Cleveland tests low-growing grass on city property

The city is looking to save money on maintenance, one official said.

CLEVELAND (AP) — The city is testing special low-growing grass blends to reduce the costs of mowing on government-owned land.

The seeds grow into lawns that need less water, need no fertilizer or weed killer and stay reasonably short, 6 to 8 inches, even if mowed only once a month or less.

Five mixes were planted in a pilot program last summer in front of the Cleveland Botanical Garden building.

The tests will continue this spring on four parcels in the city’s Fairfax neighborhood, where half of the bare-dirt lots got the new seed mix and the other half got a traditional, faster-growing lawn mix.

City workers will mow it monthly next summer and measure the height difference each time between the two sides.

Ultimately, the grass could be used to reseed many of the city’s 8,000 parcels of available land.

“That’s the bottom line with us — if it saves money on maintenance,” said Nate Hoelzel, the city’s brownfields program manager.

Ted Steinberg, an environmental history professor at Case Western Reserve University, said low-mow lawns are part of a larger movement away from chemically supported and perfect-looking lawns. More than 120 cities in Canada have enacted limits on the use of pesticides on yards, he said.

Hoelzel said he could envision low-growing blends being marketed to park systems and maybe the Ohio Department of Transportation for median strips.

None of these special blends include taller — and hardier — grasses like rye, so they won’t hold up under heavy traffic, said Christin DeJong, an urban botanist at the Cleveland Botanical Garden.

Some professional landscapers say the low-grow blends aren’t always practical.

“It sounds pretty cool for some uses, but I think it would depend on what it looks like and feels underfoot,” said Sandy Munley, executive director of the Ohio Landscape Association in Broadview Heights.

Brad Copley, vice president of marketing for MTD Products, Ohio’s largest lawn care equipment manufacturer, said the special blends are intriguing.

“I don’t think this is the end of lawnmowers as we know it,” he said, laughing.

“Anything that would contribute to the greening of the landscape and the generation of more oxygen — as opposed to concrete or asphalt — is a good thing,” he said.