Posted on 08/24/2014 10:58:22 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Rick Blankenship was tired of an insatiable lawn he couldn’t keep green, no matter how he watered it, so he decided to tear it out. […]
As California faces an historic drought, more residents are following in Blankenship’s footsteps and tearing out thirsty lawns to cut down on water use. Water agencies across the state have been encouraging the change by offering thousands of dollars in rebates to help homeowners make the switch to a drought-friendly landscape with better odds of surviving dry spells common to the local climate.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which covers 19 million people, received requests to remove 2.5 million square feet in residential lawns in July, up from 99,000 in January, said Bill McDonnell, the consortium's water efficiency manager. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Seriously? If it is a cold winter-again-that St. Augustine is going to freeze and croak, and you’ll be out a lot of money. Unless you live near the coast where it rains, may I suggest a lawn of native buffalo grass or sahara Bermuda? Both are very drought tolerant and almost never need mowing-both are planted on this couple of acres and it is very nice. HOAs often don’t make much sense...
I’ve lived in North Central Florida for ten years and never watered my lawn once. Except for the rare drought, we get enough rain for my St Augustine to thrive.
Mud slides. Everything leads to mud slides.
Not seeing as many lawn service trailers in Lakeway lately. Odd.
I’ve never had someone do my yard in the city, when I lived there-and out here, you either have a riding mower, or you trade mowing help with a neighbor who does have one-mowing is just trimming native weeds and grass anyway-it cuts easily with a rider, deck set about medium high...
That's great news for me. I'm a rain gutter contractor ;-)
Actually, that's great news for Texas in general. Our lakes in North Texas are still mighty low from years of reduced rainfall.
You get it-cool-as you say, no gym needed-healthy, fresh air, all natural and cheap...
so does buffalo grass look nice when cut? How close to common lawn grass does it look like when trimmed?
Here in South Central MO we are in a drought and if I can find some grass seed that works in dry summers, I’ll give it a shot.
Even though our soil here is rocky and pretty lousy, I do like the look of a nice cut lawn. Because I won’t use my well to water the lawn, I won’t cut it for periods of time when it gets hot and dry.
I knew a family in SoCal who did their whole back yard in Astroturf. Every few years they'd call out the contractor to re-do it, but they saved a chunk of money in water and maintenance costs.
I do it myself and pay myself illegal alien wages for mowing and trimming. I spread tar on one of my roofs last week. No illegal aliens needed
Me the same. I mow my own
Me either.
We pay our 16 year old daughter $40 to do ours every two weeks. Once a year, I get an honest American landscape service out to trim our trees and shrubs.
YES YES YES. The d@mn grass (really special weeds) just keeps growing and growing here in SFL. Been raining almost every day. Geesh.
The buffalo grass is native to a lot of Texas-here, it grows on thin soil over solid limestone-even in little pockets in the rock itself. It is a clumping grass that spreads by deep runners as well as seed. It looks nice when untrimmed since it doesn’t grow very tall, and you can’t cut it close-you will kill it-if you must cut it, don’t do it more than a few times a year. It doesn’t freeze in severe winters like St Augustine does, either. It does not look like your conventional city lawn grass, but it is nice to walk on with bare feet, and a pretty shade of darker green.
We have wells here, too and water is for humans, gardens and livestock-not for lawns, so it sounds like the buffalo would work there, if the winters are not too cold. Be sure and look up the grass to make sure it can survive the winters where you are-it does not snow a lot here-the cultivated variety that is sold most places is called Comanche Buffalo grass.
AMEN!
Hose? you mean Jose?
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Ah yes, gated communities. There IS a price to pay, isn't there?
Better to be in an ordinary (AND GOOD) neighborhood and have the flora you CHOOSE to have.
thanks for the info Texan. May not work here. Although we don’t have brutal winters here, last winter we had a spell of about 2 months of many days 0-20 degrees.
According to the literature on it-buffalo grass grows on the plains as far as Montana-so you should be okay-just get the seeds or plugs from the grower closest to you, to be safe.
One nice thing about the stuff is that it is attractive in a rural setting because it has enough spaces between plants to allow wildflowers and taller grasses-sideoats gramma is a pretty one-to grow in the lawn-the darker color really shows the other plants off. Buffalo grass should not be mowed when it is blooming, so it will seed and spread that way, as well as the runners-it won’t get any taller than 5-6 inches anyway...
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