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Don't get us wrong, we love lawn. Quite frankly, we make our living on managing and maintaining lawns. That being said, we also hate trying to maintain lawn where is won't grow or where it is hard or expensive to maintain. The pictures above are examples of where lawn should not be.
Inspiration from afar.
While traveling during the past few years in California, Colorado and Arizona where the climate is drier and there is greater drought stress, Bob has seen many examples of creative use of rock and it continues to inspire us that there are many other creative and drought tolerant solutions where lawn is and should not be.
Why is lawn where is shouldn't be?
The simplest answer is that lawn is the cheapest part of landscape installation and when brand new, looks great. New lawn on freshly prepares soil looks great. Parking strips and parking islands are probably the worst place for lawn. There is concrete or asphalt on most or all sides, often times the soil is shallow or there is rock or asphalt below, irrigation coverage is difficult due to small odd shapes and as tree roots develop, they compete for moisture. We believe that parking strips and islands may take as much as 5-10 times as much irrigation to maintain. A bad combination in which to grow and maintain lawns. In addition, these areas are difficult and sometimes dangerous to maintain due to nearby cars and obstacles on or near.
What is the Alternative?
There are lots of options. Replacing lawn with just bark dust or some sort of ground cover are both options. We have experimented with Sedum like on green roofs but it has had marginal success. We are seeing the use of rock locally and nationally and are very excited about that as an option. Below are several pictures of rock as a ground cover that is very attractive and easy to maintain. Rocks do not need water and never die. Some have expressed concern about the liability risk with rocks but we believe that is low. If someone wants to throw a rock through a window, they will find it even if there is no rock in the landscape.
Last year we used the parking strip out in front of our Hillsboro office as a test case for a lawn conversion. Below are the before and after pictures. We are now using little irrigation and the parking strip is even more attractive.
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