June 20th, 2007
I Love My Lawn in June

St Augustine grass
2007-06-18. June is the one month the lawn usually looks nice.

Here’s something you don’t see very often at Zanthan Gardens…a green lawn. Yep, June is my best month for lawns and the reason why, in my mind, June is the merry month of green. May showers bring June lawns.

St Augustine grass
2006-06-11. Even in the midst of the 2006 drought, some late May rains greened up the back lawn temporarily.

This year we’ve had May showers and June showers and April showers. In fact, it’s been raining in Austin since SXSW in mid-March. Today we had another inch to 4 inches, depending on where you were in Central Texas. (I think Zanthan Gardens got about an inch.) I’m not complaining! I’m celebrating. According to Jim Spencer, just half way through 2007 we’ve already received our normal annual rainfall.

Is your xeriscape rotting yet? The tallest of my yuccas keep falling over.

Over the years I’ve replaced quite a bit of my lawn with flower beds. But as you can see from the photo, this area is a bit shady for flowers or cactus or ornamental grasses or roses or herbs. The St. Augustine is more or less happy. And even after one of its unhappy years it always makes a comeback. I have not yet watered my lawn this year. In fact, I rarely water my lawns any year. Nor do I put any chemical fertilizers on it. This lawn is entirely caffeine driven. I mow it with a push mower so I feel absolutely zero lawn guilt.

by M Sinclair Stevens

2 Responses to post “I Love My Lawn in June”

  1. From Carol (Indiana):

    Your lawn looks great. Mine is the opposite. We are way low on rain this spring and are in the midst of a “moderate drought” in central Indiana. While your xeriscape rots, some of my shrubs would probably go up in flames with one spark.

    So, I’m watering trees and shrubs and perennials now. Not enough water and time to water the lawn. It’s gone dormant, and I haven’t had to mow it for two weeks.

    Unheard of for this time of year around here.

  2. From Annie in Austin:

    Hello, M. I’m trying to catch up with the garden bloggers, but came back to a jungle and lots of other tasks. So I’m making one comment per blog – no matter how many posts I’ve missed!

    Your new garden room is really coming along – the reflecting pool will be so cool! I gave up nets after birds were stuck in the mesh… now wonder if the floating row cover would work better. And don’t know how you can do the JUNE lawn with the push mower… ours is not self-propelled, but has an engine to cut, and I could barely roll it yesterday.

    Today our lawn looks pretty good, things like cannas, balloon flowers and daylilies are great, the tomatoes are pitiful, native plants that want to be well-drained are looking rusty, there’s some white moldy stuff appearing on evergreens but we do have some peppers ready to eat… a mixed bag as usual.

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

    Welcome back. We’ve continued to have cool and rainy weather…so nice! PS. Yours is the 1000 comment. — mss