Lawn and Preparation of Lawn
Lawn:
A lawn which is a green carpet is an essential feature of a garden whether a small home garden, public park, office or factory gardens. The view of the lawn should be uninterrupted from entrance, and should be visible from home windows or verandas, office, factory building and windows. A beautifully maintained lawn adds and accounts for 75 %beauty of the garden.
Preparation of Lawn:
The site selected should have simple sunshine. There should not be big trees near the lawn site as they cast shadows, and during leaf fall, the leaves falling on the lawn make difficult the task of keeping the lawn clean. The soil depth should be about 25-30 cm.
The soil for establishing a lawn should have a ph 5.5to6.0 should be fertile and containg organic matter and having a good drainage.
Generally, the material, i.e. grasses used for lawn arte shallow rooted, and hence, care has to he taken that there is no stagnation of water in rooting zone. On a big town, proper drainage can be achieved by using drainage pipes.
The soil should be dug to a depth of 45 cm. and kept aside. The soil at the bottom may be pressed do that, after filling, there is no sagging of the soil. The clods in the dug up soil should be broken. Presence of clods would present difficulty in achieving proper level. The soil may be refilled in the dug up portion and well rotten. F.Y.M. at the rate of 500 kg per 100 sq. m. Should be spread evenly and then this should be worked up in soil to a depth of 15-30 cm. The digging work should be taken up. In summer so that the insects. Weed seeds would be killed due to heat. The refilled soil needs to be consolidated.
The entire area should be flooded with water. This would also help the wood seeds to germinate. The woods should be removed. On all sides, 10-12 cm high bunds may be prepared to check run-off. This will also help in leveling the land, as at some places, water pools would be formed which could b filled with soil. From the centre, the land should have gentle slope on all sides. The flooding should be repeated 2 to 3 times.
The most commonly used grass for preparing lawn is doob grass (Cynodon dactylon). It is also called as “HARIALI’. This thrives under hot sunny site. This grass is suitable for large areas and poly ground on account of its tolerance to wear and tear and has good recuperation habit. Another grass is Korean grass (Zoysia japonica). This is recently introduced in India and has become popular due to its velvety growth and cold tolerance. It makes cushion like turf suitable for smaller areas and home lawns. The water requirement of this grass is more. This grass should be clipped at a height of 1.5 to2.5 cm. This is slow growing grass.