The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Landscape Gardening
If the subsoil is good, with some fertility and adequate drainage, the top layer may be skimped somewhat; but where the lower strata are mainly hard clay, sand, cinders or tin cans, a top layer of more than 16 inches is required.
While the grading is being done is the time to manage the drainage. Open, gravelly soils need no special help, but retentive clays should be underlaid with a generous system of tile drains.
To get a good turf of desirable grasses requires a detailed attention to weather and to the seasons of the year. This is so much of a local matter, conditions in different neighborhoods differing so materially, that it is wise for the novice to consult the town oracle. There should be at least one man in every community who knows all about sowing grass seed.
Generally speaking there are two seeding seasons, early spring and late summer. It is to be observed, further that heavy seeding is usually desirable; also that only the best seed should be sown, even though vhe price seems rather high. Poor grass seed, mixed with good weed seeds, is about the most troublesome beginning a lawn can possibly have.
The selection of species for the lawn grass is rather a complicated matter. In some sections only bluegrass can be considered; in others bluegrass is tabu. On limestone or alkaline soils bluegrass, rye grasses and meadow fescue are apt to thrive best. On acid soils, however, it will be well to choose bent grasses, sheeps fescue or red fescue. Sandy soils will give best results when sown with the fescues; heavy clay soils are better in bluegrass. Wet soils should be planted with redtop and meadow fescue, while dry soils prefer sheeps fescue. Lawns near the sea, which are apt to IK- sandy, may be treated to redtop, creeping bent and Rhode Island bent grass.
Lime has often been recommended as a dressing for lawns. Its value is more than questionable, unless one wishes especially to encourage bluegrass and white clover.
Frequent top dressings with clean garden loam or well-rotted compost will serve much better. The best fertilizers are those bearing nitrogen, such as stable manure, nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, tankage, dried blood and sliced manure.
A great part of keeping a lawn in good condition lies in the mowing. A lawn should be mowed regularly, depending on its growth rather than on the calendar, and it is better not to cut too closely. The mowings should be raked off if best results are expected.
