Toughing up the Turf

It is finally time to start planting my new lawn. Be gone with you water-greedy St Augustine grass! There's a tougher act coming to town that will leave you in the literal dust - sedges.

Sedges (Carex spp.) are wonderful plants. They are perennials that resemble grass, but don't have the heavy growing requirements that many of our grasses are bred to demand. The sedge I chose for my front yard is a native Texan that is able to grow in shade with limited water. I have interplanted it with some variegated liriope that I moved from a flower bed. The combination of dark green and the white margins of the liriope should be pretty amazing. I might throw in some red Oxalis lasiandra just to punch it up a bit. If I do it right it will look like one of Grandma Clemmy's or Linda's quilts.

The best thing about it is that it will look great all year round and I won't have to mow it, fertilize it, edge it, thatch it, rake it, aerate it, water it, or procrastinate about it. I can walk all over it, park my lawn chair on it, spill beer on it, and generally sit and wave at the neighbors as they slog it out in the heat slaving over their lawn. Oh yeah, I'm likin' this sedge more and more.