Defeating Weeds GET YOUR NEW LANDSCAPE OFF TO A GOOD START
BY ANITA CLEVENGER GARDEN JABBER
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purred by the drought and financial incentives, an increasing number of our neighbors are tearing out their lawns and installing less thirsty alternatives. I’ve watched with great interest. Some of the new front yards promise to be beautiful when the plants grow bigger. Unfortunately, not all have been a success. Spring and summer are difficult times to establish new plants in our climate, and it shows. Many of the plants have struggled or died. Often, the replaced lawns were mostly Bermuda grass. Unless it was killed completely, Bermuda grass quickly grew through the mulch, turning the new landscapes into a weedy mess. If you haven’t yet planted a water-efficient landscape, how do you avoid these problems? Fall is the best time of the year to plant in our Mediterranean climate. With luck, we will get winter rains that will help new plants to get established. While many plants slow down or stop growth in the winter, roots continue to grow. By the time spring arrives, your new landscape will have a much better chance at survival.
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How do you increase their chances even more? Make sure that conditions are right for your selected plants. Many less thirsty plants come from Mediterranean regions where the soil drains freely. A few parts of Sacramento have deep, sandy loam, but soil in much of our city is a poorly drained combination of dense silt and clay or a thin layer of topsoil over impervious dense hardpan. Read about how much sunlight, water and drainage plants need and make sure that you give them the right conditions.
Don’t let new plants dry out during the winter and during their first two years of growth. Even the most drought-tolerant plants need regular moisture when they are young. Once their roots are well established, you can cut back on the water. Take the time to plant them well, in holes at least twice as wide but no deeper that their root mass. Don’t add compost or other amendments to the backfill because it will discourage roots from penetrating the surrounding native soil. Be sure to spread several inches of mulch to keep the soil cool and retain water.
You are in for a battle if you plant in an area with Bermuda grass unless you kill it first. Even if you stopped watering your lawn this summer and it appears dead, its roots are probably still alive and its seeds are viable. Bermuda grass spreads by shoots that grow above the ground (stolons), beneath the surface (rhizomes) and seed. Rhizomes go at least 6 inches deep in undisturbed soil, but often much deeper. If you simply cut off the sod and plant your new landscape, Bermuda grass will grow right back. You can kill Bermuda grass by blocking all sunlight for a number of