Well, maybe, a bit of an overstatement. But, nonetheless, it is something that really has me scratching my head:
I fertize my lawn at the begginning of every spring, sow grass seed at least twice a year, rake the leaves, regularly cut the grass, etc. and generally do what I can to make it look nice. Moreover, rain has been pretty steady around here.
Despite this effort and mother nature’s cooperation, it is an up-hill battle. There are some brown patches that I have to work on, and there are some spots of perfectly damp-black soil that doesn’t want to have more than a few blades of grass. Moreover, there is a spot on my lawn near my driveway that apparently had a bed of 2-to-3 inch pebbles in it many years ago. Every time it rains, the rocks come up and really interfere with the grass’ growth.
This is frustrating enough in and of itself. But, then I go out and rail fan CSX’ Chicago-Evansville line. Despite the fact that the line has very heavy traffic, several inches–if not feet–of rock ballast, is probably treated with weed killer at least once a year, there is more grass on that line than most golf greens.
Talk about adding insult to injury. How in the heck can grass grow so well on this weed-killer treated, thick rock ballast–with regular heavy train traffic no less–while ADM couldn’t grow grass on my lawn?
There are many kinds of grass. Each does best on certain types of ground and environments.
The guy from whom I bought my house was a greens keeper at a Tournament Players Club course.
As a result, my lawn is Emerald Zoysia grass . It is the toughest hardiest stuff I have ever encountered. I don’t fertilize it, I don’t put weed killer on it. I don’t even water it. I don’t do anything to it but mow. It chokes out other grasses and weeds. Even dandilions won’t grow through it.
It is lush, and green, and feels like shag carpet when you walk through it. It grows slow and even, so it doesn’t look bad even when it needs mowing. It spreads slowly but steadily, and reclaims areas that have been damaged.
It just survived a severe drought last year, and greened right up in the spring.
I suspect that if I decided I didn’t like it, I would have a hard time killing it.
The bad side:
It requires a fairly stong lawn mower, and it turns brown in the fall before other grass, but it is an even brown that actually doesn’t look bad.
I am not an expert…no, much less than an expert…in such topics, but I do live on a sandy and somewhat gravelly peninsula. Everything competes for what little tilth is in the topsoil. I have what must be 20 different grasses, thistles, ground cover creeping whatchamacallits., seedlings, dandelions, and whatever else poking up through what’s left of our turf out there at the moment.
Sometimes, simply re-sodding, or a heavy addition of quality topsoil and extensive re-seeding is what it takes to really establish a good lawn. But the experts say infested lawns are unhealthy lawns that are too dry, have too little nourishment and tilth, are not aerated, have too much clay, yada yada…you may have to invite an true soil expert waving some cash and get a solid assessment. You may have rogue root infestations, burrowing insects, molds…who knows until you have a proper determination?
I guess what I am saying is that I am perplexed that so much green stuff grows on a heavily used right away without any seeding, fertilizing, or top soil and it grows so poorly in my yard.
We have a beautiful, lush green switching lead right now, with perfectly even 8" tall “grass” growing rail to rail, and not a thing growing outside the rail…makes for a odd picture, this green stripe running through the middle of a rail yard.
All the result of a hopper slide not being closed completly.
Most weedspray material is actually hyper fertilizer…it kills the vegitation by making it grow too fast and then starve itself for food and water…
Somebody’s weed sprayer did not come back after the rainstorm. The stormwater diluted the stuff enough that it just became high grade fertilizer. Ol’ Black Thumb at the railroad will hear it from the FRA inspector under 49CFR213.37…[:-^]
It might or might not also help that the consistant moving of trains might be blowing seeds along the line. Maybe you could harvest some and use it for your house instead next year?
All that you’ve said about zoysia is correct, but it has a hard time in the shade. Almost all my lawn was covered, except for one corner where I had a big, bushy maple tree. When the tree died, I had it cut down, and Voila! My whole lawn is zoysia, except along the hedges.
With the tree gone, I can also see the BNSF better. (Have to stay on topic.)
gabe, either way, it’s opportunism as Nature directs it to be. In each case, the right of way or your lawn, the conditions must be pretty darned decent for whatever manifestation of the opportunism you see. I hadn’t thought of the wheat or barley, rye, flax…who knows what has decided to build a shack where you are, but that must be it. Wheat was first grown on prairie gumbo in modern times. It isn’t a whole lot different today, except for added fertilizer.
Here on Vancouver Island, the big plague is from Scotch Broom, wild roses, and another recent invader that I have forgotten about. Before them, it was the blackberry, or bramble, that took over roadways, gardens, hillsides. The 28 acres on the other side of a recently erected cedar panel fence to me was once a rye field. Guess what I have to whipper-snip every 10 days that is once again 14" tall or more? Some bright bulb planted poppies on our property once a few years back, and they pop alright…everywhere. Right in the middle of my raised beds. And my pet peeve is the horsetail…whatever it is, that just loves arid conditions and sandy soil, which I have in great supply between the end of May and the end of August.
Being rather close to you and probably have similar types of grass. I generally have the nicest lawn on our street…I proved this to myself by looking at it on one of the satellite photos…{Taken a few years ago}. My John deere was even in the picture sitting on the drive way where I put it after mowing to clean it off…
That is, until last season when the severe drought in this area really gave me trouble. I’m still trying to recover from it. Bad spots appeared as the drought continued on late last season.
Our lawn is treated 4 times a season by a local business and has been for perhaps the last 30 plus years.
This season, very early I got out my little wirly bird seeder and put 25 to 30 lbs. of grass seed on the bad spots. A bit later we did more…Still, slow to see results we started to add top soil to the bad spots and still later we did this: Purchased top soil locally in the plastic bags and mixed {saturated}, is a better word, the soil with grass seed. Added it then to the worst spots.
Then we started to get into the recent rainy weather and I’ll say the combination is really doing the job now. I truly believe the mixing seed with the top soil…before putting it down on the bad spots did the job. But as most of us know one can water to your blue in the face but it’s the natrual rain that really does the job…
It’s not back 100% yet but it really is doing much, much better and certainly looking better overall.
I’ve been mowing about every 4 days and do so at 2 1/2" in mowing height.
In my old house I had a neighbor across the street who worked ceaselessly on his lawn - fertilizing, mowing once a week, watering etc…and it looked horrible. I only raked leaves to get them out of the areas I would be snowblowing when winter came, and was dedicated enough to mow the lawn once a month - whether it needed it or not!!
Of course, my lawn looked great with thick green grass everywhere. [^]
My lawn is mostly rooted in a very clay soil - it cracks when things get dry.
Since I use a well, I don’t water - except maybe the front flower bed before it gets established.
Right now I’m sweating whether I’ll have to call in a local farmer to bale it for me. In August, I’ll get a nice vacation since I won’t have to mow for weeks on end.
I wonder, too, if the problem to a large extent is that folks don’t appreciate just how much watering it takes to do a good job of it. A rainbird or similar sprinkler running at full blast for 30 minutes is doing nothing but letting about 30% of it evaporate over that period of time, particularly during the hours between 10 am and 5 pm. Getting water down to the roots in your typical lawn will take nearly two inches of watering/rain! How much sprinkling is that!?
Far, far better to get up @ 0600 and let the sprinkler run for about 2 hours in its usual swath. Do another section, maybe an adjacent one, starting at supper time. That should do the trick, but then you must repeat in each spot four days later. That’s probably more sticking close to home dedication than most of us want, and more watering than municipalities will permit. [B)]