Herbal Carpet

Alternatives to Grass for Lawns

To lawn or not to lawn? That is the question!  Mowing and watering season is upon us.  Do you feel put upon every time you have to start up the lawn mower?  Wouldn’t you rather use that time to do anything else!  I for one would rather do just about anything besides mow the grassy lawn.  We don’t water or fertilize our lawn so that eliminates some of the chore and by mid-summer what was green is a lovely taupe shade so requires less mowing time.  Almost every year I look for ways to decrease the amount of grass I do have to mow.  More and more lawn has gone into herb and vegetable beds or native plants.   In the southwestern U.S, many people have replaced grass lawns or never had any to begin with.  Granted they often use gravel, but here in the northwest most of us like our green lawn areas.  Maybe we could take cues from our southwest neighbors though and try plants other than grass for our lawn landscaping.

Roman Chamomile makes a carpet behind one of our outbuildings, near the greenhouse and rain barrels.  This is mostly gravel, with a bit of bark chips near the bottom of the picture.  So this is a great groundcover plant that is not picky!

While visiting some sites in England, we learned that when lawns started, they were not usually grass, but clover, chamomile, thyme and a mix of other broad leafed plants. They didn’t have lawn mowers so grass only came later. Perhaps it’s time to simplify our thinking about lawns and look to the time before grass became the choice of professionals as well as DIY’ers.  Looking at some of the plants that made up historic lawns, we see herbs – thyme and chamomile.  There are several varieties of these herbs that would be quite suitable as grass alternatives as well as some other herbs, all are perennials.

Thyme – standard English and French thyme are little bushes so would not be good as a lawn, but lime thyme, Dutch tea thyme, spicy orange thyme and wild thyme would work well.  All these thymes grow low to the ground and spread outward all around making a creeping mat that is 2-3 inches tall.  Thymes prefer well-drained lightly textured soils, but will grow quite well in less than desirable soil types and thrive from sun to light shade environments. Lime thyme has light lime colored leaves that give off a lime scent.  Dutch tea thyme has glossy green leaves and is a good culinary herb.  Makes a wonderful tea and can be used as a replacement for English or French thyme in cooking.  Spicy orange thyme has small dark green leaves and gives off an orange scent.  Wild thyme or Mother of Thyme or creeping thyme forms a thick fragrant mat and has small purple flowers.  All these thymes may be used for culinary purposes.  Because they don’t get too tall, it’s possible to set your mower deck to mow over the top of them, thus preserving them (they don’t take well to trimming or cutting heavily).

Roman Chamomile in early spring in the left two pictures - it stays green all year round.  The lovely white flowers on the right which last most of the summer.

Chamomile – While there are two kinds of chamomile, Roman chamomile is best suited as a ground cover.  It will grow in sun and partial shade, requires very little watering, can be mowed and walked on.  It produces small daisy type flowers that give off an apple-ly scent especially when walked on.  Its feathery leaves are a light green/grey color. You can harvest and dry the flowers for bath salts and teas, as well as for potpourri.

Pennyroyal -  This low growing member of the mint family has been used to keep fleas away and it also makes a terrific groundcover. It creates a dark green mat with stalks of interesting flowers.  It can be mowed and walked on.  Pennyroyal can be a very powerful herb (especially the oil), so pregnant women should avoid handling it and it should not be used on pregnant animals.  Honeybees love the flowers and it provides an excellent source of forage for them.

Pennyroyal makes an excellent groundcover for walking paths and rock gardens.  Look carefully for the bees on the striking and unusual purple flowers.

Sweet Woodruff – This herb is well known as a shade ground cover. It grows to about 5”, spreads by runners fairly quickly.   The star-shaped whorls of leaves and lacy white flowers are quite attractive.  Traditionally in Germany, this herb is used to infuse white wines such as Reisling along with strawberries to make May wine, celebrating the turning toward summer.  It also makes a great addition to potpourri, with a lovely sweet dried hay scent.

Sweet woodruff grows well in full shade, especially under trees.  Ours grows under our big Colorado Blue Spruce and loves the shade - spreading to cover a large area that we don't have to weed!

Whether you choose these herbs or some other creeping type ground covers, keep in mind that ground covers should be low growing plants that spread somewhat aggressively and cover an area thickly enough to keep weeds at bay. Look at the area you plan to cover and decide will you walk on it, is it shady or sunny and just how much of that grassy lawn is going away. 
As we look to making our lives a little more simple with more time to do the things we want and with less impact on the environment, taking a good hard look at that grassy lawn might be one place to begin.