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The Perfect Lawn--Moss
| Article
# : |
10648 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1993 |
1,041 Words |
| Author
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Walter Chandoha
Walter Chandoha's pictures and articles have appeared in many
major magazines; and he has also written and illustrated
twenty-four books. |
Jack Biesenkamp's lawn never needs mowing. It thrives in the shade and is never fertilized or limed. Nor is it ever sprayed for weeds or bugs. Biesenkamp's grass is moss.
Eighteen years ago when the Biesenkamps moved to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, their house was landscaped with an acre and a half of sand, some good-sized oaks, massive tulip poplars, and the ubiquitous South Jersey red cedar. Stark and uninviting, the grounds looked like a corner of the nearby New Jersey Pine Barrens.
Soon after moving in, the Biesenkamps began making plans to convert their sandy wasteland into an attractive outdoor living area. A swimming pool was put in at one end of the lot, then came the deck and gazebo. Next the landscaping. Biesenkamp sketched a tentative plan roughly delineating lawn areas, borders and islands, trees to be saved, and trees to be eliminated.
After the inferior trees were removed about 100 dump-truck loads of humus-rich topsoil were brought in. This was mixed with fifty bales of peat moss and the indigenous sandy soil, then evenly spread around the property. Specimen shrubs were planted along with shade-tolerant perennials. A lawn was started with the best-available shady lawn grass seed. For two years the plants were coddled and pampered with fertilizer and water. The azaleas, rhododendrons, and hostas thrived in the acidic, humus-enriched sandy soil. The lawn, however, was a disaster. Thin and sparse, the grass barely survived in the damp shade. But the native mosses flourished.
In his travels as an anthropologist, Biesenkamp recalled seeing moss lawns in other parts of the world--a particularly impressive one was in Kyoto, Japan. If mosses thrived elsewhere, he reasoned, why not in New Jersey? Moss growing conditions were perfect: lots of shade; light, acid soil; a high water table; and abundant rainfall--forty-six inches is the yearly state average.
How to get rid of the remains of the grass lawn? Chemicals were considered but rejected; the Biesenkamps prefer to garden without them. Since the grass had not yet developed a thick, interlocking root system, pulling it out would be relatively easy, though time consuming. So they decided to let the grass eliminate itself by attrition. To hasten the development of his new lawn, Biesenkamp gathered bits and pieces of moss wherever he found it--in cracks between sidewalks, around tree trunks, in about-to-be-built upon wooded lots. Moss specimens came from Maine to Florida, but most were
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