Kentucky Blue grass Poa pratensis touted by Scotts as the perfect turf grass for lawns is not the only grass species that can be used.  Bluegrass grows well in Kentucky where the soil comes from limestone and is alkaline.  Here in New Hampshire our soil comes from granite and to grow Bluegrass must be treated with lime.  Furthermore Bluegrass requires an inch of water per week in the growing season.  We do not consistently get that much rain and because of the high price of water we cannot supplement the water with sprinklers.

We need to grown a lawn that requires minimal maintenance and fertilizer and can survive dry summers. 

Eco-Lawn is a mixture of 7 fine fescues.  Fescue has deeper roots and narrow leaves which allows it to grow with minimal water.

Here is what Wildflower Farms says about Eco-Lawn

"Eco-Lawn™ is a blend of carefully selected fine fescue grass seeds developed by Wildflower Farm. Eco-Lawn™ is a lawn grass that grows in full sun, part shade and even deep shade! Eco-Lawn™ is highly drought tolerant once established, and has a beautiful green grass colour. Eco-Lawn™ requires less fertilizing and can be mown like a regular lawn "

Other Things We Can Do

Stop picking up the grass clippings.  After you fertilize grass, the fertilizer becomes part of the grass itself.  If you mow the lawn and then dump the clippings over the edge, you are throwing away the fertilizer. 

Don't mow the lawn unless the grass is at least 3" tall.  Then only mow it down to 2".  This would probably mean we would only mow the lawn every 2 weeks instead of every week and some times only 1 time a month. Wouldn't it be nice not to have  to listen to the lawn mower so often.

Allow White Clover to grow in the lawn.  This means we must stop using herbicides or broad leaf weed killers.  Use the Round Up to kill dandelions by walking around and spraying only the weed not broadcasting weed killer over the whole lawn.

Test Eco-Lawn

It would of course be foolish to jump into something without knowing if it will work in our situation.  I propose that we select two areas of lawn that are in very bad condition and establish Eco-Lawn.  This will require watering the grass seed when it is first planted.  This can be done in early spring or fall with fall being the preferred time.
 

Bark mulch is the darling of all landscapers.   It consists primarily of  wood chips and sawdust which has been dyed a garish red color to make it look like cedar.  It is a waste product of lumber mills and brings with it any diseases of the trees from which it was made. Selling bark mulch, a waste product  is good business.

The primary landscape use of bark mulch is  at office buildings and shopping centers with no trees to fill in a shrub bed where the shrubs are recently planted in anticipation that some day the shrubs will fill the space and mulch will not be needed.

Oak Hill is a very unique complex because the original developer went to great lengths to preserve as many trees as possible and because we are surrounded on two sides with the woods of Roby Park.  Our trees produce fine mulch for free in the form of  leaves and pine needles.  Pine needles especially makes an attractive mulch and in fact in the south are  sold as "Pine Straw".  We have a lot of free pine straw. Right now we first pay the landscaper to blow away the pine needles and then we pay him to bring in bark mulch to replace them.  This is not smart management.

The sawdust in bark mulch absorbs water and prevents water from getting down to the roots of trees.    Just what our trees need in this time of low rain fall.  Pine needles on the other hand while looking very attractive allow the water to soak into the earth.

At one time, Oak Hill placed bark mulch under the foundation plantings (shrub beds) around the buildings.  Then the management company announced that they were going to invest in rocks to mulch under the shrubs so that we would no longer need to pay for bark mulch every year.  The rocks were used and proved popular.  They are still there today.

Some how the bark mulch came back.  Now we have more bark mulch than ever.  Who decided that the groups of trees along St. James Place, the bare area where the landscaper cut down 19 healthy White Pine Trees, and most recently the steep slope near the clubhouse  needed to be bark mulched.  The landscaper dug up an evergreen shrub near the gate and installed a large bark mulch bed in which he planted about $200 worth of expensive nursery plants and then failed to water them. Most died leaving us with a bark mulch bed by the gate.  The webmaster last summer finally planted 10 Stella d'Oro dayliles in this bed. I worry every day that the landscaper will kill them with Round UP.

Bark mulch does not prevent erosion.  It does not keep undergrowth from growing.  After about a month in the sun it looses the bright red color which seems a little garish to me and turns brown.

Above all our squirrels who have been propagating Oak Trees here for many generations love to dig holes in the bark mulch and bury acorns.  Some of these acorns sprout into little seedling Oak Trees which the landscaper believes are weeds.  How can Oak Trees be weeds at Oak Hill.  Every two weeks, he runs around spraying Round Up on the Oak seedling and  every now and then on some other plant like a Hosta or daylily.  This is called the chemical treatment of the shrub beds and again we pay for this.

 If the landscaper would leave the above areas alone they would return to self sustaining woods.  Natural woodland mulches itself with leaves and pine needles, produces tree seedlings and does not require: blowing, raking, mulching, chemical treatments. or watering. 

Stop importing expensive bark mulch.

Some times I think if the landscaper had his way he would do away with all woods and lawns and bury us in bark mulch. Instead we should demand no more bark mulch.  Save money by utilizing our free resources and encouraging self sustaining woods.

 If these woods have an understory of moss, leave it alone.  Moss does hold the soil, it is green and beautiful and free.  It needs no mowing, blowing, or chemical treatments.  Moss cannot compete with larger plants.  If moss is growing someplace in all probability nothing else will grow there.

Oak Hill is beautiful because the original developer went out of their way to preserve the natural woods.  The woods is self-sustaining.  It requires no mowing, fertilizing, watering, or chemical treatments.  We need to preserve our woods. Salt is very damaging to trees, lawns, ponds, and gardens.  This is why the state of NH uses sand on the roads not salt.  Salt is also very damaging to cars.

The webmaster has lived at Oak Hill for some time.  I remember distinctly that we used no salt on the roads or parking lots in the winter.  Instead the plow guy plowed the streets and then sand was put on slick spots.   Sand does leave a mess on the parking lots in spring which is why we pay to have the streets, parking lots and carports cleaned.  We still pay.

I was in  California for the winters beginning in 2009 and 2010.  Apparently during these winter a decision was made to use no sand and to bring in a big pile of salt.  This past winter I was here most of the time.  I was shocked when I noticed the landscaper hauling in a large load of salt and dumping it in the parking lot in front of Building #4.    Not only did he not bother to cover the truck load to prevent spilling the salt on the way in, but he used a plastic tarp with many large holes to cover the pile of salt.  Immediately this salt started to drain into the woods on either side.  He apparently did not even care enough to try to prevent the seepage of salt into the woods. to use a new tarp.  No wonder so many trees are dying.

This photo shows the large salt pile with the tarp holes and all.  Notice that the salt is washing down the drain on the left.  This drain  takes the water from the end of the parking lot and dumps it out onto the woods below. Despite the fact that we had almost no snow this winter most of this salt either washed away or was spread on the roads. Salt melts snow and ice by lowering the freezing point of water.  If distilled water freezes at 32 º, adding salt can lower the freezing point by 9 or 10 degrees. However if the temperature goes even lower the water freezes anyway.  We know the ocean freezes and it is quite salty. On the other hand if the temperature is above freezing, then putting salt in the water accomplishes nothing.  One night this winter, salt was dumped on the roads when the temperature was well above freezing.

As winter progressed, I noticed lumps of salt on the lawns next to the road, in the shrub beds and even in the small garden near the Building #3 carport.  This in a winter when we had almost no snow.

We need to stop using salt on the roads and parking lots and return to using sand even if this is inconvenient  for the plow guy.  He gets paid for his service.  Salt should only be used in difficult places like the sidewalks near the building doors.

The landscaper works for us.  He should do what we want him to do even if he has to work a little harder.  He certainly does not charge us any less.

 Pine needles (Pine straw)   make excellent mulch and Oak Hill has an abundant crop every year that we get free.

The landscaper blows this free mulch over the side of the property into the woods and then charges us for bark mulch to replace it.

In fact pine needles make better mulch because they allow the water to soak down to the tree roots.  Bark mulch on the other hand contains sawdust which absorbs water preventing it from reaching the roots.  Squirrels prefer to bury acorns in bark mulch. Squirrels bury acorns in bark mulch and when they sprout into Oak Seedling, the landscaper insists on killing them with Round Up.

Tree Defoliated  June 2011

In June of 2011, A large Hickory tree located in the vicinity of the carport behind Building 10 suddenly lost 2/3 of its leaves within a period of about 3 days. No other tree in the area was effected and there are perfectly healthy hickory trees on the property.  This is the closest tree to the fire hydrant located by the road. 

Any tree that loses 1/3 of its leaves is in trouble.  Our tree lost 2/3 of the leaves.  In fact it lost all of the leaves except the ones at the very top.

It would appear that the tree was poisoned with a herbicide applied to some of the leaves.  Remember VietNam. and the attempt to defoliate the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The landscaper says that he did not spray any chemical near this tree. 

As the summer progressed, the tree grew a new set of leaves and then promptly lost all of these leaves.  Remarkably a thrid set of leaves grew on the tree and these leaves lasted through the summer.  By August however the leaves at the top of the tree died.

A representative of John Deere took a soil sample for analysis.  This sample proved negative for Momentum FX a herbicide the active ingredient of which is 2-4 D.

Later I learned that a second herbicide RoundUp was being used on the property.  The sample was not tested for the active ingredient of Roundup which is Glyphosete. So the incomplete test does not mean herbicides did not kill the tree.

Notice the trees in the background are green and leafed out. 

At the same time that the tree was defolliated, someone sprayed herbicide on moss that was growing on top of the rock outcropping by the tree.  Why they were killing moss, I can't explain, but I think that on impulse the person just decided to zap the sucker stem.

As of the spring of 2012, the tree appears to have live buds which can become leaves.  If the tree is dying, it is dying slowly.  We will have to wait and see what happens.