When to say "NO" to No-Mow

When I first began landscaping in Sonoma County, I noticed one very public project that spec'ed out no-mow grass. It was the Graton Rancheria Casino. Nobody else was doing it.

Now, I see it everywhere. I'm installing at least two or three per season. What gives?

No-Mow grass is a variety of Zoysia grass. It grows tall and delicate then lumps and mounds over itself. I'm really fond of the look, and that love is shared by my favorite Landscape Architect and good friend in the industry, Ryan of Zenful Living. No mow is lush, green, and relatively affordable compared to plugging the yard with groundcovers.

However, there's situations where I say NO to No Mow grass. Here's when.

SAY NO: If you're going to step on it

Remember that cliche about certain old folks yelling at kids and pets who step on their grass? You may become one of these cranky old heads too, if you install no-mow grass.

No mow grass is a lot of things. It isn't particularly resistant to foot traffic. In areas where you, your kids, or your pets stomp on it repeatedly, it will certainly suffer!

We installed a nice little no-mow patch for a client who came to us, dissapointed that every lawn other contractors installed died. We gave her excellent soil prep, irrigation, and quality no mow grass from our friends at SBI Materials. We strongly believed we would come back for a check-up in six months to a living, green lawn. We were right. There was, however, a scary moment in between.

It turns out, we both underestimated the amount of times our client would cross the lawn to access a shed. It got to the point the grass was suffering in the areas most traveled. But the client had a brilliant idea. She had a dozen or so flagstones left over from a garden project and laid them over the lawn, creating an eclectic stepping stone path. Sure, the grass underneath the stones was smothered (but it was underneath, so nobody sees it.) Heartbreak was averted by our client thinking fast and getting creative. We simply wish we thought of it first, and maybe saved her some lugging around of heavy stones.

If you need to step on the grass more than 1x a week, rethink no mow grass.

SAY NO: If you won't commit to watering it.

No mow grass is touted as a more ecologically sensible solution, because it requires a little less water. The reason is threefold.

1) The grass gets taller, allowing the roots to go deeper. Mowing stunts root depth.

2) The taller grass shades its roots somewhat, allowing cooler root temperatures and less water loss.

3) Zoysia, unlike fescue, doesn't just "tolerate" summer heat and long sunny days - it has a PASSION for it. You'll see your Fescue lawn look best in the rainy, colder months, and Zoysia thriving in the dog-days of summer.

It's still a grass. It still needs dry season supplementary water, albiet less than regular lawn.

I recently bid a sprinkler install for a small no mow lawn with no sprinklers. Whoever installed that should've at least presented the option. With us, it isn't an option. It's standard.

SAY NO: If you won't install the proper irrigation.

Having irrigation is half the battle. Having the correct irrigation crowns you the victor in the war against sad, mediocre lawns.

If you choose to irrigate with overhead (sprinkler) watering, make sure your sprinkers actually reach over the taller grass. Most normal lawns are maintained under four inches. Four-inch popups make sense here. Six-inch popups are better, and we usually choose these for our normal lawn installs. Since no-mow lawns can creep up to 14 inches into the heavens, we're coming prepared with long, 12-inch-tall pop-up sprinklers. They pop up an entire foot tall, and then spring back down, out of sight once the sprinkler valves turn off.

Too-short sprinklers can often get blocked by grass close to the nozzle, and the sprinklers won't obtain head-to-head coverage (one sprinkler reaches the next, which reaches the next, and so on.)

Watering with drip is also kosher, so long as you choose the right emitters. We only use Rainbird XF subsurface rated drip lines. The correct way to install lawn drip is to

1) Install the Rainbird XF subsurface drip lines in rows as wide as the emitters are spaced

2) Cover with a very thin layer of topsoil to prevent air gaps

3) Install sod to industry best practices.

Rainbird XF inline drip can be buried because it has special copper emitters, and copper prevents roots from clogging them. Plants hate copper; they won't try to snake into the emitter with their roots.

We are in no way sponsored by the Rainbird corporation. We simply like the product. Come to think of it, Rainbird won't even answer my calls, so don't worry, no hidden agenda here.

And of course, follow all the other best practices for irrigation installs, like ensuring you have enough flow per zone, using quality parts, installing flush points, and all the other nice things we harp on during irrigation consults, bids, and other blog articles.

Be smart when planning your no mow lawn

Whoever planned the Graton Rancheria Casino was.

No-mow, it appears, was employed in large, low areas adjacent to storm drains. Not only did this create a naturalistic wetland vibe (in all the right ways) in the low lying areas, but there's a slim chance anyone's going to hop the tall curb and take a shortcut through it.

The contractors also remembered to install irrigation, and I occasionally see a maintenance man from a competitor company with a big roll of drip tube and trenching shovels on his truck keeping it leak free and tuned up.

They hit all my three points!

As much as I loathe gambling, and believe the casino industry is pretty shady, I tip my hat to them for adopting the No Mow grass and performing a textbook correct install. Very cool!

The only thing that would be cooler is hiring me to maintain it from time to time.

See you on the jobsite!

-Sam W

• Like all we do, this article was written with no assistance, support, or prompts from Artificial Intelligence. We believe the human connection is a core tenet of what we provide, and the driving force behind why we can create "A job well done" for so many clients just like you.