Lawns are often planted as the main component in a landscape, rather than serving as a calm green accent for more attractive garden features. Most traditional lawns are high input, needing lots of water, fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides. When contemplating installing or renovating a lawn consider a native grass lawn for your garden. Native grass lawns can cut water, fertilizer, and pesticide use in half.

When planning your new installation or renovation consider how the lawn will be used and try to create practical turf areas that serve a real purpose. Do you have children or pets that would use a lawn for recreation? In these high traffic areas using blue grass, fescues, or rye type grasses makes sense. Design this lawn area to be a small yet useful area. If your front lawn is only for curb appeal, consider planting a native grass variety such as a blue grama grass, buffalo grass or a mixture of both. Native grasses not only use half of the water a traditional lawn uses but they look more “natural” in western landscapes.