Grasses in a Garden Bed

Although I would like to have some colour in the bed, the grass worked well because of the narrow space available. It can be tidied up after flowering, particularly important with native grasses that set seeds which can be a pest. The number of times I have had to ‘deprickle’ socks and fleecy jumpers or pants. When the seed begins to loosen in the panicle is a good time to get rid of the seed head to avoid having them become a nuisance in that way.

Chloris truncata (late summer)

After I decided to not water a patch until it became unacceptable as a lawn to test the time between waterings, we had 3.5 mm of rain. This was three and a half weeks between waterings and was almost at the stage of considering it to be in need of a watering. As a general rule I would say that 3 weekly intervals would keep a reasonable greenness about the grass. It is looking a bit tatty at the moment as it hasn’t been trimmed since late spring. We have also had many days above 35C and at least ten days above 40C.

I certainly think it is worth persevering with this grass in low rainfall areas, especially in areas where it occurs naturally.

See here for other posts on this topic.

Chloris truncata

It naturally occurs on sandy and clay soils including disturbed sites such as roadsides, and in grassy woodlands.

Information from the Nativel Grasses Resource Group says that the seed requires a lot of moisture to germinate. It has been seen sprouting while floating on the water in a sheep trough. An easy way to replicate this is to sow the seed in a pot and stand the pot in a container of water deep enough so that the surface of the pot remains very moist. Reduce the water level as the seed germinates.

We had about 3mm rain today. I don’t know how that will affect my experiment mentioned in the last post.

Chloris truncata (Windmill Grass) watered and unwatered patches

This grass is one that is on a list of reccommended lawn substitutes, along with Austrodanthonia (Wallaby Grass), and Microlaena stipoides (Weeping Rice Grass). I was warned off the Microlaena because it really is a higher rainfall species, 500 – 700mm rain. As we are in a rain shadow, and a winter wet dry summer area (344mm rain per year), it was going to be a struggle to keep this looking reasonable without using more water than I wanted to. After all it is supposed to substitute for water hungry grasses.

Chloris truncata (Windmill Grass) Watered plant

I was very pleased with the appearance of the plant. I had dismissed this species because my experience had shown it to be too tufted and therefore coarse to be a lawn. However the plant has spread and stayed low since it was mown about four weeks before the watering incident.

I am not sure how this will go so far as foot traffic is concerned. I will deliberately use part of it as a pathway to see how it copes with occasional walking. Unfortunately the patch is not near the house where I could walk on it constantly.

Some people have stated (and it is also in some articles) that Chloris behaves like an annual. We have not seen this characteristic because it is mown every year in late spring as part of our fire protection and to make it more pleasant to walk around our fruit trees. The mower is usually set at 3 out of a possible 6 settings. The mower is driven around on the 6 setting. 3 is a bit low for the spear grasses but for the Chloris it seems to be ideal. The patch seems to increase in size and thicken every year.

I am not sure what to do now. I think I will dig a few clumps and divide them and grow them on in forestry tubes to be planted out with the late autumn rains next year. I will also at that time try dividing and planting dirsctly into the ground. In fact that is a possibility now. (Too many other things to do.)

I know of a lawn of Wallaby Grass (Austrodanthonia Species) which works well but dries off in summer. The idea of growing Weeping Rice Grass (Microlaena stipoides) with Wallaby Grass appeals to me. This grass has underground stolons a bit like couch grass. Couch is a real pest if it establishes itself in a flower bed. The idea of Microlaena running rampant appeals to me. (However I believe it can be a pest if it gets into flower beds). If it did I would get a faster ground cover. It is hardly likely to do that here with our low rainfall. To keep some greenness about it, it will probably need to be watered every three weeks during the summer. Even if water restrictions end up preventing that, I think it should hold and reappear when there is rain.

The biggest problem will be weeds. To keep them down while the grass is establishing will be a constant chore but worth it. Where the native Poas have established and the large patch of Austrodanthonia, there has been a marked reduction in weed plants. So given a chance the Native Grasses will re-establish on our block and a lawn is not impossible. Mowing is minimal with these grasses as just trimming the flower heads is all that is needed.

Austrodanthonia geniculata (Wallaby Grass)

The suggestion was made that it would be worth trying Wallaby Grass (Austrodanthonia setacea) and Weeping Rice Grass (Microlaena stipoides) together in a lawn and that both would accept foot traffic. They would need to be watered probably every three weeks during late spring and summer to maintain a degree of greenness. I think it is worth the experiment to try this on a small scale to see if it is worth the effort of proceeding to a larger area. It means some propagation to get enough plants to have a quick cover of the area designated as ‘lawn’.

The photo shows a Wallaby Grass in the foreground. The cream heads are the seed heads of Austrodanthonia geniculata which is similar to the one I want to grow. The beauty of it is that I have it growing on our block and just need to find some fine leaved plants to use as propagating material.

The lawn would need to be mown when the plants flower to avoid seed set and the nuisance of picking seeds out of socks. This would be a matter of setting the mower at a high setting so that just the flower stalk is taken.

Grassy Woodland

We were in an area which was Department of Transport reserve land. To my eye there was quite lush growth compared to what I see growing on our place and similar areas in the district. The field day was in the Northern Lofty region which receives more rain than here where we live in a rain shadow.

It is amazing how, once you have been looking closely at grass plants, one’s eyes become quick to pick up the plants growing on the side of the road.

The photo shows some of the grassy woodland we were walking through with a large Eucalyptus viminalis (Manna Gum).

Austrostipa species (Spear Grass)

I intend to master this book as I would like to be able to go further than say ‘that is an Austrostipa’.

I still have not found a suitable species to use as a native grass lawn. Our naturally low rain fall is the problem. There is no point in trying to establish something that uses as much water as some of the lawn grasses available. I have heard that there will possibly be a need to run a sprinkler once a month to keep the lawn looking like a lawn in the summer. That is a a problem in a particularly dry year as we are having. I guess the decision has to be made about whether we want to have a green patch or not. What would be the purpose of a native grass lawn?

More information on Australian Native Grasses may be found here.

Grasses Identification Workshop

I still haven’t had a good look at it, or tried using the key for identification. That is something I want to try this week before all the Austrostipa (Spear Grass) seed drops. I hope I can get closer to an identification before I have to measure hairs on seed that might only be .3mm long!

The book contains the information from the 1986 Flora of South Australia by Jessop and Toelken, with corrections and updated information, including 61 extra species. Certainly a great resource for those interested in growing native grasses.

Grasses Identification Workshop

I have been able to go to two sessions on grass identification at Mt Pleasant in the northern Mt Lofty Ranges. These were aimed at beginners and were as basic as deciding whether a plant was a grass or not, parts of grasses so that we could understand what is talked about in the Flora guides and deciding such seemingly simple things like the difference between a panicle and a raceme. It took me ages to ‘get it’.

Fortunately our tutors were able to speak layman’s language and make it all understandable and take us to the next stage of using the botanical terminology. In a few weeks we will have a field trip to help us recognise the plants rather than the pieces we were using indoors.

I always fear finding myself propagating introduced species of grasses. I am on a quest for a suitable grass to use as a lawn substitute that will not require excessive water to look good. I heard ‘lawn’ mentioned in one of the conversations, sat up to take notice of what was being said, only to have the other tutor say ‘oh, but…’ and sure enough what was being said applied to a higher rainfall area. Even though we are only 40 minutes drive away, we are in a definite rain shadow here.