Herbal lawn?

I wasn't sure where to put this, so here goes...

We don't like grass around here. For one thing, we haven't got a mower. Anyway, we now have a lot of bare spots and will soon have more. I put my foot down about sowing all of them into wildflowers. For one thing, they tend to partly die out and get really patchy, for another, they get so weedy looking at times. I am ok with not having a smooth green lawn, but I do want it to look nice. The plan we have come up with is to sow mostly white clover, with some other things mixed in. I am thinking some nice perennial herbs such as creeping oregano or thyme. The white clover is likely to start dying out in two years, as it is a biennial, and hopefully the herbs would then take over. The areas in question are low to no traffic, and we like bees around here - Dad is a beekeeper, and we put in a lot of bee-plants.

Has anyone done anything like this, or do you know of any resouces I could consult?

Thanks,
Cedar

Ajuga reptans, (Bronze bugle) looks nice and spreads very well, it is in my lawn now and is choking out the grass in places.

Lemon Balm, a.k.a. "Melissa"....spreads nicely, is lemon scented, makes a great tea. Some years back research was done because of its calming effect as a tea. It turns out that just smelling the stuff had the same effect as drinking the tea.

Some days I feel like I should just stick some Melissa leaves up my nose and enjoy the calm. :>)

Ajuga is definitely on the list - my grandmother has some in her lawn and we have noticed that the bees love it.

Lemon Balm is another great bee plant, but for me there are two problems. First, it really isn't hardy here. I have lost it twice to freezing. And also, I think it gets a little tall for what I have in mind. I'm trying to keep this under 6-8 inches.

Thank you for your suggestions!

Cedar

what about chamomile?
here's a link:
http://www.greenchronicle.co.uk/gardening/herbs/chamomile_herb.htm

and an excerpt:
Another seductive ground cover is sometimes called lawn chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile 'Trenegue'), a non-flowering species similar to Roman chamomile, the daisy-like flowering chamomile sometimes used in teas, as is the unrelated German or sweet false chamomile (Matricaria recutita). Lawn chamomile seldom grows much taller than two inches and its soft fern-like, apple-scented leaves welcome light foot traffic. In fact, in Britain it is sometimes used to create an entire lawn (25 plants per square yard), perhaps a useful suggestion for townhouse owners who want a lush and fragrant green yard without mowing. However, this perennial chamomile sometimes requires a bit of patching after a couple of years, and might best be kept within a pathway setting. The plants may also be started from seed.
from: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mc/services/dep/greenman/fragrant.htm

thyme would also be good...
you might also want to consider a ground hugging, fast growing mint.. maybe corsican mint?

Thanks for the suggestions miss kitty.

I am waiting now for the side yard to get torn up - our ground water is too high for Dad to excavate this weekend as originally planned. Hopefully it will dry up before too long - I want to have a garden this year!

I just bought some Roman chamomile and the tag suggested using it as an alternative plant for lawns. Roman chamomile does flower, so if you wanted to go with Chamomile you could choose between the nonflowering (Chameamelum nobile 'Trenegue') as was mentioned by miss_kitty, or the flowering Roman chamomile (my tag just says Chameamelum nobile.) And they are perennials so they'd come back each year.

Claire

There is a commercial mix called "No Mow" we tried it and was not happy, the low growing mix ended up being 6 to 9 inches and mostly sweet alyssum.

Mountain Valley Growers offer ground cover herbs, thyme is real big on their list.
http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/Thyme.htm

I picked up a flat of coconut thyme at the local nursery and love it's tight low growing qualities.

They have a very informative article about lawn alternatives and herbs.
http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/oreganolawn.htm

Dovey

Hey Horseshoe--
Do you have experience using lemon balm for a lawn? I would think it would get too tall. I wonder if it could be mowed.

Lemon balm is one of my very favorite herbs. If I had a lawn of that I don't think I'd ever leave the house.

It is one of my habits to pluck a leaf as I'm leaving for work, roll it between my palms, and breathe deeply... man I love that stuff. :)

I love Lemon Verbena even better although it's tender here and has to be brought inside. I had Lemon Balm in my yard in Asheville but I think it would be too tall for a ground cover although it spread like crazy. The new stuff was short but it does get tall.

Yep...it can get tall but I'd just grow it and let it "naturalize".

Not sure if you mowed it if it would keep growing...repeated mowings may kill it. (I mow Poison Ivy and it kills it after repeated mowings.)

Hmmm... I wish I could grow a whole lawn of Lemon Balm, can you imagine how great that would smell on a warm summer day? We sowed clover with a few pkts of thyme mixed in , and some random pkts of flower seed. The clover came up happily, and filled in the back part of the yard, the front is choked with Smartweed. Dumb stuff. I can't seem to get rid of it.

High Country Gardens has a section in their catalog about thyme lawns. I've been thinking of doing a pathway in creeping thyme, evergreen, blooming and smells good! Plus you can use it in the kitchen, and it comes in endless fragrances; lemon being one of my favorites...
http://www.highcountrygardens.com/shop/results.html?ptid=8&browse=1&page=9

I find this topic very interesting.
Are their any suitable for ground cover herbs that are easy to grow from seeds...like direct sowing into the soil?

roman chamomile worked pretty good for me, direct sowing into the soil...
but that was in zone 9b..

I have chocolate chip bugle weed and purple verbena as ground covers. I love the look of creeping thyme also. We also
have white clover in my yard from the farmers reseeding our hay field. It connects to our yard. We have to wear flip flops because of so many little bees! We have bee keeper in our area too.

bluegrass
What no bluegrass lawn?? ;)
Thanks for the reminder about clover. I do have some mixed in my weed lawn already. Need to sow more.

Bluegrass, any chance of posting some pics? They all sound so pretty!

I have to search for my flower pics, my teenager has downloaded things. Daylilies are in with the Iris folder ect. We do not have many labeled. I am not to much of the digital photo taker yet. I still love the old 35 mm. I have been trying to post a few this fall and there seems to be a problem. I did fine this spring. We do have a bluegrass mix in the lawn.

Lemon Balm SHOULD be cut several times per season. Otherwise it gets erally weedy looking. I have had a large section of Lemon Balm for 2 years now and I cut it to the ground 4 times per year. When I do cut it, it has already gotten to 2 feet high and has already lost it's beauty. I bet if I cut it once a month in the warm months, it would look much nicer for a longer time. But that's just it, you said you don't have a mower and want things that don't need cutting. I'd highly recommend NOT putting lemon balm in for a lawn as it definitely does need cutting.

Lawn chamomile gets to 12 inches tall though, so it's not something you could use if you wanted a low growing plant you could comfortably walk across.

creeping thyme would be great though, Lemon thyme is also great and only grows to about 6 inches with some varieties.
Here are some low growing thymes that are really pretty:

Thymus leucotrichus http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/groundcover/thymus_leucotrichus.html
Thymus caespititius http://www.azorenflora.de/thymus_caespititius.html
Thymus doerfleri (no web site for this, sorry)
Thymus polytrichus (my favorite for ground cover idea) http://www.joycreek.com/280-020.htm

I hope this helps.

-Julie

Those are so pretty, and I really like the combination of different colored groundcovers in the first link.

Yep, I like that one too. But I have to say that the really short one would be great for "walking on it" ground cover. ut it sounds like Linnea is envisioning a replacement to her grass that won't necessarily be one flat square area but could be a bit undulating. If that's the case, then several species and spp of thyme would be just heavenly IMHO. I've got thyme and lemon thyme as ground cover under 2 of my 6 citrus trees. I also have marjoram and oregano as ground cover under 2 other citrus. For the other two citrus, there is Osteospermum under one and Aptenia cordifolia under the other. All of them do really well all year long. Only the majoram doesn't do well in our winter (not so cold here...only down to about 40F at the coldest)....but even that doesn't die...it just gets a bit pitiful LOL.

Dichondra is another wonderful idea for non-herbal ground cover that doesn't need mowing at all. We have it in two parts of our garden. One in the lower level of our garden in a stepping stone path. The other area with the Dichondra is in the upper level where otherwise grass would have been (I had no intention of hauling the mower up and down steps! LOL). I am now sad that I didn't know abotu Dichondra being so tough and easy to care for before I put the grass in the lower level. But then, it does tend to creep into whatever is nearby. I don't midn so much in the lower level where we have it in the path because it looks sweet (very natural) peeping through the Santolina or Lantana here and there. But I'd hate for it to get mixed with something shorter as I think it would choke it out. Having said that, I am so very pleased with how it is coming along in the upper level of our garden. I just put down the seeds at the end of June when we started this upper garden....before that it was nothing but a dirt plot and now look at it (see attached photo).

-Julie

Julie, it does look wonderful!

Hope I can save this thread until next year, LOL.

Thanks Darius. I could kick myself for not taking a photo of it before I planted anything. Oh well. I have a photo of what it looked like on July 15th though. What a difference! The thing about Dichondra is that it takes about 3 weeks to germinate in our hot dry climate even with daily watering. And when it does come out of the ground it's just teensy tiny. So you feel like it will just NEVER really start to take off and cover the ground. But the growth is exponential and suddenly ZOOM it just seems to cover huge patches overnight. :-) And even though our grass can get scorching hot during the heat of the afternoon, the Dichondra is always cool and soft to the touch. I love the stuff. :-)

-Julie

How tall does it eventually get?

Julie, would you mind going to your Preferences and adding your zone? It helps all of us in understanding your conditions, and in responding. Thanks.

Also... and this is one of my pet peeves, mostly because I'm older and have poor eyesight... If you break up your posts into more paragraphs, it is a LOT easier for some of us to read.

In shadier wetter areas it can get about 6 inches tall with leaves up to an inch across. In drier hotter areas it becomes a lot shorter (not even 1/2 a centimeter tall) and denser with smaller leaves. But even in the hot, dry areas it's still cool and soft all day long.

I can't add my zone because I'm not in the U.S. Sorry. If they add Zones worldwide, I'd be happy to add mine ;-)

-Julie

Ooops, red face here... I saw "IL" and assumed Illinois because that is the abbreviation, LOL. I do believe you can add an equivalent planting zone, though. I see many members from other countries who have a zone added.

Also didn't realize you were a new member. There are SO many now. Anyway, a BIG Welcome to DG and thanks for your wonderful contributions!

NP Darius LOL. I would try to add something but since our climate is so different than anywhere in the U.S., I really hesitate to do so. We have half a year of rainy season (winter) and half a year when we don't get a single drop of precipitation. So although the heat of summer is like where I'm from in Oklahoma, you can really say that it's the same zone because there at least, there is rain during the summer months and many plants really do need to be "washed off" regularly by a shower. Here they have to put up with a lot of dust for several months every year. And then there is the winter deluge where they have to be able to handle temps hovering around 40 degrees (but where they can suddenly rise to the high 70s-mid80s for a week or more) and soggy earth. I can't think of a US zone that would fit all of that. So I think it's better to leave it alone and have people just ask me if they are curious about something I have in my garden. I know if it would work in Oklahoma and that's about it LOL.

As for the abbreviations, I do think that people from outside of the U.S. should have 4 letter abbreviations to elimnate a lot of confusion like the Israel/Illinois thing. But I think Dave has more pressing things to do, so I won't bug him about it. LOL

Finally, thank YOU for letting me know my contributions have been helpful in some way or another. :-) Everyone here has been so great here and I've learned so much in just the 12 days since I joined. It's really unbelievable :-)
-Julie

Julis... sorry I didn't connect you in this thread with you in the search for an epi thread, LOL. Sometimes I'm slow, other times I'm really slow!

Makes sense about the zone info, though.

Wow! I've been away from the computer for a few days and I just got to re-read my thread. You all have wonderful ideas, and hopefully next year I can implement them. You see, Dad still hasn't installed that walkway, so this area is going to be excavated still.

I'm not worried about walking on all these things, as it isn't a heavily used area, but I just want to get rid of all the weeds. We evn had nettles spring up in there this year. Yuck.

Thanks again,
Cedar

We have oregano in part of the yard (it just seemed to spread there). It grows about 6-8 inches tall, flowers most of the summer and the bees love it.

That can be something of a problem though. A couple of weeks ago our dog went running through it and stepped on a bee, but he seems to have learned because now he goes around.