Frida

Shore News ~- 15

4

The grass is greener on the outside

THE GOOD news is, it looks as though a long, hot sum-
mer lies ahead, and the bad news is, it looks as though a

long, hot summer lies ahead.

Good for fun in the sun,
tomatoes and watermelons; bad
for skin cancer, extra demands on
short water supplies and dry,
brown grass.

Nothing speaks of the love of
gardening better than a sweeping
Stretch of green, luxuriously
healthy grass. This is especially
true in the summer months when
these desirable results are much
more difficult to obtain and main-
tain.

Everything seems to be working
against you.

Healthy grass grows faster and .

requires more frequent cutting,
watering and feeding just as we
find ourselves come-hithered by
the warm days of summer. Her ir-
resistible recreaticnal pastimes so
distract us that we find it difficult
to work up the enthusiasm neces-
sary to cut it occasionally, let
alone frequently.

Even during our wet years,
most areas of the Lower Maintand
are subject to some form of
watering restriction, and this
promises to be an extraordinarily
dry year. I would not be surprised
to see tighter rationing controls
than normal before we squish into
fail.

Geoff

OVER THE GARDEN GATE

Your lawn couldn’t care less.

As the teu.perature rises, so
does your lawn'’s demand for
water. If the water supply dries
up, so does the grass, quickly tur-
ning yellow as it slides into dor-
mancy.

“Dormancy!?’’, you ask expec-
tantly. True enough, dormant
grass does not need cutting or
watering or feeding, but when the
grass goes dormant it opens the

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way for future problems with
moss and weeds.

Personally, | vould rather do a
little extra cutting and watering
than deal with these pests later in
the year.

Here are a few tips for the dry,
hopefully green days ahead; first,
the watering. Too much water is
not only wasteful and potentially
costly should water restrictions
and fines get tuugher, it is also in-
jurious to your grass. Repeated
Over-appiications could result in
the reduced availability of oxygen
in the soil and the encroachment
of less desirable grasses such as
annual bluegrass. In severe cir-
cumstances, you could even pro-
mote the appearance of moss and
noxious weeds.

Grass growing on the
teasonably fast-draining soils of
the North Shore should be happy
with an average of 20 minutes of
irrigation every other day. Do not
water the road and do not apply
so much as to cause the water to
run off; in other words, do not be
wasteful.

The earlier the better; applying
your water before the day heats
up will ensure that more water
gets to the roots than is lost
through evaporation. There are
battery-operated timers available
that will allow you to preset the
day, time and amount of water

you wish to apply. While you're
at it, you might want to look into
one of the dozens of fully
automatic systems that you can ei-
ther install yourself or have in-
stalled and adjusted for you.

Most of our lawns start out as
mixtures of Kentucky Bluegrass,
fine-leaved fescues and/or peren-
nial ryegrass. The best average
summer cutting height for these
varieties would be approximately
one inch.

This means that the distance be-
tween the bottom of your mower’s
wheels and the cutting blade
should be one inch.

You should cut these varieties at
least once per week, but a five-
day cycle would be betier. If you
let the grass get too long it will be

unduly stressed when you finally
get around to cutting it.

If you regularly apply a fertil-
izer to the lawn over the summer
months, do so at hali the strength
and twice as often as recommend-
ed on the label. This will assure
more constant supply of nutrients
to the grass and reduce the
amount lost to soil leaching.

Always water after applying
fertilizers during warmer weather.
The soluble salts contained in
these products can suck the
moisture out of your grass and
cause severe burning. Even
sulphur-coated urea products can
burn your lawn on excessively hot
days.

Have fun.

Van Dusen events planned

SATURDAY, JUNE 13. is
two-fos-one day at VanDusen
Gardens, 5251 Oak St. (at 37th
Avenue).

if you have never visited this
spectacular garden, bui always
meant to, this is the day. The
Alma VanDusen Meadow
Garden of perennials will be in
full bloom.

Celebrate Midsummer’s Eve
on Sunday, June 21 at a

Renaissance fair at VanDusen
Gardens from noon to 5 p.m.
Elizabethan music, dancing,
swordplay, fencing, crafts and
archery will be included with
regular garden admission.

On Canada Day, July i,
families are invited to picnic all
day in VanDusen Gardens.
Regular garden admission ap-