Our Eco-lawn experiment-Year 2

In the spring/ summer of 2010 we installed Eco-lawn in our front and back yard. Read our last update on the grass  here.

The Eco-lawn did fabulously well in winter, there was just very minimal browning with the grass going dormant in winter. Early in April 2011 we removed all the weeds that had sprung up and re-seeded the lawn.

You can see the extent of browning here.

Now that the heat has started to pick up here, we would be turning on the sprinklers. We will update the progress on the Eco-lawn performance and water requirements now that it is "established" well.

The grass update

It has been a while since I posted anything about our eco-lawn project. We have had a lot going on with the veggie garden that has distracted us for the last few months. Not that anyone is reading or asking about it, but as our diary, one such update is long overdue. Our earlier posts are here (under the label "Grass")

First, the front lawn

This was seeded in mid June before Guru left for NJ and looked just OK when we returned. There were sections (like the one below) that were completely bald. What you see below are the small bunches that we attempted to re-plant in that bald section. We are happy to report that these plantings are doing very well and seem to be taking root. The bald spots were in areas where our "self designed and installed" sprinklers didn't cover and thereby prevented germination. We have also seen fresh growth in this area once we started hand watering these spots.

The back lawn is a totally different story

There were a lot of big bald patches in the back lawn (read here) that we reseeded in early June (read here). Thanks to the unseasonal cold weather we have been experiencing in the bay area this year a majority of the bald spots that we re-seeded showed signs of growth.

The big picture

...and a close up of the part that showed some promise

...and the one that didn't

The parts that were seeded first were also getting really long and we hadn't mowed this thing even once. Heck...we didn't own a mower to begin with.(More on our mowing story in the next post)

The shocking thing has been the brown spots that began emerging in the grass. We initially thought that  the browning was due to the reduced watering cycle we had put in place at around the same time. What struck me as weird were the innumerable small creatures that would hop when you walked on the grass. 

Thanks to Google and the power of the Internet, we soon figured we had a Leaf Hopper problem. However, the surprising thing is that almost all the on-line resources claim that Leaf Hoppers do not cause significant damage. Either we are outliers or my diagnosis is totally wrong. In my book this does seem like a significant amount of damage.

We have also seen a pretty significant number of Yellow Jackets buzzing over the lawn. Are they after the Leaf Hoppers or are they causing any damage to the lawn? Would love to hear any suggestions you may have.

So far, our method of dealing with any problem in the garden is to give things a good shower of Neem, which we did for 3 consecutive weeks. The number of Leaf Hoppers seems to have reduced visibly when we walk on the grass. We are hoping the grass recovers from this onslaught.

Watching grass grow-Week 1 in the front yard

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience.

Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
-Hal Borland, Countryman: A Summary of Belief

We had a lawn in the front yard when we moved in. But it was in pretty bad shape, badly infested with weeds and the soil extremely compacted. Not to mention the large bald spots under the huge oaks in the front.

There were a bunch of leaky pipes in the irrigation system, and so we turned it off soon after we moved in. During the first year we pruned the oaks ourselves and had them chipped and dumped in the front. This helped to completely kill any remnants of the grass over the last 2 years. Once we had the oaks pruned further (professionally this time...) we cleared the wood chips away for use around our planter beds in the back. Right on cue the weeds and remnants of the old Bermuda grass began to emerge prolifically this spring. I foresee lots of competition before the Bermuda grass lets go in our front yard….you call that persistence !

And this is the cleaned up look, after we removed all the woodchips that was home to critters and what not. But then the ravens were having a feast until then !

The front yard is going to be a completely different challenge in comparison to the backyard.

We started off by removing all the Euryops and relocating the Red Tip Photonias to the front and For starters, we have a lot of shade in the front yard. But interestingly, the eco-lawn seems to be doing well in shade. In under 5 days we were able to see the green mossy look.

In 10 days, the growth was significant

Watching grass grow- Week 5

In creating, the only hard thing's to begin; a grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak.

-   James Russell Lowell

Our biggest challenge thus far has been the squirrels, who have been digging frantically all over the lawn, both in the open spots and playing golf in the green areas generating large divots. Their activity does not seem to be limited to the lawn alone; they have been wrecking havoc in our vegetable beds, and most annoyingly chewing on the ice-cream sticks I used to mark the nature of seeds I have planted. My suspicion is that they are getting help from our winged friends who have a "raven"-ous appetite for pulling out the sticks every day.

The big bald patches we have don’t seem to be filling up either, so we have re-seeded the lawn in all the bald spots. The areas with the bald spots seem to be drying up faster than the rest of the lawn area and I am wondering if the germination did not happen because the area wasn’t graded well in those regions

But the grass is indeed as soft as the breast of doves

We started off watering for 15 mins every day and have brought it down to 12 mins after the first 5 weeks. Hopefully we can reduce the watering frequency pretty soon once the reseeded areas show growth. I am excited to see how well the eco-lawn does with low watering, now that it is getting close to being "established".

But at the end of the day.....we decided to go with the eco-lawn option in our front yard as well. So I am going to be watching the grass grow yet again....assuming the squirrels let them grow !

Watching grass grow- Week 4

The progress during week 4 has been fairly significant. But the bald patches still remain. To add to my worries, the squirrels have been digging around all over the garden and the lawn in full vigor. 

The weeds have also started to show up fairly rapidly and for the first time in 4 weeks i decided to walk over the lawn area and hand pick the weeds. I am happy to report that the young blades of grass took it well. There was no visible sign of damage by me walking around. And what a big stash of weeds....! 

                                                                      

Also hiding behind the fine blades of grass is.......

                                                                 

Watching grass grow- Week 3

"It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by  people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves,like grass" (One Writer's beginnings, Ch 1) 

It is week 3 of the eco-lawn experiment and I sorely wish that the grass would just come up everywhere I had seeded.

There is a big bald patch in the middle, I wonder why. The initial thought was that the grass was growing well around the sprinklers. But during this past week we had unseasonal rains and temperatures that dipped at night to below the 50's very consistently.

We are planning to wait a couple more weeks before we re-seeds again in the bald patches.

Watching grass grow- Week 2

There has been a lot of change in 1 week (actually lesser), more green and the patch is beginning to look like a lawn (in the making).

I was skeptical about the germination rates of the eco-lawn expressed by people who had used it before. So far so good....I think. Guru is still skeptical and the bald spots in the middle concern him.

We have not had any issues with birds eating the seeds, but in the last few days we have seen the squirrels run across the lawn and sometimes digging. I wonder why....digging for grubs? But it a newly tilled and cleaned area with almost 4 inches of fresh compost. And they have the rest of the yard with all the grubs and stuff to dig to their hearts content.

Watching grass grow- Week 1

The following pictures were taken on day 10 (May 9, 2010) since the eco-lawn seeds were sown (April 29, 2010)

The temperature has been in the 70's all week with no rains

This is the close up view (looking North) of the small blades of grass that almost seemed to have sprung up overnight

Here is a bigger picture perspective

This is the view looking East

And the view looking South

Watching grass grow- Week 0

After 2 years of analysis and reading up on lawn options, we decided to go with the eco-lawn.

My first choice all along was the U C Verde Buffalo grass. But a lot has changed since the idea was first rooted in my head, and the biggest one has been the "budget" as you have heard many a times before. As much as i loved everything about the U C Verde, it was way outside the range of what we could afford at this point. I wasn't ready to shrink the size of the lawn in the backyard or live with other alternatives. The eco-lawn is fairly in-expensive in comparison and seems to be doing well so far.

We started off with a clean slate. The lawn is covering the same area where the pool was and we made sure this place was prepped up well.

We had lots of rocks/concrete and bricks all over the garden. Not to mention the clayey soil that is present all over the bay area

We roto-tilled the area well, and added a nice chunk of compost into the clay and a couple of inches of just pure compost on the top. Into it went the seeds of the eco-lawn.

I hope to diligently track it's progress here every week (as you might see, I am writing about week 0 after week 1....so much for my diligence)...possibly watch the grass grow sipping glass of lemonade on the shade.

Front yard dilemma-part 1

So here is one of the many challenges i face in my garden- The front yard

This is how the place looked when we bought the house in April of 2008. The house faces East on a busy road. The lovely shade is from 4 huge "live oaks" that looked like they were never pruned for ages. There were a lot of branches that were reeling under the excess weight.
















Right underneath the oaks were some very leggy shrubs and some very leggy jasmine that did not get any sunlight.

In the last year or so we have been busy working on fixing up the inside of the house and never got around to planting or doing anything.

One thing i figured out early on was that the grass had to go....period ! I had turned off the entire sprinkler system in the house. The pipes in the back were broken when the pool and all the asphalt and concrete was removed. The front yard does not have anything nice that i want to keep. I also added a good few inches of fresh wood-chips that came from the pruning of our oaks to get rid of the grass. Late this summer when i moved the wood-chips i was glad to see all the grass gone. There are a few that are sprouting back after the rains in the past few weeks.

Here is how the front yard looks after the oaks have been pruned.


One of my biggest challenges in the front yard is the lack of privacy and my options to plant under the oak that might give me some much needed privacy on a busy road.

Any suggestions fellow bloggers...