Rewilding My Lot

The project to seed a perimeter of short native grasses in the back yard was the one that I started first, a year ago, and is not yet complete. Some of the reasons for the partial success were out of my control (e.g., what the builder was doing here on neighboring lots, and weather), and there were also learning experiences on my part as I was figuring out how to work with this land and how to plant from seed.

The seed I am using is Thunder Turf, which is made up of three different native grasses: Buffalograss, Blue Grama, and Curly Mesquite. I believe that I do have all three kinds growing now, and they have been seeding and putting out runners. However, the coverage of these grasses in the area I have defined is still not yet 100%. I knew that I would need to do some reseeding, but I had to wait until the soil warmed up.

There are three distinct regions that have developed differently during the past year:

• The back edge has been the most successful (80% coverage?) and there are only a few bare patches. A little bit of touch-up seeding should be all that I need there.
• The right edge has the least growth of grasses (5% coverage?) and any of the good soil that I added has been washed to other parts of the garden. This area will be pretty much completely reseeded.
• The left edge is most prone to flooding because of the grade of this lot (although less so now I have the swale) and gets the most shade from the nearby south-facing fence. There is moderate grass growth there (10% coverage?). I will reseed the grasses here as well, although I am also going to add Frogfruit on that side in case the shade is too much for the grasses.

On April 26, 2024 I reseeded the right edge of the garden perimeter — the first photo in this post is the “before.” Here’s how the seeding went.

First there was weeding. It wasn’t a perfect job, but I removed most of the volunteer plants that weren’t grasses.

Then I scattered several bags of soil and compost over the bare patches. I mixed the seed with more soil in a bucket to make it easier to disperse, and scattered it over the bare patches.

Then I stomped over the area to get good soil/seed contact and gave it a good watering. In the beginning, this area will get a light watering twice a day. Now I just need to hope that these seeds germinate before the next deluge.