Here are two good and different ways to think about having a lawn that you can love all summer long.
One way is to use a seed mix that promises lush green summer growth without requiring (after an initial establishment period) watering, fertiziler, or frequent mowing. Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin has long offered a “No-Mow Lawn Mix” (which would better be titled “low-mow,” only you mow it high, not low), and now Pearls Premium offers “Ultra Low Maintenance” lawn seed, a mix of deep-rooted grasses (mostly fescues) that can weather drought and which its developer, Jackson Madnick, calls ”the only ultra low maintenance grass seed blended for our climate.” Today’s Globe article, quoting Sharon water conservation specialist Paul Lauenstein, identifies “rich organic dirt.” as the key to success.*
In much of the region, of course, our dirt is not rich and organic. In many places it is shallow and rocky, and in large areas it is mostly sand. Long-time residents of coastal areas have developed different expectations for their lawns. On Cape Cod, most lawns are thin and fine-textured, soft** but not moist under bare feet, brownish green or greenish brown for most of the summer, and interspersed with drifts of small flowering plants. The Orleans Pond Coalition, in its efforts to reduce fertilizer runoff into Cape Cod wetlands, promotes the “traditional Cape yard” in their smart and useful publication Recovery from Lawn Obsession.
Cape Cod Lawn
Too many Cape Cod lawns are becoming “Chatham Lawns.” Maybe more New England lawns should become Cape Cod lawns.
* In my experience, the other key is timing. As gardeners know, fast-growing plants suppress weeds better than slow-growing plants. So with a slow-growing lawn mix, it’s important to time the planting to give your lawn a head start on weeds. Prairie Nursery’s catalog, online at their web site, has some good advice on this.
** I just did a test walk on the Bristol County equivalent of a Cape Cod lawn and I feel compelled to add here the words”scratchy” and “crunchy,” especially after a mowing.
Deborah Howe
Toby Wolf
Your Cape Cod lawn photo shows another couple of factor that may affect how much effort a lawn takes: shade and other plants. Choosing the right seed mix for light/shade conditions may make the difference between a lawn that grows and thrives (soil and moisture conditions being taken care of, that is). And letting other plants give a floor to open space can help limit the size of a lawn to what makes sense for its owners (these owners clearly have lounging and activity priorities that may or may not require lawn underfoot…..).
I have to say that that hammock looks awfully inviting, and is probably a good way to relieve one’s feet from the scratchy and crunchy lawn below.