A Lawn with Weeds and Mowing Lawns Without a Catcher

Question from Linda:
I live twenty yards from a golf course fairway. They mow it without catchers. For years now I have tried to grow grass in my front yard only to be infiltrated with weeds. I have heard it is the golf courses mowing and blowing of stuff that makes my yard such a mess. I have planted Tall Fescue and Marathon. Can you help me? I think there is that one grass but the name of it escapes me. It is hard to sit on and coarse but I have heard it chokes out weeds. But I do not like that grass. Thanks, Linda

Answer from Pat:
Yes I think I can help you.

First to cheer you up about your problem with the mowing of the nearby golf course. Using a mulching mower, such as you describe on a lawn, but especially on golf courses is good for the grass and good for the environment, so I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. All lawns should be mown with mulching mowers, or at least they should be mown without a catcher whenever possible and practical so that the grass blades fall back onto the lawn. If a person lives in a damp climate and a lawn makes a lot of clippings that fail to dry, I can understand a gardener catching them, but a conscientious gardener would is collecting grass clippings will then compost the grass and never send it to the dump. The drum type of composter makes this task easy. By using grass clippings as nitrogenous waste and bagged wood chips such as pellets made for rabbit litter as the carbonaceous waste, the composting process is easy and productive.

When grass blades are allowed to fall back onto the lawn at first the blades of grass dry on top of the lawn. Then they sift down to the ground and the benefits to the lawn are several. Grass clippings are almost purely nitrogenous waste, so just as they will heat up a compost pile so also will they fertilize a lawn. Using grass blades to provide part of the fertilizer needed by a golf course or a lawn is highly beneficial for all of us, since it saves our ground water from being filled up with salts from synthetic fertilizers, or even from salts from faster-acting or salty types of organic fertilizers like manures, that have been used to feed the lawn and washed down into the ground. A lawn provided with its own clippings will also be growing in a more organic and biologically active soil and this will keep it freer from disease so the golf course won’t need to be using chemicals to cure disease problems.

Now about weeds. A thick, healthy, organically-fertilized and cared for lawn can usually fight off weeds. Especially the old tall marathon fescue grasses such as you have, when well-grown and properly tended were able to force out weeds. Most golf courses are well managed and do not have a lot of weeds and thus do not spread weed seeds, but weeds are everywhere and they are spread by birds. The seeds can come from around the golf course and not the grass itself and they can also blow in on the wind. But there is one glaring exception to what I have said about golf courses. If the golf course is Bermuda grass there is no chance of you or anyone else in your neighborhood of having any other kind of grass other than Bermuda grass. If you live that close Bermuda grass is going to seed itself into your lawn and that is what you will end up with so you might as well start out with it. It really isn’t the fault of the golf course but around the edges and in the rough there are bound to be seeds of bermuda and it is an invasive grass spread by seeds. My suggestion is that you install a concrete edging around the lawn, choose a fine hybrid Bermuda grass, and switch to a Bermuda lawn planted by sod. Tell the company that sells it to you that you want a very thick hybrid of a variety that stays green longest in winter and crowds out weeds. Also I recommend that you fertilize it organically to keep it healthy. Gardeners who have switched to the organic way are amazed at how thick their lawn has grown and how much better it looks. ‘Santa Ana’ hybrid is a good home lawn and grows thickly. Get it thatched every few years and it will look good most of the year. The great thing about Bermuda is that it is so drought-resistant and tolerant of heat. Zoysia grass also prevents weed invasion and a variety called ‘Verde’ stays green longer. It has a very fine texture and makes an elegant lawn. I know folks in Rancho Santa Fe who have and love it. It is drought-resistant and NO WEEDS! It looks like velvet in summer and goes brown briefly in winter. They say they don’t mind.

The lawngrass you said described as coarse and uncomfortable to sit on, must be St. Augustine. It is heat and shade resistant and newer types have finer blades than older types. You could probably find a St. Augustine variety today that would please you, despite the fact that you are afraid you won’t like it, and you wouldn’t even know it was St. Augustine. But you would need to talk to the sod company and make sure it would be equally resistant to weeds as the old type. The reason that I don’t generally recommend St. Augustine is that it is not drought-resistant. It needs a lot of water and fertilizer to look good. If the lawn is shady it’s the only thing to grow, however. If you decide to change lawns be sure to plant from sod. Don’t plant the new lawn with seeds. Whatever lawn you decide to plant, once planted, fertilize it at intervals with an organic preemergent weed killer such as corn gluten meal used according to package directions.

One final word, you never told me what kind of weeds your lawn is suffering from. If the lawn has nutgrass your problem is greater than if you have other weeds. Nutgrass doesn’t come from the golf course but is usually in a potted plant or transplant or some top soil and that’s how it gets into gardens. Or a bird could drop a seed. In lawns there is a chemical treatment for nutgrass and it does not kill the grass. But I don’t advocate using it since I believe in the organic way. Organic controls for nutgrass, or nutsedge as it is more properly called, are on page 104 in my current organic book. However, the year 2000 edition of my book contains a detailed discussion of the chemical method and you can still purchase used copies of that book on the internet.