From our traditional home gardens, gardening has changed a lot. It has already taken so many faces, still undergoing new experiments everyday! Landscape of buildings itself have changed a lot. From traditional roses and hibiscus colours, now it has changed to hybrid varieties of anturiums, orchids, euphorbia and lilies. Leader of all are beautiful lawns that beautify your garden perfectly. Through this article let me give you a few tips to plant a lawn and share my personal gardening experiences as well.

Let us begin with green lawns

Preparing grass carpets outside our home gives us many things in return.

• It helps to reduce heat inside and outside the home considerably.
• The idea of green homes in concrete buildings can be attained.
• It influences the beauty of a home a lot.
• It is a nice place to arrange small parties and get-togethers as well.

What preparations are to be done for preparing a lawn?

Choose a place that gets enough sunlight. Then you should give the place enough slopes so that water drains easily. While giving slopes you should take enough preventive measures for soil erosion. To know the nature of soil, dig a few pits here and there and pour water to it. Then calculate the time needed for soil to absorb the water fully. If it takes too much time, then it can be assumed that more changes are there for water to stay on surface.

White sand, clay and natural rock powder are not suited for lawns. In medium land, dig up to 30-40 cm and fill the layer with red soil, most suited for lawn. Give slope now and level the ground. Now leave it for two days to make the soil ready, free of germs and toxic substances. Before planting grass you need to take necessary precautions against pests and crickets. You can give natural supplements to soil as organic fertilizers. Vegetable wastes, bone powder, dried cow dung etc are some of them. They give enough defensive power to your newly grown lawn too. You should keep in mind that the supplements that you provide should never exceed the natural quality of the soil. You need to supply only what’s needed, not in excess!

Turfing is best

Grasses used for lawn are of three types – Mexican grass, Bermuda grass and Buffalo grass. In the places with less sunlight, buffalo grass is best. To get carpet effect in places with enough sunlight both Mexican grass and Bermuda grass can be used.

Grass can be planted in two ways – either planting plants little by little or by preparing grass carpets first using soil and grass with roots and later fixing them in lawn as required. First method is known as planting and is cheap. Second method is known as turfing and it’s the perfect method.

Planting method costs around 20 rupees per square feet while turfing is bit expensive. Its cost may exceed 42 rupees per square feet. It takes at least four months for grass to spread wide if planting method is used. But in the case of turfling simple watering is enough.

Trendsetter in green

Leveling the land first and spreading the lawn is the latest trend. It makes small gardens appear big. Now land is made into different layers and then lawn is planted. It makes your garden royal and a nice appeal. It creates an illusion of big garden too. If you have a big courtyard for this landscape, you can choose this option too. You can construct artificial hills as well and spread grasslands on its slopes. Small soil hills can be built with dimensions 2 feet and beneath the wall, at the extreme end is the best place to build such artificial hills. If maintained well, a lawn stays live for at least 5-6 years.

Now the latest trend is to build a fountain or fish tank/pond by the side of your artificial grassland. Colourful clay pots, terracotta structures of small pots, mountains, houses, horses, ox etc can also be placed to beautify it. 

A few more tips for your lawn

A lawn’s beauty multiplies if you place a few flowering pots here and there. If you have enough time to take care of your garden, you can use flowering pots of euphorbia and lilies and a few pots of roses and jasmine. If not plant a few hibiscus plants of hybrid variety. You can choose a few non-flowering plant pots too. If you want to give your lawn a royal look, you can fix pillars, garden lamps and a stone path through it. Pebble stone path is the nice suggestion as they add natural look to your garden. Cycas gardens suit any garden, either a lawn or a flowering one. You can plant a few trees too, if you prefer cool shades. But they should be planted in such a way that they never disturb the beauty of your lawn.

Precautions to be taken while planting lawns

Once in 15-20 days, you need to remove the weeds inside your lawn. Also cut the grass to same level so that they look good. Main problem is fungal infection that can destroy your lawn itself. When your lawn is affected by fungus, it changes its colour from green to pale yellow or white. If it’s attacked by crickets, you can see soil heaps in your lawn here and there. Knowing their presence, make use of pesticides and protect your lawn from further dangers. While watering lawn use a sprinkler or water it slowly. Never give water in high force. During summer it’s better to water twice a day.