The LA Times just did an article on replacing lawns, and it includes photos and some recommendations you might be able to use. =^,,^=

Here is a link that might be useful: Public enemy No. 1?

I have planted out several lawns with either Carex pansa or Carex tumilicola, and love the results and the reduced watering needs as well as the easier care. Both types of Carex also do quite abit better in winter shade than typical Fescue lawns, and paradoxically can take both too wet in winter soils with poor drainage and no sun and baking hot in summer with only once a month soakings and still look vividly green.

The disadvantages to planting them is that they can't easily be planted from sod or seed, so it is expensive to plant them out from plugs, or dividing 4 inch containers to extend the plantings. I have planted both types this way with approximately 3 inch on center spacing, and it can take a good 6 months for Carex pansa to fill in, and slightly less for Carex tumilicola. C. tumulicola is also easier to plant from seed, as it forms seed readily and is easy to germinate. Carex pansa on the other hand is shy to set seed, but does form runners which give a thicker turf over time. Initially either Carex will look like a rice paddy at first, and will require weeding to keep weeds out, which is more of a problem in exposed areas than a contained back yard with no weeds.

I have two more Carex lawns I will be installing later this summer; one new and one to replace an existing lawn. For both this time around, I have collected C. tumilicola seed now, for sowing out into flats for later transplanting. Alot more work than sodding a lawn, but I will never have to resod either in spring to replace the worn out thin sod which was too shaded in winter, and will not have to worry about water rationing meaning a dead lawn, as Carex tumilicola can easily go 2 months once established without any water in coastal northern California conditions.

I would probably go with Carex pansa if it were more readily available in large quantities, as it is a dwarfer growing Carex that also fills in as a solid turf better than C. tumulicola, but both look great if regularly mowed at least once every 3 to 4 weeks if you like a more manicured look.

Thanks! Bahia, you're describing the situation where my current lawn is patchy--poor drainage in winter (heavy clay).

It sounds like you've had good experiences with both Carex pansa and Carex tumilicola. Do any of the lawns you have planted get regular traffic? We are not planning on hosting weekly soccer games (for one thing, not enough space!) but it would be nice if we could walk on it without worrying about it.

There is a note about Carex pansa on the Las Pilitas Nursery site, which dissuades people from considering native grasses for lawns--in part because of traffic concerns. Your thoughts?

Here is a link that might be useful: Las Pilitas neg on carex lawn

The Carex pansa lawn I installed in still young and also still filling in, but is not planted in sand, nor is it intolerant of light foot traffic, and is looking pretty good in my opinion. The actual variety I used is a hybrid between C. pansa and something else, and I bought it as 4 inch pots at Emerisa Nursery up in Santa Rosa. I elected not to buy straight C. pansa, as the winter appearance did not look as lush and regular as the hybrid. It is slower to get going than C. tumulicola, which I have also planted out as a lawn and have more of a track record with, the first lawn of C. tumulicola is now going on its third year, and looking great, although it does need mowing more often to keep it low enough to not look like a meadow. The C. tumulicola lawn does not have automatic irrigation, is planted in heavy clay soil, and in Berkeley conditions is quite happy with a once monthly deep watering, although it could easily go several months and still survive. This same lawn also floods in winter, and it has not had problems with either the summer drought or winter excessive wet, and always looks brilliantly green. The texture of C. tumulicola is coarser than Kentucky Blue Grass or Tall Fescue, but certainly less coarse than Kikuyu grass, another of my favorite subtropical lawn grasses for a "You hardly need to water it all year and it still looks green" lawn for coastal influenced California gardens. Also, Kikuyu grass doesn't hold up as well in wet/shaded/flooded conditions, and is best in full sun, and can turn brown when it gets frosted.

In summary, it may be safest to use C. tumulicola if you don't mind mowing more often, and both Carexes I have used handle light regular foot traffic, (two adults crossing the C. pansa hybrid lawn to use the hot tub daily), with no problems. I haven't put the hybrid C. pansa lawn to a drought test yet, as it is on automatic irrigation with clay loam soil, and I wanted it to fill in as quickly as possible, which it has just about done after 5 months being planted out in mid February, and planted on 3 inch centers.

I agree about the C. tumulicola. My folks have it in a small, shady area of their yard (up in HOT Redding). It was there when they moved in 25 years ago or so. It never needs supplemental water, Mom mows it a couple times during growth, it's a great, deep green color in summer (when they need it most up there), and it has reseeded all over the place, so it's hard to kill. They (and their dog) walk over it all the time, with no ill effects.

Mom gave me a clump of it early last year, and a gopher dug it up...but not before it must have reseeded. I now have several small clumps growing in the vicinity, which never gets water or any attention. To me, it's a beautiful sedge, and I really like the way it grows and blooms.

Brenda

I'm resurrecting an old thread here on native grasses for CA. The suggestions above sound good and I'll definitely look into them but I am wondering if anyone is familiar with the grasses in the CA Native Mix from Stover Seed Co? It's comprised of Festuca rubra ÂMolatte, Poa secunda, Vulpia microstachys, Nasella pulchra and Melica imperfecta.

The package says it will grow in sun and light shade, has an excellent mowed appearance and stands up to moderate traffic. Also says "the native grasses in this mixture are the same as those used in the native meadow lawn at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden" which I haven't seen.

Any advice?

Here is a link that might be useful: Stover Seed Company

The "meadow" at the Santa Barbara Botanical garden is beautiful. But it's hardly a "lawn" by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think it's ever been mowed.

It's an extraordinary meadow and as a meadow, I'm sure it would be quite the front landscape for a residential landscape.

Those are some pretty tough/durable bunching grasses listed. I'm sure they'd hold up to traffic but I've never seen them mowed.

As bahia says, the big drawback to the Carex is that they are not inexpensive to install.

Give it a shot and report back here.

May I suggest, though, that you sow the seed in October, or later.

Joe

Thanks, gardenguru1950. I know these grasses get tall if left unmown but according to the package, they can be kept to 3" or so.

And agreed, best to wait for the rains -- I'm just planning ahead. With a kid and a big dog, we'd like grass that can stand up to foot traffic and not require much water or maintenance -- water in the garden goes for the edibles. Since it will be in the back we don't mind a meadowy, rural sort of look -- we're not seeking a uniform, green carpet kinda lawn.

Will definitely go by the SBBG to see the meadow. Would be nice to see native grasses that were mown too, for comparison. I'll just keep my eyes peeled...

slogal:

You live in San Luis Obispo, yes?

Joe

I've never seen the Stover Seed Co mix used as a mown lawn, and while I have seen Festuca rubra Molate used as a meadow grass, it was always left unmown and planted by itself. I don't think the other bunch grasses in that mix would be happy in the slightest if you tried to keep them to 3 inches tall, they just wouldn't like it. If you want a fairly short lawn substitute, I can recommend the Carex tumulicola as easily mown and kept at 3 inches, but at height of summer it will need mowing at least every 2 to 3 weeks to keep it low. Carex pansa or C. praegacilis hardly need any mowing at all, but are probably not nearly as resistant to kid's play and heavy traffic as is Carex tumulicola, which is an exceedingly resistant grass to almost any abuse.

I don't have a lawn of it, but I do have a single plant of Carex praegracilis, which I planted early last winter. I can vouch for the fact that it has stayed green ever since, more than doubled in size, and shown no ill effects from being rolled on regularly by two large dogs. I've been planning to divide it this fall. I really like it, and if I had a ton of money, I'd try making it into a lawn of sorts. I can't imagine wanting to mow it, though. It's so beautiful at its natural length that I think mowing it would be wasting a huge portion of its appeal.

gardenguru1950:
Yup, we're here in SLO.

bahia:
C. tumulicola sounds great. After reading a bit about it online this evening, I found on the San Marcos Growers website that it was mis-keyed and is actually C. divulsa. So it's not a CA native but rather from Europe (though the common name is still Berkeley Sedge). Here's a link with more details: http://www.smgrowers.com/products/plants/plantdisplay.asp?plant_id=352 Is this the same one you've planted? And would you recommend this for us since our back property line is a creek? If it's polite I'd be fine with it but with all the invasive plants I continue to battle along the creek -- ivy, vinca, morning glory and a monster sedge -- I'm especially leery of non-natives. If it could be considered at all invasive, I don't want to spread the problem downstream. It wouldn't be planted directly along the creek but very close -- within 10-15 feet of the top of the bank.

queerbychoice:
Also according to San Marcos Growers, C. praegracilis was originally mis-keyed as C. pansa, which is the other Carex that bahia mentioned in an earlier post. Here's the link on that: http://www.smgrowers.com/products/plants/plantdisplay.asp?plant_id=2370 Glad to hear that it stands up to a certain amount of abuse from your big dogs.

Who knew IDing grasses was so confusing! Anyway, sounds like either of these will work well for us, especially as we have some of the same conditions bahia mentioned -- clay soil, shade, and wet in winter.

Here is a link that might be useful: San Marcos Growers

The best resource for asking about these grasses in John Greenlee.

He has been working with ornamental grasses in California for a long long time. He also is very concerned about invasiveness and will let you know if he has found a plant to be invasive or not. They generally don't propagate anything that is seriously invasive. He also has the latest and greatest meadow/prairie plants offered. Even if he doesn't update his website often enough.

Here is a link that might be useful: Greenlee Nursery

Carex tumulicola will reseed itself around when it finds conditions favorable, as in an irrigated garden or shady creek bed, but I suspect that this is already in your local watershed as it is virtually endemic throughout most of coastal California, and the reason why it was initially thought to be a native. If you keep it mowed so that it doesn't form seed heads, it will not be at all invasive, as it is a clumper, not a running type of sedge. Yes I am aware of the name changes with Berkeley Sedge, but it is easier for me to remember it as C. tumulicola, and still mostly sold labeled as such.

From my personal experience with both C. pansa and C. praegacilis, they both prefer a more loamy, fast draining soil mix rather than a heavy clay loam, and they can even rot out in winter if planted in heavy clay and no direct sun, again, this is from personal experience. Neither of these Carex species is as well adapted to shade/deep shade as is C. tumulicola, which is tolerant of full dry hot sun to deep shade, and looks equally good in both conditions.

Quite an old post I'm resurrecting... But bahia, you mentioned dividing 4" carex pansa plants to extend the coverage. I'm looking to do a small area (maybe 500sqft) with carex pansa. A box of 200 plugs looks pretty expensive. And 4" versions are about $8. Any chance it could make sense to divide up a 4" version into any more than 4 plugs? Do you wash off the roots, and treat them like bare-roots, to try to preserve roots and untangle them? Or divide up just by slicing into quarters?

Landscapers in my area have recently touted Kurapia as a lawn substitute. Roots are said to go down six feet or so when established and it doesn't need much of any water to look good. Just sayin....

Thank you echolane, the Kurapia looks like a good match for me. Will have to keep it mowed to keep the bees away from the pooch, but that shouldn't be a problem. I would imagine getting rid of it could be hard with roots that deep, so will have to make sure I define well where I want it to go, and not go.

I think it's a creeper, so you need good edging and observant edge maintenance. So I've been told.

That is impressive coverage in only about one month. I've had passing thoughts about using it in one area around a raised bed where I think it could be easily contained. I guess that's what worries me a bit - keeping it contained.

Do you mow it only to get rid of the flowers? Or does it look better with mowing? Whatever I choose put in, I wouldn't want to mow it..

Kurapia stays fairly low, so it doesn't really need to be mowed. The flowers will fall off by themselves and don't need to be cut like roses or daisies. It will spread, but since it spreads above the ground and not with underground runners, it's much easier to control than bermuda or carex pansa. It does attract tiny bees, but I've gardened adjacent to it, trimmed it and pulled back runners without being bothered by bees.

I mow it mostly to get rid of the flowers - my pooch is happy he's finally got a nice cool place to nap in the sun, so getting stung by a bee wouldn't be good.

I love the way it spreads, also. Runners above ground, and they do eventually root (similar to how strawberry plants do I think) - but should be easy to contain just by cutting off those runners. Once those runners root, and if they have a chance to establish for long, they'd probably then be hard to get out. But easy to keep it from getting to that point. The runners below haven't started putting roots in the ground yet, but some other shorter ones have - so maybe they only root if the water is good there.

I planted about 16" apart. If doing again, I probably would have got another tray and done 12" apart so they fill in quicker. Some weeds/spurge grew in between them that I'm having to slowly pull out. Now that it's filled in pretty well, I think new weeds will have a hard time getting in there. It grows pretty dense, and I would guess will get even denser over time. So it does seem like it'll be a good deterrent to future weeds in the are. Seems like I read somewhere that mowing helps it create more branches. So that could be a reason possibly to mow it early, even if not mowing for the long term. Might help it get more dense from the start to help keep the weeds away better in the long term if it gets established in a more dense way(?).