Buffalo grass lawn

Closeup of buffalo grass

Many of my days this spring and summer have been spent working on our lawn. Last fall we seeded buffalo grass and covered it with huge rolls of erosion control blankets. Those plastic netting and straw blankets helped the dirt and seeds stay put. But they weren't perfectly successful and they didn't control the weeds.

There is one big challenge with starting buffalo grass: it's a warm season grass. That means it sprouts late allowing the weeds to get a head start. So pulling weeds has been my job. And I pulled A LOT.

This rainy summer has been both a blessing and a curse for our new lawn. Buffalo grass is drought tolerant, giving it a resilience that helps in it's competition with weeds. This summer the rain gave the weeds all the water they needed :-( ...that's the curse. The blessing was in the ease with which I could pull the weeds :-) But, still, I have developed arthritis in my hands. So it's a good thing I don't have to pull as many weeds now.

Once the buffalo grass was freed of the weed competition it took over quickly. It spreads like crabgrass sending runners all over the place. And it holds tight to the soil so that most weeds pull out of the soil without pulling up the buffalo grass.

I haven't mowed our new lawn, so it doesn't look manicured like most lawns yet. The grass is 5 or 6 inches tall right now and in the thickest places totally smothers any weeds that try to grow. It has a very fine texture and is incredibly soft to walk through. Jeremy says it looks so soft that it makes him want to lay down on it. (He doesn't do that, though, because it's pretty buggy!)

We are looking forward to enjoying the benefits of this special grass next season. Hopefully, its naturally short stature and drought tolerance will mean very little mowing and no watering. And all those hours pulling weeds this year will not be repeated!