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Alternative To Grass; Something better
Topic Started: Oct 28 2004, 11:45 PM (151 Views)
roboots
Member
Does anyone know of a lawn vegetation that is better than standard grass? Something drought resistant or that will provide a similar effect without so much cutting. Lately a part of our lawn seems to have been taken over by what I suspect is a weed but the stuff never grows high like grass and actually looks nice. We are planing a new home on a piece of land that has second growth trees on it and we want to create a yard that will utilize the existing trees as much as possible rather than rip the place apart and destroy the beautiful setting only to replace everything with a bland grass lawn.However we want some open ground near the house to have a bit of a lawn.There is a nice mixture of trees predominated by spruce of varying heights and some others such as birch and wild cherry and some that we haven't identified.
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sylley2000
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Sylvia, Grand Bend ON
What you are looking for is increasingly being sought by homeowners. We had decided when we built this our last home, that we would xeriscape it. We left a large portion of the front yard completely natural. It has quite a few oak and cherry trees. We put a curving pathway, using flagstone, from the porch to the driveway. Haydn built a bench out of seasoned driftwood that we found in the village recycling depot before they burned it.. We collected granite rocks on several drives in the country. Farmers loved us because we took away the rocks that they had piled up to be taken away.

The rocks were used to outline four planting areas. That formed the hardscape for the front together with the driveway. Railway ties were used on both sides for planters and for a short retaining wall at the front--they were about $10 each.

Only bought two trees--a cherry for the front and a weeping peatree. They both flower in the spring and have berries in the fall. I do like shrubs and bought quite a few of them. I also got some rugosa-type rose bushes. There are quite a few rugosa-type rose bushes across the front of the house before our property begins, as well as wild ferns, black-eyed susan's, and strawberry plants.

Suggest you look carefully at what grows naturally around your house and plant things that will adapt to your soil, water and light conditions. Our front yard is primarily shade. Where we haven't planned perennial beds, we planted Periwinkle. It's a ground cover that grows wild in a cemetary not far from us. They gave us their permission to dig some up. It's very low-growing and requires no maintenance.

In the back and across the front where there is some sun, I bought some seed for Mother-of-Thyme. It's maximum height is about 8".

It takes some planning and effort to get the groundcovers established. There will be nothing on our property that requries mowing, fertlizing, or frequent watering.

Check with someone who is knowledgeable about xeriscaping for your area to choose plants that will require the least amount of maintenance.

We love it and would never have a house that has a manicured lawn again.

Sylvia

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passinthru
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John - Gainesville, FL
I used blue rug juniper to replace part of my lawn; it spreads and grows about 3-4" high. Makes a nice ground cover. Also used Asiatic jasmine, but it grows to about a foot high and engulfs everthing; don't know that I would use it again. I trim the edges with the electric hedge clipper and it works well. I spray a pre-emergent twice a year to keep unwanted weeds out and have to do yard work about one day a quarter, but I'm not real picky.
Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money...
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roboots
Member
Thanks guys. That is exactly what we want to do. I would never have known that the word "xeriscape" even existed. I did a google search and found lots of good information on the subject.
When we were looking at the property last summer--It's on Prince Edward Island we took a quick inventory of the things that were growing there but as usual have forgotten a lot. I recall lupins and low bush blueberries, ferns and some other things were all over the place and that's the way that we want to keep it. On one property that we looked at someone had dumped some garden waste and there were huge beautiful Dahlias growing wild in the bush.What a surprise.
We will be down there to supervise the clearance of a space for our home so the dozer operator doesn't wreck the place.
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karmasasha
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My back and side yards are "natural". I also have 10 colorado spruce and 2 very large oak trees not shown. I love it and the dogs have great fun back there.
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