how to grow grass

[Cindy V]

Ok, I'm an Island dummie, I admit it! We are close to moving in and would like the best practice for planting and growing a great lawn. Help and much mahalo.

Cindy

[Carolann R]

hi Cindy. Haahaa...we have lava cinder so don't know about that, but I have to say how funny your topic was to me when I first logged on...reminded me of a book I read in High School "A Child's Garden of Grass"...LOL!!

Carrie

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx

http://www.hellophoenix.com/art/dreamhawaii.Cfm

[wyatt]

Hey Cindy check out this link it is helpful and specific to Hawaii.

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/TM-4.pdf

Aloha
Wyatt

[Hotzcatz]

Aloha Cindy,

How do you define "a great lawn"? Personally, I think great lawns are ones which don't need to be mowed all the time, but some folks have different ideas on what great lawns look like. Whatever you decide on, figure that you will have to maintain it year 'round so selecting a lawn that is easy to care for will save loads of work.

The fellow who lived in our house before we did looked around and found some grasses which grow slowly and stay low. There's three or four different types of them which he planted around in the back yard. He says he just got sprigs of them from other yards and encouraged them to spread. We also have areas of ground cover, areas of mondo grass and a lot of areas which still need a lot of work. Sigh! Go for the easy to take care of stuff!

A hui hou,
Cathy

[Chili]

I too was wondering about grass as we should be moving into our home and need to start a yard around April or May. The url. that Wyatt put in this thread is very informative. Thanks Wyatt.
Chili

We get out of life......What we put into it

[Cindy V]

Thanks Wyatt and all, these are great and are to sure to help us. Once we get there and the lawn is green I'll bring this forward and post a pic.

Aloha

[bystander]

I have centipede grass around my house. One problem I've been having is that this clover type grass grows in with it and eventually takes over. I've found that Weed Begone from Ortho gets rid of it but you have to keep spraying.

[oink]

I've found crabgrass to be a quick ground cover and is resistant to other intruding species.

S. FL Islander to be

[Kelena]

I know nothing about growing grass, although I would love to sit back and watch it do that, maybe with a ukulele in hand.

However, I DO KNOW where you can go see a GREAT 2 acre lawn. There is a house on 27th in HPP (John can tell you where). These homeowners have THE secret to growing a great lawn in puna. Knock on the door and ask them! (You may have to hop over the very high fence to do that, like John and I did). That lawn is fantastic.

[Hotzcatz]

Well, you can pretty much start a lawn any time you want to, we don't have enough seasonal differences to require a specific "planting season". For tender garden vegetables like lettuce and peas, most of those are planted in the fall with an additional crop in late winter. Grass can be planted at any time although it will probably need a bit more watering over the summer if it is just starting out.

There isn't the big "keeping up with the Okamuras" in lawns here like there is on the mainland. It seems the further north you go on the mainland, the more particular folks are about their lawns and the more status they put into them. (Around here it is usually a different patch of grass which will get you status, but it is a different type of status, too.)

If you are planting in pure cinder, then getting a bunch of organic matter into it (compost/mulch) will help hold the moisture and let your grass grow. You can get bags of mulch at the transfer station for free and that will keep moisture into the cinder.

Around Christmas time, though, a lot of the mulch is made from Christmas trees which are mostly pine. Pine mulch is good for areas where you don't want stuff growing through it, I forget why. Might be good along fence lines and such so you wouldn't have to pull up weeds there all the time.

I had some friends in Orchidland who had just one duck. He had a moveable fenced in enclosure with a small wading pond. They would fence in a small area and let him live there about six months. Then they would move him to a patch next door and let the grass grow where he had been. Thick lush green grass was growing where he had been. Sparse thin grass was growing in the rest of the yard. After the duck had been there, the grass seemed to stay lush, there were areas where he hadn't been for a year or more, but they were still lush and green.

Maybe the best way to grow a lawn is to ask Santa for a dozen baby ducks?