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ground covers which do not get over a certain height for another. Varieties of lettuces, densely seeded (called French Intensive method by some of us) give you pretty green areas to look at and wonderful food to share. Birds love the lettuce seeds if you let a few seed out ,enough will hit the ground, the next season will be green with little seed augmentation.
Clover is a great green ground cover that doesn't get too tall, doesn't need much (if any) mowing. It fixes nitrogen in the soil which makes other things grow better without as much costly fertilizer. Smells good. Bees love it. Bunnies love it. TOMATOES love it (I put clover under tomato plants when I lived in Tucson, where everyone said it was too brutally hot to grow tomatoes. Cooler soil, better moisture retention, pockets of more humid air due to my green cover meant less hot weather stress on the tomato plants. Nitrogen fixed well at their roots REALLY made 'em happy. And my old cats (as well as neighbor cats) LOVED to rest on the cool clover, which meant... less garden pests without lots of work or more chemicals. Cooler soils also meant more worms, so the birds helped out with pest control. They took a few worms, sure, but they also took all the grubs that had been allowed to populate the soil before I moved in. Within two years, I had OODLES more earthworms and rarely found a bad grub in the soils. Thanks birds!
My mom was the first in town to use a thick carpet of grass we called Korean Grass back then. It was dense, lovely green, shaded the ground so it saved water, was virtually weed-free due to the density of the growth from 'runners' (rhizomes) and it didn't need mowing but maybe once a season, which was a big plus to my hay fever suffering siblings. I believe it is called Zoysia grass now that it is more common in the US. Mom was 40 years ahead of the curve! She put it on a small bank that was hard to hold. Problem solved, beautifully, I might add.
Low growing herbs are good for areas where you don't need a traffic resistant cover. Smell good, attract bees, useful in cooking. Many herbs THRIVE on dryer soils and human neglect.
We have yarrow that is spreading it's self from the flower beds and into the small grassy area we keep. It is the first green in spring where we live. Welcome sight! And Havocdad just mows it along with the little bit of grass. He uses a weed whacker. Much faster, easier for the small lawn and not as harmful.
Now, if I could just figure how to run that whacker off a solar back pack... ;) Personally, I can use my dad's old method for small lawns: Take a big pitcher of iced tea (or a 6 pack) out with some friends and some hand held clippers. It works! It's civilized and the conversations are healthy! Not as much particulate matter for the allergy prone. Do it in the evening and by nightfall, your lawn is mowed and you have caught up with what all your friends have been up to. Memories made of pleasant times may just inspire the youngsters to become life-long gardeners ;)
My parents were really weird, and WAY ahead of their time. I miss them, but not as much when I am outside in the evenings, tending the growing things. :D
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