esrosedotblog

AIRBORNE

All of the grass in this desert valley is 'bermuda' strain. It stays green in the heat (when no one is here) but turns brown in winter (when everyone is here).

It doesn't matter much whether planting bermuda was a good decision or not. Once you have bermuda you will have bermuda for life.

It is tenacious. It spreads as a vine. It travels in the air. Seeds. Vines. It is fucking everywhere.

There is a solution to the browning thing though.

Every fall, now, we go over all the golf courses and lawns (which do not belong in the desert) and we scalp the turf. Set the mower low low and just beat the bejesus out of the roots.

Then we plant an annual rye to cover over until the bermuda comes back in the spring.

Insane? Sure. But that isn't the whole thing.

Listen to this.

The scalping fills the air with dust and grass particles and we all get respiratory trouble out of it.

My nose is clogged half the time and that isn't much of a reaction.

There is a new non-scalping solution that 'they' are trying to get going where the grass is cut low, the sprinklers are turned off for a week or two and then the new seed is put on.

It works but it doesn't seem quite dramatic enough so there is trouble with its catching on.

There are 200 golf courses in this valley. Think of it. All that shit in the air.

And none of it necessary if we just went back to desert vegetation.

Labels: horticulture, nature