Our west field Eco-lawn - uncut (left) and cut (right)
Eco-lawn is billed as “the ultimate low maintenance, drought tolerant lawn.” It’s said to require no fertilizers or chemicals and it’s supposed to be less vulnerable to grubs. And you can reduce your mowing time or not mow at all.
Does Eco-lawn live up to its billing? Well, judging from our experience since it was seeded here in our west field in 2000, it’s very good. But we have had some challenges with it in comparison to our east field, which was seeded at the same time in another low maintenance mix of fescue lawn seed mix, but with added perennial rye grass.
(I can no longer find the exact mix we used in that field because the wholesale grass seed companies merged, including the one from which I bought the seed, and I didn’t keep a record of my purchase. However, Bluestem Nursery offers a low maintenance grass seed mix that seems to me very similar to the one we used in our east field.)
Eco-lawn is a proprietary blend of seven fine fescue grasses, including Sheeps Fescue, Lifine Slender Fescue, Navigator Creeping Red Fescue, Jasper II Creeping Red Fescue, Longfellow II Chewings Fescue, Heron Hard Fescue and Chariot Hard Fescue, developed and marketed by Paul Jenkins and Miriam Goldberger of Wildflower Farm.
We find that it definitely is less vulnerable to grubs, and we’ve had no real grub problems at all, even though we have plenty of Japanese beetles in our area. However, several years on, we noticed that our Eco-lawn appeared yellowish and didn’t look as nice and green as the east field lawn. Neither lawn was getting any added fertilizer at the time, and because they are fields, they only get rain water. There is no way we could ever irrigate either lawn: they are just too big.
According to Wildflower Farm’s website, Eco-lawn doesn’t need fertilizer because, unlike traditional turf grasses, it creates a deep root system.
“It will make roots up to 9 inches deep in hard-pan clay soils and up to 14 inches deep in sandy soils! These deep root systems enable Eco-Lawn™ to naturally source the nutrients it requires from the soil so you don’t need to add chemical fertilizers!”
We’ve had a lot of drought summers, including the once-in-50-year drought of 2007, so that might have been a factor in the yellowed appearance. But we were dissatisfied with our Eco-lawn because it just didn’t look as green as the east field lawn. It still looked yellowed, even when moisture and cooler temperatures returned in the fall, and in spite of my cutting it at four inches, which is higher than the other lawn. From the house windows, it’s the west lawn that we see, so it’s important to us that it look healthy.
We considered over-seeding the Eco-lawn with added perennial rye and even Kentucky blue grass seed to green it up, but it would have been too costly. But the grass seed supplier we consulted said: “Just give it some fertilizer.” We did, starting with a fall application that season, and the Eco-lawn greened right up again.
We now fertilize both lawns at least a year just before winter (around Halloween), when we apply a fast-release high nitrogen. Now the east and west field lawns look equally good.
So bottom line for us, growing Eco-lawn on a clay loam soil: it looks better if you give it fertilizer at least once a year. (Regular fertilizer applications also help lawn grasses outcompete weeds, according to University of Guelph research). When the grass gets lots of moisture too, as it has over the past two summers, it looks very good indeed.
When I emailed Paul Jenkins at Wildflower Farm about our experience with the Eco-lawn, he wrote back:
I too am finding that in sandy soils Eco-Lawn can use some fertilizer now and then. At our old farm with the clay soil we did not need them. But here in Coldwater [near Orillia, Ont.] with a much sandier soil, fertilizing helps promote greener growth. So we are backing away from our no fertilizer required comment to less fertilizer required. [my italics]
Next: Eco-lawn – to cut or not? I’ve tried it both ways…
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I am looking forward to seeing your follow-up: to cut or not. I like the wavy look of the uncut part in your picture.
Lene
Hi Yvonne,
This is good timing. We are thinking about getting the right seed to help our lawns. Knowing that fertilizer is part of what works is a great help. I was impressed that you got word back from the company. That’s a good business practice.
Enjoy!
Thanks for the report Yvonne. I’m trying Eco-lawn out at home; so far, so go. My main interest in the lawn is that I may be utilizing it in blighted areas where continued mowing of abandoned properties is too costly, but leaving the lawn to go to weed would lead to vandalism, etc. Basically, I’m hoping something like this will make the property look well cared for, with a minimum of care. Please keep us posted!
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