bought this 1947 ranch style home. Of the 30% remaining, one third has been replaced with buffalograss and one third has been replaced with a dwarf-type fescue/bluegrass mix from Graff's Turf Farm. The remaining third was a mix of bluegrass and fine fescue--a near necessary evil for the shady area this turf covered before the worst drought in three hundred years. A huge snowstorm had damaged the leaders in several Colorado Blue Spruce (Picea pungens), attracting Spruce Ips Beetle. Stressed from the many years of drought and neglect, five of eight of our 40 feet tall, mature Blue Spruce died. Suddenly, that shade tolerant turf was burning up in our high altitude sun. This summer I wouldn’t put enough water on the turf to keep it from going dormant in the heat of the summer. The turf came back once our temperatures cooled off but I was done mowing. Dripping wet (quite an indicator in our low humidity climate) I made a mental list of the reasons to take my lawn and shove it.

• Resource Use—Keeping cool season turf grasses such as bluegrass and fescues from going dormant or dying during the warm season takes a lot of water, fertilizer and time. I have an irrigation system that is programmed for optimum efficiency, but parts of the lawn went dormant even though I watered every third day (I put the water on slowly using rotor heads with several hours lag time in between soakings in order to let the water percolate into the root zone).

• Pollution—I have a ten year old mower that puts out more pollutants in one hour than a new car driven 340 miles. The pollutants include carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxides. Mowing my lawn twenty times a year puts out nearly as much pollution as driving my car for a year (I drive a hybrid SUV). I don’t use herbicides routinely on my lawn and am careful not to over-fertilize—two additional potential pollutants.

• Lack of biodiversity—Any single species turf lacks as a habitat for wildlife. Any multi-species turf grass that is mowed is a poor habitat because flowers never have the chance to bloom. Even though I have a relatively small amount of turf grass, I can increase the biodiversity of my landscape by changing to multiple species of native grasses and low growing wildflowers.