Lawns: Changing the Conversation by Bobbie Schwartz

LAWNS

Changing the Conversation

By Bobbie Schwartz, FAPLD

In previous articles, I’ve asked the question of how much lawn we really need. Then, just recently, while participating in the APLD virtual conference, the issues of climate change and clients that some or all of the lawn could be used for other

sustainability were discussed repeatedly. One of the lecturers wanted to know if our clients were raising the question of lawn or whether it was an issue that we, as designers, were discussing.

It’s not a question of all or nothing. We, as landscape designers and members of the green industry, see that plants are blooming earlier and that plants are being stressed by weather extremes. Therefore, I believe that it is incumbent upon us to counter these stresses by educating our clientele and incorporating changes into our designs that will help the environment. We persuade our clients that there is a different type of beauty that includes clover and other broadleaf plants in the lawn. If we are eminently successful, we may get them to eliminate lawn altogether.

I’d like to share the designs for five clients that delineate the gamut of doing away with all the lawn to only partial replacement. In some instances, it had never occurred to the know that lawns don’t need to be “perfect” but we need to try to

purposes but they were not difficult to persuade once they understood the possibilities.

As you will see, there are many variations of lawn usage in these examples. Please use these examples to persuade your clients that they really don’t need so much lawn.

Bobbie may be contacted at bobbie@bgthumb.com. Photos courtesy of Bobbie Schwartz.

Let’s start with partial replacement. The first client’s directive was to take as much lawn as I needed since the ultimate objective was to pull the eye away from an ugly house. (This was a client ahead of her time, i.e. 1989). As you will be able to see from the before and after photos, I took about 3/5 of the lawn. The client is still in her house and the bed lines remain the same although, naturally, we have tweaked the design since then.

The second client is an avid gardener who wanted more gardening space, focal points, a place for snow abutting the driveway, and privacy from her neighbor, the back property line being defined by a chain link fence. She already had a curvilinear patio and garden beds that were also somewhat curvilinear. My solution was to shrink the lawn into an hourglass shape and edge the beds with pavers to define the bed lines while keeping grass out. On the driveway edge, we created a paver space for the snow, using pavers that came as close as possible to the colors used in the patio pavers.

Before: The flags delineate where the new bed lines and snow pile space will be.

After: The paver outline of the hourglass lawn is partially obscured by the plantings. New plantings to follow.

The third client wanted to enlarge the entertaining space in the back yard. She had an existing deck that was too small. I suggested that the solution was replacing all of the lawn and creating another level for entertaining with a crazy-quilt stone patio and deeper landscape beds that could be layered with plants that would engender four season interest.

Before: The existing deck looks over lawn toward uninteresting landscape beds. After: The client has been thrilled with the extended entertaining space as well as the diversity of plant material: perennials, grasses, flowering shrubs, and trees in the landscape beds. There is only one step down from the existing deck to the new patio.

The fourth client is one who had a very shady front yard and was tired of fighting to grow grass there. I’ll never forget his question: “Can’t we get rid of the grass and grow something there that likes shade?” As we all know, there are many plants that love shade. Thus, we removed all of the turf but kept the existing beds of Pachysandra that surrounded the old trees. We relaid the sidewalk and edged the new beds with irregular stone. We planted spring-blooming bulbs such as Narcissus and tulips (this was in the 1990’s before deer infested our suburb), spring-blooming perennials such as Brunnera and Pulmonaria and the spring-blooming shrub Kerria japonica on the edge where there was a bit of sun. We also added ferns and several other shade loving plants. Five years later, just when the front yard was looking its best, the client moved to Chicago. Sadly, the new owner dug it all up and planted GRASS that has always looked terrible.

A newly planted, shady front yard with Narcissus and Brunnera.

A newly planted, shady front yard with Kerria and tulips.

The last client is one who declared that she wanted a very low-maintenance landscape and that meant no grass and no irrigation. This was my first xeriscape design and it has lived up to my expectations. After removing all of the lawn (such as it was), we amended the soil to provide excellent drainage. The former concrete sidewalk was replaced with an irregular stone path set into gravel for permeability. All the plants I used in the design are ones that can be found anywhere in Ohio, e.g., Forsythia, Spiraea, Ilex crenata, ornamental grasses, Sedum, Perovskia, and Amsonia hubrichtii.B

Before: A charmless landscape that obscures the view from the house.

After: Helictotrichon, Pennisetum, Perovskia and Panicum in bloom in September

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