Can a Lawn be environmentally friendly?

Many of you will have tried, with various degrees of success, to grow a lawn here. Those who have will appreciate not only the work involved, but also the resources required to grow one that is a lush green.

Unfortunately, the Cretan climate is not conducive to grass growing all the year round. It grows under stressful conditions for much of the year, which is asking for trouble. Indeed, for about six months of the year it requires so much water to keep it green, it is the cause of great debate whether it should even be considered.

Other negatives for growing grass are the amount of pesticides and herbicides that are required to combat all those invasive pests that lawns are susceptible to. And, you’ve guessed it, a stressed lawn is less able to withstand weed and pest attacks than a strong and healthy one.

Early attempts to grow grass used similar seed mixtures as those that thrive in northern Europe, but obviously these did not thrive during the hot, dry summers.

On the island of Bermuda, a grass was being developed that withstood the heat and dry conditions better than most other grasses.

This Bermuda grass, which spread to the island during colonial days from the bedding used on slave ships, is now in widespread use in many of the seed mixes used on Crete . . . or is often sown alone for a summer lawn and over seeded as necessary during the autumn, with a fescue or rye grass to give winter greenness.

Bermuda grass is the only one of the “warm season grasses” that I have seen on Crete.

Those of you that do grow Bermuda grass lawns will, however, still agree that the lawn still requires lots of water to keep it at its best. However, another grass that found its way around the world on slave ships just may be the answer.

Seashore Paspalum started to be investigated as a turf grass in the 50s and 60s and, with the aid of University studies at such places as Florida and Georgia in the United States, cultivars have been developed that are now in widespread use on golf courses, sports fields and lawns around the world.

It is claimed to have many advantages over Bermuda grass some of which are:

• The ability to withstand drought (it is claimed to only have 50 percent of the water requirements of Bermuda).

• It is so salt tolerant that, with proper management, it can be watered with seawater. It is, however, more usual for irrigation water to be diluted seawater, or part treated effluent water. Neither of which Bermuda can withstand.

• Because of this salt tolerance, plain salt or seawater can be used as an herbicide treatment.

• It is claimed to require only 75 percent of the nitrogen applications as Bermuda.

So what are the disadvantages?  

Well, the biggest one that I can see is cost. Until recently it was only possible to buy Seashore Paspalum as plugs or sprigs (small clumps of grass that have to be planted). Obviously, an expensive method of obtaining a lawn. The costs are exaggerated by shipping tarrifs and the licence fees paid to the certified growers.

Still, golf complexes the world over see it as a cost effective grass when they consider the amount and type of water it requires. What else can they do with their waste water?

I have found a source of the first cultivar of the grass available as seed. Even this, however, is not cheap. Currently about one and a half the cost of basic Bermuda grass, but what price the environment?

 Any comments on your efforts, or otherwise, to grow grass on Crete can be posted on my blogsite: www.quality-gardens-crete.blogspot.com

As a footnote it may be worth noting that Seashore Paspalum is the grass that is intended to be used on the proposed Cavo Sidero golf complex here on Crete.