Our lawns are the eyes into the souls of our homes…or at least, that what it seems like sometimes.  We love our grass, and yet, we mistreat it by cutting it too much and dumping toxic chemicals on it all the time.  With the Yard Detox Challenge, I’m always being asked by homeowners about how long or short their grass really needs to be. Most people always have a sense of what's too short or too long, but rarely know if, for example, 1-inch is too short or 3-inches too long.  

Too Much, Too Little
It seems like a basic question, but when I talk with people about their grass, they typically aren’t sure what a 1-inch or 3-inch blade of grass looks like.  Just in terms of math, 3 inches is three times the height of 1 inch…that seems simple enough…but does 3 inches look bad?  If your yard were only cut to a 3-inch height, would it look like a jungle or an abandoned lot or a house in foreclosure? 

All lawnmowers have settings for different blade heights.  The setting you have your blade will determine just how tall or short your grass is.  To help illustrate how different settings makes your grass actually look, I recently took photos of my lawn to show you. 

The above photo gives you the bird’s eye view of how different settings actually look.  There are four different lengths of grass in the image.  The strip labeled A was cut at the 1 ¼”setting on my lawnmower.  The strip labeled B is at 3 ¼” setting, and the strip labeled C is right in the middle of those two settings.  The area of grass not labeled is about 7 to 8 inches tall.   So the first question is, which do you like most?  Different people will like different lengthens.  

The image below shows the same strips but from the opposite direction.  

Here's a couple of close-ups to show you just how different the heights of grass really are.

The first close-up is of 1 ¼” grass beside a 3 ¼” cut.  The 1 ¼” inch setting is a favorite among many landscapers in my neighborhood.  It’s way, way too short.  You damage the grass by cutting it this short and create the conditions where chemicals and artificial fertilizers are necessary to keep your lawn looking healthy (even though it's not).  You can also see how the 1 ¼” grass looks yellow compared to the taller 3 ¼” grass.  At 3 ¼” inches, the grass still has a nice green hue and looks full where the 1 ¼” grass looks like its dying and needs rescuing. 

The second close-up shows how 8 inch grass looks beside a 3 ¼” cut.  At 8 inches, the grass is at its maximum height where it looks ok for a front yard.  Letting the grass grow to 7 or 8 inches gives it time to recover and reverses any of the negative impacts of years of mistreatment.   

The Backyard
In my backyard, I’ve really let my grass grow tall.  I reseeded the entire backyard last year, and I want to give it time early this season to get deep roots and reseed naturally.  I mowed two different settings with the grass.  In the image below, I’ve labeled the setting height.

I think this really gets to the heart of the issue of cutting your grass too short.  The discoloration of the 1 ¼” setting is really present, and it makes the grass look unhealthy.  At 3 ¼” setting, the grass still looks green and healthy.  The grass around the two strips is probably about 12 inches high.  At 12 inches high, the grass is probably a little too tall, but for a backyard it’s not horrible.  I also keep it nice and trimmed throughout the rest of the growing season.  There’s plenty of ecological value to letting grass grow taller too.  It will filter rainwater better, provides habitat to bees and other beneficial insects and enriches the soil.  From a maintenance perspective, allowing the grass to grow tall once or twice a season will mean I’ll probably not have to water it at all…not even during the hottest days of July or August.  And without watering it, it will stay green and lush.  I think that’s a pretty nice result for not cutting it too much. 

Growing Back
When you mow at a higher setting (say at 3 ¼”), you can still wait two weeks to mow it again without it starting to look unkempt.  If you wait three weeks, it’ll start to look a little out of hand.  Even so, cutting your grass every two weeks mean you save on water and eliminate the need for fertilizers and pesticides.  Less chemicals equals healthier grass, plus your soil will get healthier too.  Healthier soil means even healthier grass…and you guessed it, even healthier grass equals even healthier soil.  You will see a huge improvement in how your grass looks throughout the Spring and Summer even when it's hot and dry.  Taking the Yard Detox Challenge sets your yard on a cyclical path for a more and more sustainable approach to lawn care. You save money if you have a lawn care service.  If you cut your own grass, you save time…which is money in it’s own way.  

I wanted to do a post about a project that I have been working on with an incredible family in Maplewood, NJ. They wanted to redo their entire yard to make it something special.  We worked together for about a month to get the design just right. The project is amazingly sustainable with measures ranging from self-watering planters to no mow grass and beyond.

The complete project includes new dry stack stonewalls, a 40 ft long stone planter, new front lawn, five big cedar planters, a rain garden in the backyard, a trellis and a palate of native flowers & plants.  We also used reclaimed brick for the front walkway.  

This is the BEFORE picture of the front yard.

And this is the AFTER picture.  

I made a graphic to highlight some of the local materials we used for the installation.

The grass we planted the front yard is a fescue blend that uses about 70% less water than standard lawns.  It can also be managed to eliminate the need to mow it.  This is a big savings for them in a bunch of ways.  It saves at the water meter and their pocketbook.

The entire native plant palate includes 15 different flowers, grasses, trees and shrubs.  The image below show eight of them (from top to bottom & left to right): Cardinal Flower, Blue Cardinal Flower, Rose Mallow, Blazing Star, Heart-Leaved Aster, Carex Eburnea, Jacobs Ladder and Blackhaw Viburnum.  We also planted red milkweed to create habitat for Monarch Butterflies.  

The plants are still small (as you can see in the AFTER pic), but will grow throughout the season and spread as time goes by to create a really beautiful front bed.  

As a gardener and a landscape designer, I deal with tons of pachysandra.  And for good reason!  It is a hardy survivor that thrives in part to heavy shade, dry to wet soil and everywhere in between.  It is rabbit, deer, drought and clay tolerant meaning none of those things will kill or eat it.  It’s also evergreen and an extremely low maintenance groundcover.  Plus it will grow and be happy in all of areas around your house or under trees that has made you question your green thumb abilities.

Yet, no one really likes it.  Or at least, that’s the impression I get.  Nearly everyone I work with who has a full bed of pachysandra wants me to help them get rid of it including my wife.  Over the last week, I’ve spent every morning before work slowly eradicating a bed of pachysandra to make way for new plants.  

There are essentially five species of pachysandra…but only one is native to North America.  The native species, Pachysandra procumbens, only grows in the southeast of the United States.  So first thing to know is if you live in North Jersey and you have pachysandra in your yard, it’s most likely have Pachysandra terminalis, a highly aggressive, fast growing, exotic invasive originating from China and Japan.  This is the species most garden centers sell. 

The nice thing about terminalis is that it can be hand pulled, though it is not an easy job.  It takes lots of time and effort.  After a week of pulling it from the bed I’m redoing, I have about two garbage bags full…and it’s not all gone.  The way the root system grows really ties up the topsoil.  Roots can dominate 3 to 4 inches of the area of the topsoil.  They crisscross every which way and are just a pain to get out of the dirt.  As I pull it, I also know that this will not be the end of pachysandra in my bed.  I have succumbed to the reality that I’ll be revisiting this exercise for years to come.  I do plan to put down landscape fabric (weed mat) and mulch to help kill whatever remains hidden in the soil, but this is more hope than absolute.    

Thought I’d do an extra post to show you how the Yard Detox Challenge can really improve your lawn.  The graphic above is a side by side comparison of Jed’s yard (aka Detox 1). I should call my side by side comparison "SxSC" in the spirit of SxSW and all things hip and new. ;)  

You can see that the grass is thick and greener than it was just a few weeks earlier.  It also has less bald spots and more biodiversity.  It is really important to have your grass thick as we move into the hotter months of the year.  This spring has already been dry, so if July and August are as dry (or drier), getting the lawn thick and happy now will prevent brown areas in late summer.  I did overseed the yard with a premium Kentucky Bluegrass blend, but it hasn’t started growing yet. 

We reduced the number of mowings over the season by half.  That means that normally, this yard would have been cut, at least, 4 to 5 times already.  That’s way, way too much.  The reduction of mowings allow the grass to recover from the harsh winter much, much faster and better.  It also gives the roots time to grow deeper into the soil and independent of sprinkle. The grass on the right wasn’t taller than 2 to 2.5 inches at the time of the photograph.  Most landscapers cut the grass down to one inch…that just sets up the unsustainable cycle of needing fertilizer, sprinklers and pesticides for your yard.  With the Yard Detox, the grass won’t get taller than 3 inches, and so this yard will get cut again soon (most likely at the end of this week). 

What isn’t as easy to see in the images above is that virtually no weeds are growing throughout the lawn.  As we track the yard, I’ll make sure to note if that changes as well as when and where we find them.  

The incredible, amazing Spicebush – not to be confused with the Spice Girls or G.W. Bush (sic)…it is an ideal small tree (or big shrub) for your yard.  Native to northern New Jersey with a range that spans from Maine to Texas, it can take harsh winters and hot summers.  It is deer, drought and clay tolerant, grows in full sun or heavy shade and likes wet soil.

The spicebush gets between 6 to 12ft tall with a similar spread.  It has a beautiful broad green leaf.  It blooms a fragrant yellow flower in March and April making it a nice addition to a yard or garden looking for color throughout the spring and summer.  The bush has a drupe (or berry) that attracts birds in the fall.  It also attracts the swallowtail butterfly throughout the warmer months.  You need both male and female spicebush to get the berries to develop.

If you are looking to create a hedge-like privacy wall, the spicebush is a good option.  I see lots and lots of Skip Laurels in North Jersey.  I personally don’t love skips.  They usually take more maintenance than people expect, and do not do well in shade or wet soil (two things yards everywhere in the greater NYC metro area have).  You can shape and prune the spicebush to be the height and width you want for privacy.  It isn’t evergreen (the one way skips out perform spicebush…if you like that kinda thing), but spicebush creates a much more interesting and sustainable naturalized border that skip laurels just can't match.  

Spicebush is also edible.  The fresh leaves can be used to make tea while the twigs can be simmered to do the same thing.  Don’t try drying the leaves for uses later.  They don’t hold their taste very well that way.  As for the berries, they are extremely versatile.  They are sweet and savory and can be dried for uses as meat rubs, in marinades, cakes or ice cream.  If you decide to harvest the berry, freeze them.  They will go bad if stored at room temperature.  

So I’m sure you’ve just been dying to know how the Yard Detox Challenge is going.  Well, I’m following two yards throughout the season to show how the detox really is a spa treatment for your lawn.  Both of the yards are in South Orange, NJ.  The properties are clients of mine and we’ve been working together for just around a year.  I call them clients, but they aren’t strictly clients.  They are my neighbors and friends. 

I’ve already helped both homes install rain gardens and replace invasive plants with native species.  This year is a big step because they have stopped using any artificial fertilizers or pesticides on their yards. 

So, I’m calling the two yards Detox 1 and Detox 2.  Jed Goldstein owns Detox 1. I tried to get him to stop using fertilizers last year, but there was a bit of a hiccup.  Here’s what happened: he talked to his then-current landscaper about not applying any pesticides or fertilizers on his yard.  The landscaper agreed not to add the stuff, but when the fall came did it anyway. 

I can’t tell you how many people have told me this same story of landscapers continuing to use pesticides and fertilizers on their lawns after they told them not.  To remedy the problem, I took over the lawn maintenance this year to guarantee we know exactly what is and isn’t being added to the yard. 

Detox 2 has also gone through a metamorphosis. We actually started working together in November 2014 by installing a patio in the backyard.  Instead of typical materials, the patio design called for used brick as the surface.  It goes with the colonial style of the house and really ties the space together.  It also has, like, a zero carbon footprint.  We also installed two mega-rain gardens in their yard this year that are being planted over the next few days.  I also took over the maintenance of Detox 2 this year too. 

Detox 1 and Detox 2 are similar and different.  They are similar because they both get tons of sun in the front yard and lots of shade in the backyard.  We want to get their grass healthy and so have selected a Kentucky bluegrass for reseeding the yards.  We aren’t tearing up the old lawn. Instead we are overseeding it. Overseeding is the technical term for reseeding a lawn without removing existing turf.   The last thing I’ll mention about how the two yards are the same is that they both were mowed way, way too much.  They both got cut every week to keep the grass height to about 1 inch tall.

The difference is that Detox 2 suffered from the over mowing more than Detox 1.  We have both yards on a 2-week cycle for cutting, and no chemicals are being applied to the grass or planted beds.  Jed decided not to use a compost on his yard this spring.  Detox 2 opted to have compost applied.  I only use mushroom compost for yards.  It is the best of the best.  I personally think it’s actually better than artificial fertilizers for inducing greenness and growth, but I don’t have any scientific evidence to make that up. Because Jed isn’t using compost, we are keeping the grass clipping on the lawn and raking them out to prevent clumps.  Clumps will cause dead spots.   

The former So what parts of the Yard Detox Challenge are these yards doing?  We have them on a 2-week mowing schedule, eliminated all artificial pesticides and fertilizers, and are reseeding the grass with Kentucky Bluegrass.  Detox 1 decided not to do a compost treatment on the lawn during the spring, but Detox 2 did.  We applied compost to Detox 2 during the first week of May.  To help Detox 1, we are keeping the grass clipping on the lawn and raking them out to make sure the yard doesn’t have clumps.  Clumps will led to dead spots.

I do have some images of Detox 1.  Below is a image from the beginning of the season.

And the image below is from today after starting the new mowing schedule and keeping clipping on the lawn.

I’ve got to get a recent picture of Detox 2 to show where it is two months in.  I do have a image of the lawn from the beginning of the season.  This is how it typically looked throughout the season last year.  Now that we are cutting the lawn less, it is the healthiest I’ve ever seen it.  It’s green and looks really lush.  I'll have to snap a pic and post it so you can see the difference.   

With all of the incredible natives offered for North Jersey, I’m surprised how many invasive plants are regularly used.  I rarely see any yard absent of them.  Sometimes they were intentionally placed on the property and other times they have migrated there from someone else’s yard.

Invasives are plants that do not naturally occur in this region, have a disproportionate negative impact on the environment and can cost homeowners more than they bargained.  Some are more difficult than others to remove than others.

A common offender is English Ivy.  It is all over the place in towns like South Orange and Maplewood.  I have it in my yard and have slowly been removing it for two years. 

Early settlers to America originally introduced the vine.  They were trying to give the New World that Old World charm. What they didn’t know was that the vine would take over natural wooded areas and can actually destroy your house.  It is often sold at nurseries and garden centers.  I recently saw the vine being sold at Home Depot. One of its selling points is it requires zero maintenance to grow.  

English Ivy can overtake and weaken trees.  If it establishes itself on your house or retaining wall, the ivy can eventually damage it to the point of collapse.  Until many native vine plants, English Ivy will work its way into the mortar of bricks causes cracking.

English Ivy is fairly easy to remove.  You only have to cut it back to its source.  Cutting is the best way to get rid of it.  Its leaves are so waxy that chemicals often do not work.  Of course, I’m a big believer that chemicals need to be the absolute last step. However you remove the vine, don't put it in your compost pile…you're only a sing for trouble if you do (you do have a compost bin, right?).  There’s a some great resources online for getting rid of the vine.  Once you have removed all of it, you’ll need to keep an eye out for new clusters pooping up. 

If you are looking for a vine for a trellis or fence, Fox Grape or Dutchman's Pipe are great alternatives and are native.  Plus with these two options, you will be inviting butterflies and birds to your yard.