Many stereotypes persist promoting the myth that growing good grass (the kind  in your yard) is a difficult thing to do. Fertilize in the spring or is it fall? Water how many times a week and for how long? And is that gray fuzzy stuff okay? How about those white worms?

Look at your own yard or perhaps your neighbor's and note the proportion covered in grass…now extrapolate that to the earth's surface and you can understand just how readily grass can grow. WITHOUT OUR HELP!

Looking around at our spring landscape: green grass is growing everywhere- eastern prairie, pine forest peaks- the stuff is GREEN. It's even sprouting out of concrete or boulder cracks. These are our own natives thriving in their element.

The ones we're seeing now are the cool season grasses, which commonly grow when the temperatures are 40-75 degrees F. You may be more familiar with the warm season natives, such as the ever-popular buffalo grass or blue grama. These will be truly green (or bluish) by early summer when the nights have warmed and days average 70-90 degrees F.

Native grasses are easy to grow.

The secret to successful native plantings or a low maintenance lawn starts with your soil test. It will reveal the existing soil conditions.  Based on that, you can (a) choose the native grasses that thrive in your existing conditions or (b) determine what you must add or change to create the conditions ideal for the grasses you desire.

And then all the fun starts. The variety or varieties you choose to incorporate into your lawn or garden will herald every seasonal change to come! The following descriptions only touch the surface of native grass potentials:

BIG BLUESTEM (Andropogon gerardii) can be found on dryland sites of sandy to clay loam yet also tolerate moister soils. It is an attractive warm season grass that starts in individual clumps but can form a light sod. In the fall it turns a gorgeous burgundy against green stems. Its goose foot seed head can top out at 3-6 feet.

LITTLE BLUESTEM (Schizachyrium scoparium) can be found on sites similar to that of Big Bluestem. Also a warm season grass, it forms erect clumps of delicate bluish green blades. A little extra water causes these to form more of a sweeping clump. Fall brings fine cinnamon to maroon foliage sparkling with luminous white seed heads along the stalk tips. Our foothills show great stands of this and Big Bluestem: a visual tour de force!

BLUE GRAMA (Bouteloua gracilis) does beautifully in every soil Colorado throws at it with the exception of water logged. Used quite often in conjunction with buffalo grass for lawns, it's an aggressive sod-former. Two to six inch leaves make mowing infrequent. However, when planted as plugs, its wispy 8-24-inches eyelash seed heads are a perfect foil to hot-colored native wildflowers.

GREEN NEEDLEGRASS (Nassella viridula) is a clump forming cool season grass that grows alongside blue grama, thriving in dryland clay soils. It grows in a fine green spray to 12-inches with lavender reddish awns topping out 2-3 feet by mid summer.

INDIAN GRASS (Sorghastrun nutans) is a great choice for homeowners that are  privileged to live by wetlands or over a high water table. This Plant Select grass prefers moister soils, be they any combination of clay, sand or silt.  At 2-5 feet tall, it can be quite a specimen or stunning in drifts. This warm season grass greens up lushly for summer, setting seed by early fall.

ALKALI SACATON (Sporobolus airoides) is another great one for wetter soils but ones that are also high in salt. So if your small acreage has a white crusty quality, this is worth checking out for its 2-3 feet mid-summer clumps and airy seed heads.

SIDEOATS GRAMA (Bouteloua curtipendula) is an under-used warm season bunch grass named for its seeding habit.  The flowers and seeds will hang from one side of its stem. In large masses, it is quite graphic, especially come fall when the blades turn a brownish red. Any home with a decent soil preparation can drill seed this in for large un-mowed areas.

There are many other grasses we can turn to in choosing alternatives to high maintenance, high input lawns. Cool season grasses trigger our spring fever. As they go to head and set seed, the longer days of sunlight dance in their grassy maturity.  Warm season grasses are noticeable as we swing into summer barbecues and Sunday hikes. Come football season, beers on the patio are enhanced by silver setting sun firing up in the fall colors of red and cinnamon foliage. Each night as we go to bed, memories of weekly mowings give way to the lullaby of whispering and dancing natives…grass that is.

Q: How should I care for my spring flower bulbs in the garden after they have finished blooming?

A: Cut dead flowers from spring blooming bulbs, but leave the leaves until later because they provide food for next year's bulbs.  Pull leaves after they yellow and come out easily.  Scratch bone meal or other high phosphate fertilizer around the plants. Now is the time to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and canna.  Sprinkle 5-10-5 fertilizer in the holes before inserting bulbs.

Q: I didn't use all my vegetable and flower seeds from last spring.  Will I have satisfactory results using the seeds for this year's garden or shall I purchase new seed?

A: If the seeds were stored properly, many of them will be viable.  It is a good idea to plant more seeds, however, as the germination rate may be reduced.  Seeds should be stored in a cool, dry place.  Seeds that do not germinate well the second year include onion, parsley, sweet corn and parsnip.

Q: Could you explain how crop rotation might be helpful in my vegetable garden?

A: Crop rotation is a means of preventing the continued depletion of certain nutrients in the soil of the vegetable garden.  Additional benefits of crop rotation are insect and disease control. Rotation is more effective in controlling insects that feed on one type of vegetable (such as the Colorado potato beetle) and do not move very far or very fast.  In the smaller garden, crop rotation is less effective in controlling insects because some pets (like cabbage butterflies or flea beetles) are far ranging. Some crops deplete the nutrients in the soil, such as, the cabbage family that depletes nitrogen.  Crops like peas or beans add nitrogen to the soil. Cabbages and beans compliment each other in a yearly crop rotation as they use different nutrients.  Tomatoes, potatoes and peppers are of the same family and tend to get similar diseases.  Therefore, growing tomatoes this year in the place where cabbage grew last year would be a positive rotation.  If the garden is small, try the following four groupings: (1) the cabbage family, (2) legumes which fix nitrogen such as peas and beans, (3) corn, carrots, beets, onions and (4) vine crops (squash, cucumber).  Divide these four areas and plant a different group in each area every year, beginning the rotation again at the end of four years.  Since the annual vegetables are planted each year, the addition of composting and soil amendments will solve many diseases, nutrient and soil insect problems. (Never use fresh manure in a vegetable garden)

In the typical home yard, extra attention to irrigation system design, maintenance and management could reduce water use by 20% - 70%; 40% being the average.

Your container gardens will stay moist longer if you use plastic pots and glazed ceramic pots instead of terra cotta or regular unglazed clay pots.  Larger containers will also stay moist longer than lots of little pots.

Mulching can reduce evaporation from the soil surface and cut water use by 25 to 50%.  Organic mulches cool the soil.  Plastic film heats it up - black plastic by as much as 5 degrees and clear plastic can raise the temperature by 10 degrees. Plastic should not be used under mulch in the landscape as it keeps water and oxygen from reaching the roots.  Black plastic can be used in an annual vegetable garden when drip irrigation is placed underneath the plastic.

Oystershell scale affects ash, aspen, willow, cotoneaster, lilac, dogwood  and other woody plants in Colorado.  Insecticidal soaps, spray oils and carbaryl (Sevin) can be effective when eggs are hatching in mid to late May.  This "crawler" stage may last for a couple of weeks and is the only time the insect is vulnerable to insecticides.

The authors have received training through Colorado State University Cooperative Extension's Master Gardener program and is a Master Gardener volunteer for Larimer County.

Gardening and Insect Fact Sheets are available on-line by clicking HERE.

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This page updated:  May 12, 2003