A lawnmower should be the only difference between a garden and a lawn - both should boast a bounty of broad-leaf flowering plants.

 

If you have been participating in the return to a more traditional, greener, healthier lifestyle, you probably already have a lawnflower lawn, or at least the beginnings of one. If not, you will want to get started this growing season.

Establishing lawnflowers, wildflowers, native plants, and domestic flowers in your lawn requires reducing or thinning the amount of grass in your lawn or eliminating the grass from your lawn all together.

The easiest way to start a lawnflower lawn is to simply stop poisoning your lawnflowers. You can then wait to see what lawnflower immigrants volunteer to grace your lawn.

At the other extreme, you can cut, roll, and remove your sod, plow, till and amend the soil, plant a carefully selected assortment of lawnflower seed, transplants, bulbs, corms, rhizomes, tubers, and such, and then wait to see what additional lawnflower immigrants volunteer to grace your new lawn.

Here is another way to get your lawnflower lawn started.
1) Stop poisoning your lawnflowers. Dispose of unused lawnflower poisons at an official hazardous, toxic waste disposal site.
2) Scalp-mow your lawn at the lowest possible mower settings. A second scalp-mowing may be needed to further minimize grass height, decrease vigor, and stunt regrowth. Some of the lawngrasses might be killed by this, opening space for lawnflower establishment.
3) Perform an extremely deep and vigorous thatching. A second thatching may be needed to rip at the lawngrass roots, decrease vigor, and stunt regrowth. Some of the lawngrasses might be killed by this, opening space for lawnflower establishment.
4) Perform a very thorough soil plugging aeration. Additional plugging will further reduce sod continuity, opening yet more space for lawnflower establishment.
5) A coarse but shallow rototilling can further tear up the lawngrasses, opening additional space for lawnflower establishment.
6) Selectively remove sod strips and patches to create areas totally free of lawngrasses. The absence of competition from lawngrasses will allow the less aggressive species of lawnflowers to establish more readily.
5) Plant a carefully selected assortment of lawnflower seeds, transplants, bulbs, corms, rhizomes, tubers, and such. Then, wait to see what additional lawnflower immigrants volunteer to grace your lawn.
8) As your lawnflowers begin to grow, spread, and self propagate, begin mowing at your mower’s highest setting. This will allow the taller lawnflowers to have a chance to set seed. Always keep your mower blades sharp so they actually cut the lawnflowers rather beat, bruise, and tear the tops off.
9) Be willing to delay a mowing to allow favored species to mature seed. Maturing seed tops, pods, etc add a certain artistic richness to a lawnflower lawn.

The visually appealing attribute of lawnflower lawns is that they will never look like an even height extension of your indoor carpeting the way lawngrass lawns so monotonously do. Lawnflower lawns will look rougher, wilder, more natural, and will therefore have a soothing, relaxing, refreshing effect on the viewer. Lawnflower lawns spare the viewer of that sterile, socially uptight aire that haunts those terribly uninviting lawngrass lawns.

 

Most of the lawnflowers you plant will be wildflowers native or naturalized to your area. Below is a list of books offering ideas about how to utilize wild flowering plants in landscape plantings, gardens, and orchards. Many of the plants discussed will adapt well to a high mowed lawnflower lawn.

After you scroll down below this list of books about growing lawnflowers, wildflowers, and native plants you will find a section called Lawnflower Propagation. Accompanying this section is a list of books about plant propagation. If you see a book title that interests you in either of these two book lists, click on it to be redirected to the book’s description and ordering information. Education is the key to enriching the health of ourselves and the community we share with all living things.

 

 

American Lawn