Native Lawns

HOW TO ARTICLE:
How to Install a Multi-Species Native Lawn for Less Mowing, Less Watering, Less Weeding and, Yes, Less Guilt. Click here to read the the article

Mount Vernon was the first house in North America to have a lawn as a part of the designed landscape

Save on mowing, watering, weeding and feeding with a lawn of native grasses.

Americans love their lawns. But most of them are non-native grasses like St. Augustine that succumbs easily to pests and disease, or bermudagrass that needs constant mowing and can be invasive, or Kentucky bluegrass that needs a lot of water. Non-native lawns require a lot of time and money to keep that ‘velvet carpet' appearance. As a solution, Wildflower Center ecologist Mark Simmons has been leading research on a mixtureof drought-adaptednative grasses that cut down on mowing, watering, weeding and feeding. The research clearly demonstrates that it takes less effort to maintain a lawn of mixed native turf grasses than a non-native lawn.

The study draws from knowledge that America's native grasslands include many turf grass species already adapted to our climate and able to coexist as a stable plant community. Put together in a multi-species mix, these native grass species can provide the same appearance and function as non-native monocultures, without requiring a massive input of weed killer and watering, and with much lower rates of mowing.

Using a grant from Wal-Mart, the Lady Bird Wildflower Center is in year two of an effort to develop a multi-species turf grass that conserves water, is disease resistant and stands up to foot traffic, while creating the thick, lush lawn beloved by homeowners.

So far observations at the Wildflower Center test site have shown that the native seed mix outperforms Bermudagrass in terms of rates of establishment, thickness of the turf, mowing rates and weed resistance (see example graphs below). The grasses currently being tested include several native species that are prevalent in the Great Plains of North America, including Buffalo grass (Bouteloua dactyloides), and blue grama, (Bouteloua gracilis). Some other species in the current mix may be replaced in the future as we learn what works best in Central Texas, and expand our study to consider alternative native seed mixes for use in different regions of the country.

Visitors to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center cansee the native turf grass plots (shown at left), which are accessible from the Restoration Research Trail.

Turf Grass Comparisons



Native grasses are better at keeping out weeds than bermudagrass


A mixture of native grasses can have over twice the leaf density than bermudagrass