EXECUTION OF SOME OF THE LANDSCAPE FEATURES - Continued
The mowing.
The mowing of the lawn should begin as soon as the grass is tall enough
in the spring and continue at the necessary intervals throughout the
summer. The most frequent mowings are needed early in the season, when
the grass is growing rapidly. If it is mown frequently--say once or
twice a week--in the periods of most vigorous growth, it will not be
necessary to rake off the mowings. In fact, it is preferable to leave
the grass on the lawn, to be driven into the surface by the rains and to
afford a mulch. It is only when the lawn has been neglected and the
grass has got so high that it becomes unsightly on the lawn, or when the
growth is unusually luxurious, that it is necessary to take it off. In
dry weather care should be taken not to mow the lawn any more than
absolutely necessary. The grass should be rather long when it goes into
the winter. In the last two months of open weather the grass makes small
growth, and it tends to lop down and to cover the surface densely, which
it should be allowed to do.
Fall treatment.
As a rule, it is not necessary to rake all the leaves off lawns in the
fall. They afford an excellent mulch, and in the autumn months the
leaves on the lawn are among the most attractive features of the
landscape. The leaves generally blow off after a time, and if the place
has been constructed with an open center and heavily planted sides, the
leaves will be caught in these masses of trees and shrubs and there
afford an excellent mulch. The ideal landscape planting, therefore,
takes care of itself to a very large extent. It is bad economy to burn
the leaves, especially if one has herbaceous borders, roses, and other
plants that need a mulch. When the leaves are taken off the borders in
the spring, they should be piled with the manure or other refuse and
there allowed to pass into compost (pages 110, 111).
If the land has been well prepared in the beginning, and its life is not
sapped by large trees, it is ordinarily unnecessary to cover the lawn
with manure in the fall. The common practice of covering grass with raw
manure should be discouraged because the material is unsightly and
unsavory, and the same results can be got with the use of commercial
fertilizers combined with dressings of very fine and well-rotted compost
or manure, and by not raking the lawn too clean of the mowings of
the grass.
Spring treatment.
Every spring the lawn should be firmed by means of a roller, or, if the
area is small, by means of a pounder, or the back of a spade in the
hands of a vigorous man. The lawn-mower itself tends to pack the
surface. If there are little irregularities in the surface, caused by
depressions of an inch or so, and the highest places are not above the
contour-line of the lawn, the surface may be brought to level by
spreading fine, mellow soil over it, thereby filling up the depressions.
The grass will quickly grow through this soil. Little hummocks may be
cut off, some of the earth removed, and the sod replaced.
Watering lawns.
The common watering of lawns by means of lawn sprinklers usually does
more harm than good. This results from the fact that the watering is
generally done in clear weather, and the water is thrown through the air
in very fine spray, so that a considerable part of it is lost in vapor.
The ground is also hot, and the water does not pass deep into the soil.
If the lawn is watered at all, it should be soaked; turn on the hose at
nightfall and let it run until the land is wet as deep as it is dry,
then move the hose to another place. A thorough soaking like this, a
few times in a dry summer, will do more good than sprinkling every day.
If the land is deeply prepared in the first place, so that the roots
strike far into the soil, there is rarely need of watering unless the
place is arid, the season unusually dry, or the moisture sucked out by
trees. The surface sprinkling engenders a tendency of roots to start
near the surface, and therefore the more the lawn is lightly watered,
the greater is the necessity for watering it.
Sodding the lawn.
[Illustration: Fig. 77. Cutting sod for a lawn.]
Persons who desire to secure a lawn very quickly may sod the area rather
than seed it, although the most permanent results are usually secured by
seeding. Sodding, however, is expensive, and is to be used only about
the borders of the place, near buildings, or in areas in which the owner
can afford to expend considerable money. The best sod is that which is
secured from an old pasture, and for two or three reasons. In the first
place, it is the right kind of grass, the June-grass (in the North)
being the species that oftenest runs into pastures and crowds out other
plants. Again, it has been so closely eaten down, especially if it has
been pastured by sheep, that it has made a very dense and well-filled
sod, which can be rolled up in thin layers. In the third place, the soil
in old pastures is likely to be rich from the droppings of animals.
[Illustration: Fig. 78. Economical sodding, the spaces being seeded.]
In taking sod, it is important that it be cut very thin. An inch and a
half thick is usually ample. It is ordinarily rolled up in strips a foot
wide and of any length that will allow the rolls to be handled by one or
two men. A foot-wide board is laid upon the turf, and the sod cut along
either edge of it. One person then stands upon the strip of sod and
rolls it towards himself, while another cuts it loose with a spade, as
shown in Fig. 77. When the sod is laid, it is unrolled on the land and
then firmly beaten down. Land that is to be sodded should be soft on
top, so that the sod can be well pounded into it. If the sod is not well
pounded down, it will settle unevenly and present a bad surface, and
will also dry out and perhaps not live through a dry spell. It is almost
impossible to pound down sod too firm. If the land is freshly plowed, it
is important that the borders that are sodded be an inch or two lower
than the adjacent land, because the land will settle in the course of a
few weeks. In a dry time, the sod may be covered from a half inch to an
inch with fine, mellow soil as a mulch. The grass should grow through
this soil without difficulty. Upon terraces and steep banks, the sod may
be held in place by driving wooden pegs through it.
A combination of sodding and seeding.
An "economical sodding" is described in "American Garden" (Fig. 78): "To
obtain sufficient sod of suitable quality for covering terrace-slopes or
small blocks that for any reason cannot well be seeded is often a
difficult matter. In the accompanying illustration we show how a surface
of sod may be used to good advantage over a larger area than its real
measurement represents. This is done by laying the sods, cut in strips
from six to ten inches wide, in lines and cross-lines, and after
filling the spaces with good soil, sowing these spaces with grass-seed.
Should the catch of seed for any reason be poor, the sod of the strips
will tend to spread over the spaces between them, and failure to obtain
a good sward within a reasonable time is almost out of the question.
Also, if one needs sod and has no place from which to cut it except the
lawn, by taking up blocks of sod, leaving strips and cross-strips, and
treating the surface as described, the bare places are soon covered
with green."
Sowing with sod.
Lawns may be sown with pieces of sods rather than with seeds. Sods may
be cut up into bits an inch or two square, and these may be scattered
broadcast over the area and rolled into the land. While it is preferable
that the pieces should lie right side up, this is not necessary if they
are cut thin, and sown when the weather is cool and moist. Sowing pieces
of sod is good practice when it is difficult to secure a catch
from seed.
If one were to maintain a permanent sod garden, at one side, for the
selecting and growing of the very best sod (as he would grow a stock
seed of corn or beans), this method should be the most rational of all
procedures, at least until the time that we produce strains of lawn
grass that come true from seeds.
Other ground covers.
Under trees, and in other shady places, it may be necessary to cover the
ground with something else than grass. Good plants for such uses are
periwinkle (Vinca minor, an evergreen trailer, often called "running
myrtle"), moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia), lily-of-the-valley, and
various kinds of sedge or carex. In some dark or shady places, and under
some kinds of trees, it is practically impossible to secure a good lawn,
and one may be obliged to resort to decumbent bushes or other forms
of planting.
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