With Labor Day a recent memory, we are now entering the days between the end of corporate summer and those of the calendar. These are teaser days on the cusp of seasons as they serve up cool nights promising of fall and warm hot afternoons reminding us of what we will soon be missing. Such days and nights, however, are perfect for planting, particularly grass.
As I mentioned in a prior post, I am looking to grow what is called a low-grow lawn, which is a lawn having the following benefits:
- Grows slowly
- Doesn’t require a great deal of water
- Doesn’t require fertilizer (in fact reacts badly to it)
- Is a native American grass
So after a few weeks of horticultural turmoil where everything has been turned topsy-turvy, now we are at the stage of planting. The topography of my land has changed tremendously in the last few weeks with the addition in the end of over 300 yards of fill, sand and topsoil. While much of the heavy work is done by machinery, the final work of laying and grading the topsoil is done by hand. It is a time-consuming process as the workers man their tools carefully and deliberately.
After a rough grade is created by the backhoe, laborers then rake out all the roots, rocks and other detritus that often finds its way into fill. The fill we have gotten has been a bit rocky but we have used that to our benefit to build stone walls around new garden beds (more about that later.) After all the big stuff is removed, then the small stuff is raked smooth. The backhoe now drops a load of topsoil in a location, backing away as it doesn’t want to trample on the work that has already been done.
I have always been fascinated by large machinery and the delicate way it can be used. One minute the operators of these machines will dig big rough holes tearing roots out of trees and the next will use the teeth on the bucket to gently comb the soil and pat it down like you would a baby.
After the topsoil is deposited, wheelbarrows are loaded up and dumped on adjoining spaces. The top soil is very different in look and feel from the underlying fill My brownish sub-soil is has a high composition of clay and forms sticky clumps when wet. This soil is black and feels alive. As it is smoothed and raked into the ground, all bumps are leveled off and a new, streamlined surface takes shape. This is much smoother than my prior lawn as frost heaves combined with settling left it as a choppy undulating surface, much like an ocean bay during high winds.
The soil is initially raked roughly to break up chunks and then smoothly to create a surface where grass seed can be broadcast. As the landscaper fills up his bucket with seed, I feel like an expectant parent filled with hopeful anticipation. After broadcasting, he spreads straw to maintain moisture and then waters. Nothing to do but wait.
Part of the landscaping required the creation of a swell to capture and divert any water coming off my hill, which is most of my back yard. The area used to be planted with hostas, but is now a ditch that catches excess water. I’ve planted clover in most of it as an experiment to see how well it will take as well as to crowd out the many different weeds that have called this part of my property home.
I checked the other day and baby clover have started to sprout. Now I just have to wait for the grass.
