Groundcover Lecture Notes

• Groundcovers and Lawns Origins
• The hungry hunter gatherer
• Lawns represent prey nearby
• Groundcover may represent food plants
• Flowers represent fertility and water
• Lawns
• Also represent cattle and horse ownership
• A cattle and horse owner looks out and sees the grass cut by the grazing of their animals.
• Pasturage and Golf have propelled the lawn industry
• Golf was first developed in China around AD 400
• Lawn ownership and maintenance could be a form of:
• Exercise in Dominance of territory (master of all you see with a weapon in hand to defend it), and target sport (warrior culture).
• Increase in sight lines for security
• Lawn Pros
• Highly attractive, prestigious
• Cool down the areas they are planted in.
• Unequalled for athletic play
• Huge subconscious satisfaction.
• Lawn Cons
• Huge amount of water
• Require regular maintenance
• Gas powered mowers are highly polluting.
• Most of Southern California is naturally averse to lawns
• Increased humidity
• Types of Lawns
• Summer dormant
• Fescue
• High water use but not as much as other summer dormant
• Clumping
• Susceptible to ‘melting out’
• Aerate or Dethatch every several years.
• Creeping red -California native good for shade
• Bluegrass
• High water use
• Fine texture
• Shallow roots -can dry out inland readily.
• Disease susceptible
• Bentgrass
• Very high maintenance -putting green
• Requires lots of water.
• UC Verde Buffalo Grass
• Winter and Summer dormant
• Slow growing
• Only really does well in the inland valleys.
• Grows too slow on the coast.
• Rye
• Excellent regenerative properties.
• Great for heavy use, athletic fields
• Requires regular watering
• Winter dormant
• Bermuda
• Low growing varieties make good putting greens
• Fine textured
• Go dormant in the winter: turf colorant best used as overseeding can be patchy
• Best with regular dethatching
• Dethatch in June here
• Uses ½ the water that Fescue does.
• St. Augustine
• Luxuriant, old fashioned look
• Less watering than fescue, more than bermuda
• Needs dethatching once every 2-5 years
• Dethatch in June, not Fall. Overseeding with rye not the best idea, instead consider turf colorant when it goes dormant.
• You can prevent dormancy by applying high nitrogen in the late fall before it goes dormant, however you have to water more frequently.
• Zoysia
• Marketed as miracle grass on the back of newspaper Sunday circulars.
• Long dormancy period makes it problematic for this area.
• Paspalum
• Great for salty conditions near the seashore; also for Palm Springs lawns.
• Cool season dormancy almost as long as Zoysia, slow growing.
• Kikuyu
• The ‘Surrender’ lawn
• Does not wear as well as bermuda, but can look just like it.
• Lawn like groundcovers
• Dichondra
• Impossible to keep nowadays as the herbicide that allowed it to exist without hours of weekly weeding is off the market.
• Still a great shade groundcover, as is its native cousin, Dichondra californica.
• Related to yams and morning glories.
• Kurapia (Phyla nodiflora cult. “Kurrapia”
• A sterile, low growing cultivar of  once popular water-saving California native ground cover Lippia nodiflora: Kurrapia can be grown and even mowed as a relatively low growing lawn AND purchased in easy to install rolls like sod.
• Dymondia marguerite
• Tough grey-green low growing groundcover for full sun.
• Initial prep and establishment are important: dig amendment in to 8-12 inches deep.so the plant can develop deep roots.
• After about 1-2 years of establishment you can cut the watering down gradually to once every two weeks.
• Will take some traffic after established -however limit events and parties to once or twice a year -do not play football or ball sports on your Dymondia lawn.    
• Specialty Mixes
• Eco lawn
• Patch Mixes
• Shade mixes
• Native grasses
• Bouteloua
• Festuca californica
• Carex (praegracilis and tumulicola
• Groundcovers
• Perception that bare ground is infertile, sterile.
• Fear of erosion
• The concept of ground cover is relatively recent and may have been fueled by the Dust Bowls of the 1930’s.
• Modern reasons for ground covers
• Aesthetics, ground-cover provides a green area of continuity between larger landscape elements and plants.
• Erosion control
• Can prevent hillsides from sliding down if root structure is sufficient.
• Must balance erosion control and fire prevention.
• Some plants might actually increase breakdown of bedrock.
• Always consult a soils geologist if there is a question of hillside failure
• Security
• Perceptively maintained and/or planted areas of landscape make people feel more secure.
• Sightlines created by low groundcovers increase security.
• Groundcover drawbacks
• Water need is more than just bare ground.
• Increased humidity.
• Vermin and pests
• Rats and Ivy
• Midges and Red Apple
• Discourage ground nesting bees.
• Many require maintenance
• Trimming
• Cutting back
• Fertilization
• Thinning
• Some can cause hillsides to come down.
• Iceplant
• Sedum
• Selected Groundcovers
• Iceplants
• Aptenia (Red and Pink Apple)
• Drosanthemum floribundum
• Delosperma
• Lampranthus
• Sedum etc.
• Sedum species
• Asphodelaceae
• Aloe ‘Red Riding Hood’
• Creeping Aloes
• Asteraceae
• Gazania
• Osteospermum
• Dymondia
• Achillea
• Rosaceae
• ‘Pink Carpet’ Roses
• Other low growing roses
• Lamiaceae
• Rosemary
• Salvia
• Ajuga
• Lippia
• Kurapia (see above)
• Thyme
• Sage
• Rhamnaceae
• Cotoneaster
• Ceanothus
• Berberidaceae
• Nandina
• N. purpurea, N domestica dwarf (shade and sun)
• Berberis repens (shade)
• Ophiopogon japonicus nanus