What is the most popular perennial in the world?Kentucky Bluegrass
Kentucky Bluegrass requires 2 inches of water per week in order to thrive. That doesn't sound like much until you do the math...
2 inches of water = 1200 gallons
(per week, per thousand feet of lawn)
Even a small bluegrass lawn can guzzle 20,000+ gallons of water per month. Your lawn could drink a million gallons of water during the summer.
(per week, per thousand feet of lawn)
Even a small bluegrass lawn can guzzle 20,000+ gallons of water per month. Your lawn could drink a million gallons of water during the summer.
We waste water to make it grow. But, then we've got to mow it!*Running your lawnmower for an hour causes as much pollution as 40 cars on the highway.
And, no matter how hard we try, it doesn't look that pretty...
* Keeping this poor performer looking green requires a continuous dose of chemical fertilizers.
Save the world and save yourself a whole lot of money:
Replace Kentucky Bluegrass with Dwarf Fescue.*
- Dwarf Fescue is waterwise. This will cut your water bill to 1/4 of what you're spending on thirsty Kentucky Bluegrass.
- You can fire ChemLawn - Dwarf Fescue doesn't need fertilizer.
- Fire the lawn team while you're at it! Dwarf Fescue needs to be mowed every month, or so, not every weekend.
* Blog Action Day invited over 15,000 Bloggers to speak on one day, in one voice, for one cause: the future of our environment.
I already have a Kentucky Bluegrass lawn (and hate it!) Is it possible to mix in a better variety of grass to an existing lawn or am I out of luck?
ReplyDeleteI hear Buffalo grass and gamma grass are drought tolerant too. But I have basically done what you have done, that is, I have torn out about a lot of my lawn and replaced it with more xeric plants.
ReplyDeleteIt has worked well for me.