Home › Lawns for the North › Lawns for the North: Kentucky

Lawns for the North: Kentucky

The most common and satisfactory lawn seed mixture for the northern states is sixteen parts by weight of Kentucky blue grass, four parts of recleaned redtop, and one part of white clover. It should be used at the rate of one pound to each three hundred square feet of lawn or one hundred and twenty pounds per acre. The Kentucky blue grass is adapted to the northeastern states and the northwestern coast. It thrives on limy soil and will occasionally grow on land devoid of lime if the drainage is extra good. It makes a dense, vivid green turf except during midsummer when it is adversely affected by hot weather. It should not be confused with Canada blue grass which produces a tough but not dense or attractive turf and sometimes succeeds where the soil is too thin for Kentucky blue grass. Redtop succeeds under a very large range of soil conditions, from drought to wet land. It is one of the best grasses for poor soils throughout the whole of the eastern United States and thus succeeds where blue grass fails. It does not make a dense turf unless planted thickly and mowed closely. White clover as a turf plant succeeds on poor soils, forms a dense, close mat, and stands mowing well. If Kentucky blue grass is sown alone one hundred and fifty pounds per acre are required and liming is beneficial. If redtop is seeded alone forty pounds of fancy "recleaned" seed per acre are sufficient and no lime is needed. Clover is never sown in a clean stand but may be sown with or after grass seed at the rate of ten pounds of seed per acre. For a fine turf similar to putting greens, use Chewing's or New Zealand red fescue, which is a grass having a dark green colour and which makes a solid, compact turf. It is particularly adapted to sowing on sandy loam soil but succeeds well on clay loam or even on clays. When seeded alone one hundred pounds per acre should be used. It is the best lawn grass for growing in the shade under American conditions. Another fine-leaved grass making a dense, velvetv turf is creeping bent. It does 1. best where the summers are cool and moist; that is, in the northeastern states and on the northwest coast. When the soil is limy, other grasses, such as blue grass and white clover, tend to crowd out creeping bent. It should be sown alone except that combined with red fescue it will be satisfactory for a few years, after which the two grasses tend to separate and make circular mats.

There are standard mixtures on the market offered by the more reliable firms for special uses such as on golf greens, fairways, and shady locations.

In the section south of Washington, D. C., except in the higher altitudes, it is not advisable to use Kentucky blue grass. White clover, in this section of the country, becomes the prevailing grass in lawns. In the northern part of this area, white clover, redtop, and Rhode Island bent make an excellent lawn, but not a lawn as permanent in character as the northern turf. SODDING. Sodding instead of seeding has the following advantages: (1) grass of a known texture can be obtained; (2) an immediate stand of grass is secured; (3) sod can be laid at any season except when the ground is frozen. The disadvantages, however, are quite numerous: (1) a seeded lawn is as good and generally is better within a year; (2) the expense of sodding a lawn is great; (3) it is usually difficult to procure good sod; (4) sod will heave on heavy soils if laid too late in the fall; (5) it is difficult to get perfect unions between sods. Sod is generally used along the edges of walks, borders, banks, and close to buildings, when seeding an area; and also on areas such as terraces and laundry yards which are to be used immediately. The preparation of a lawn for sodding is the same as for seeding. Sod should be laid on a firm foundation; that is, the soil should be thoroughly tamped before any sod is placed upon it. The best sod is secured from pastures which are on a heavy type of soil. Pasture turf is cropped and therefore forms a dense growth which can be removed in thin layers. Cut the sod about one and one-half inches thick, twelve inches wide, and three feet long. A foot-wide board should be laid on the turf and the strips cut along either side with an edger. The sod is lifted with a spade or preferably with a turfing iron. The strips are rolled up, grass side in, and should be relaid as soon as possible. When laying sod, fill the junctions with fine soil and then beat it down with the back of a spade or with a sod pounder, LAWNS remembering that it cannot be pounded too hard. After being laid, sod must be cared for carefully throughout the summer. SOIL AND CLIMATIC CONDITIONS. The extreme heat and the long dry spells during the summer months throughout the southern states make it inadvisable to try to establish a turf similar to the turf of the northern lawns, composed mostly of Kentucky blue grass, redtop, clovers, and bents. These grasses, when used in the south for a lawn turf, will completely burn out during the summer months unless an abnormal amount of labour is employed to protect them by excessive waterings. While in the northern section of the country lawns in general are developed on good loam or topsoil, the soil conditions of the south are somewhat different. The soil throughout the south, especially in Florida, is generally known as yellow or clay sand on which lawns can be developed with the least difficulty, and the white sand which contains little or no plant food and on which no satisfactory lawn can be developed without the addition of a considerable quantity of muck. The "topsoil" sand, so-called, often possesses a considerable quantity of food matter; but the ease with which water drains from it combined with the heat of summer will cause the northern types of grasses to burn out and also will kill many of the southern types of grasses.

To one who has been accustomed to the sharp line of differentiation between the topsoils and subsoils of the north the problem of drawing a definite line between the topsoil and subsoil under the conditions of the far south is somewhat puzzling. As a matter of fact, on all soils, with the exception of a good type of muck soil coming from the swampy areas and the hammock land, no good lawn can be developed without the addition of considerable fertilizer.

In the north the value of a lawn continues only during the growing season, from April until October. In the south, especially throughout the section visited by many of the northern tourists, temperature conditions are favourable for the growing of a lawn throughout the entire winter. It is therefore desirable to have types of grasses for the development of lawn areas both during the winter months and the summer months. The excessive cost of maintaining a good turf on lawn areas during the hot and dry summer months has discouraged the development of extensive lawn areas as seen in the northern states, except on golf courses, where the fairways and greens are maintained regardless of normal cost.

Little experimenting has been done in the far south to determine individual types or combinations of types of northern grasses which will thrive best under these climatic conditions both during the winter months and the summer months.