laborare est ludere

Posted on April 23, 2012 by paridevita

You know you’re in a completely different world when a picture of a small patch of cow poop gets you excited. This is exciting. To me, anyway.

This is a small patch, say three feet by five feet, of a new sowing of blue grama seed, covered with some cow and compost I picked up at the local garden center (by the bag), with a little binder mixed in.


Both the blue grama seed and the binder came from Plants of the Southwest. The bag of grass seed says “origin Colorado” so this is what they call “native” blue grama, as distinguished from fancy cultivars like ‘Hachita’ (that’s it directly above the patch of poop, with some other grasses), ‘Alma’, ‘Lovington’, and ‘Bad River’. I’m sure it makes a huge difference to some people, but not to me.
The binder is made, I think, from plantain; when mixed with the cow and compost and then watered, it kind of glues everything in place. The grass seed is glued to the ground. (Did I mention that I live in a really windy place?)
I scraped off the existing turf, tossed it in back of one of the rock gardens where I could really use some better soil, sowed the seed, watered it with a watering can, then sprinkled the poop on top.Took about twenty minutes.
Ran the sprinkler for about eight minutes, partly so the dog could have some fun, and now I’ll just wait. It takes blue grama about five days to germinate if the soil is warm and it’s kept moist.
By the way. “Grama” is Spanish for grass, and that’s the way it’s spelled. Only one M. “Blue grama grass” is as redundant as the “Rio Grande River”. If it’s called blue grama, you already know it’s grass.
The State Grass of Colorado, no less. Such an honor. (But it’s the state grass of New Mexico, too…..)

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after the morning walk

Posted on April 23, 2012 by paridevita

The completed path. All that’s left is to “puddle in” some of the soil around the flagstones so that they don’t wobble.

This is the first phase of a multi-phase operation that will involve replacing what’s left of the green lawn with native grasses.
The dog runs out to the back, this way, to see what’s going on, and all the grass was dead after this last winter, so I figured I’d use some of the flagstone left over from an endless project in back (behind the shed) instead of just having bare earth.
The lawn was originally put in for the dogs to play on, but now that there’s only one dog, and only me, I’d rather see blue grama and buffalo grass than this lurid green stuff. I find the green color to be visually upsetting in a garden not overly given to greenery; the ‘609’ buffalo grass which was here back in the 90s (until most of it died, winter of 1999-2000) was a whole lot easier on the eyes.
Now that there are better varieties of buffalo grass for my climate, like ‘Cody’, I know what to do.
I know what not to do, too. Kill the lawn and then seed over it (or plug it), for one thing. The bluegrass in the present lawn (it’s a mix of ryegrass, fescue, and bluegrass) will just come back in a few years, and I don’t feel like fighting that any more than I feel like spraying in the first place.
You scrape off the sod, and find a good place in the garden to dump it. (The lawn isn’t big enough to require a sod-cutter.) The sod is chemical-free so that’s no problem.
Here’s a shot of, I think, ‘Sharp’s Improved’ buffalo grass growing in the side yard, taken this morning, too. If you ask me, this is the right color for turf in Colorado.

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