Alternatives to conventional lawns are all the rage in Colorado drought years, or even typical years.
But — both warm-season, low-water grasses — don’t have the traffic resistance of conventional cool-season lawn grasses. And recent bluegrass hybrids, developed from tough Texas prairie species, need less water than conventional bluegrass, but more than native grasses.
Now a plant whose history includes a southwest Colorado rancher and an aging mastiff mix is causing a stir in the turf world.
African dogtooth grass, discovered on a field trip by the Denver Botanic Gardens’ Panayoti Kelaidis and Jim Borland in the early ’80s, went unnoticed in a few test plots for decades. Then stumbled on it in 1989.
“I’d just met Panayoti and I was working at Paulino’s (Paulino Gardens in north Denver). Panayoti had tried it as a filler in hanging baskets, and it didn’t work well for that.” Grummons had the same experience, so he dumped it in the compost heap.
“In three years, it had grown into the road base and it looked beautiful,” Grummons said. So he dug it up and moved it into the existing grass. The new grass established itself well, but couldn’t completely kill out the Kentucky bluegrass.
Enter Mojo, Grummons’ dog, who blew out a knee at age 7. Vets counciled Grummons to euthanize Mojo, who, like most giant breeds, wasn’t expected to live past 8 years. Grummons spent $4,000 to fix Mojo’s knee, and the dog lived to be 15 — testing that plot of African dogtooth grass for years. He ran on it. He rolled on it. And he did what a dog’s gotta do in it.
In honor of Mojo and other canines who tested it for him, Grummons christened the grass Dog Tuff for its resistance to paw traffic and acids such as dog urine. It’s now being sold at Timberline Gardens, where Grummons is horticulture director, and through High Country Gardens’ website.
“I always felt there was a great deal of promise in it,” Kelaidis said. “It’s thicker than buffalo grass and has that Irish-green color. And it seems to be tougher — if you water it even once a month, it’ll stay green.” And its texture is soft. “Buffalo grass is a little more raspy when you roll around in it,” he said.
The grass was one of five 2015 “Green Thumb” award winners by the Direct Gardening Association, a trade group. And which brings together experts from Colorado State University, the Denver Botanic Gardens and area greenhouses and nurseries to promote plants tested under Colorado conditions, has picked Dog Tuff for 2016. It’s the first lawn grass to get that honor.
“We’ve had it at nine different sites, public and private,” from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins and Denver to Grand Junction, said Pat Hayward, Plant Select’s executive director. “We haven’t played soccer on it or anything. But it filled in quickly and it’s tough.”
Unlike in spring or fall, Dog Tuff does better when planted in warm weather. Grummons has successfully planted it as late as July, but that was last summer, which was cooler and wetter than usual, he cautions. Planting it after July isn’t recommended.
Here are the up- and downsides, of the grass, plus the features that are typical of most warm-season grasses.
The good
• It’s a sterile clone, so it doesn’t form seeds. That means it can’t self-seed into areas where you don’t want it.
• It’s no-mow. “It’s lumpy looking, like moss, so there is an aesthetic to it,” Grummons said. “You can mow it in July or August, but you don’t have to.”
• It needs less water than buffalo grass. In 2014’s rainy summer, Grummons’ Dog Tuff got no supplemental water. In typical years, he’s watered it as seldom as eight times per growing season, as opposed to the 90 to 100 times Kentucky bluegrass would need.
• It doesn’t need fertilizer to grow well.
• It’s not fussy about soil — clay, sand, doesn’t matter.
• “It’s resilient, springy” to walk on, Grummons says. “It’s like walking on foam rubber.”
• Timberline’s website says that honeybees love the pollen the grass produces.
The typical
• Because it’s a warm-season grass, it’s straw brown until it greens up in late spring, and it goes dormant, turning back to brown, with the first frost.
• Preparing the planting site is key. You’ll need to kill existing grass, deeply irrigate the soil and acclimate the plugs — the name for the small, deeply rooted chunks of the grass that you’ll buy — for a few days before installing.
• Once established, it will crowd out many weeds. Instructions for growing the grass suggest using corn gluten as a pre-emergent weed killer; it’s not only organic, but its breakdown also provides a low level of nitrogen.
The downsides
• You can grow it only via plugs, since it doesn’t produce seed.
• Because Dog Tuff is a wild hybrid of Bermuda grass, it spreads fairly aggressively via runners. Keep it 3 to 4 feet away from flower beds and keep it that distance from, say, your neighbor’s lawn or other places where it’s not wanted, Grummons advised.
• It’s very sensitive to broadleaf weed herbicides.
• Mowing it too low can damage it temporarily. And rabbits will happily eat it (so will goats and sheep). But it’ll bounce back, Grummons said.
Susan Clotfelter: 303-954-1078, sclotfelter@denverpost.com or twitter.com/susandigsin
