Jeff Morrow loves his grass. He dons a broad smile as if he is secretly pleased at the feat of out smarting Mother Nature which he seems to takes great pride in as he shows off his fuzzy, soft, blue-green lawn. Morrow is so stoked by his grass because it is virtually a stress-free lawn that requires no water, no mowing, no fertilizer and all that adds up to Morrow being able to sit back and enjoy the good life. He says, “Yard work is work. Work is a four-letter word. I want to spend my disposable income and time having fun not spend it on toiling away doing yard work.”

His lawn is beautiful. It is long with very thin blades of Buffalograss that billow in the breeze. The colors are not Kelly Green like most fescue lawns that are the norm in this area but rather a gorgeous pewter, blue and green which plays off of the sunlight and the Blue Spruce and Crabapple trees that he has prominently planted in the front yard. It is soft to touch and interesting to watch on this balmy breezy day.

One of the main attractions of Buffalograss is its low maintenance. The Cedar Creek Development uses the grass quite liberally. Cindy Shafer, Community Service Manager for Cedar Creek, thinks it is a great way to make a large area like Cedar Creek look lush and inviting but not break the bank to do so. She elaborates, “There are several reasons to use Buffalograss. It has a wonderful native look and is a warm season turf which means it cuts down on our maintenance costs by not having to mow as often, or water as frequently or fertilize at all. At Cedar Creek we use the Prairie Cultivar for the parkway and median areas and we use the 609 Cultivar for many of our homes.”

Buffalograss is native perennial grasses whose roots have basically taken hold of the central United States and down through central Mexico. The grass used to provide the sod for homes of the early settlers of these regions. It also sustained the Bison population that used to heavily roam this area and is hence where the name originates. The grass is easy to destroy by cultivation. For this reason, it can be readily removed from flowerbeds and gardens if it begins to creep. Buffalograss is a low growing grass that typically will only reach 8-10 inches high and then stops, the tall blades then fall over giving the appearance of a short, neatly trimmed space. It does not need to be fertilized because it is a native genus whose needs are already provided for by the natural landscape. It requires little to no water because, again, it has adapted to its native area and the roots run deeply into the earth rather than staying near the surface like many fescues and bluegrasses.

But it is not all wine and roses for the Buffalograss lawn. Just as there are pro’s there are also con’s to this native turf. Shafer explains, “Areas in western Kansas have Buffalograss in almost every yard by necessity, it is hotter there and generally drier. In this area we are more of a transitional region where we have the luxury of choosing either a cool-season grass or a warm-season grass. The con’s to a warm-season grass is that it will green up later in the spring because the ground temperatures are still cool and Buffalograss will generally become a golden, tan color by November, it is just genetically predisposed to going dormant around November. It also will not grow in the shade or perform well in high traffic yards.”

Jeff Morrow doesn’t much care about the cons to Buffalograss as far as he is concerned this turf is aiding in his quest to live life by his standards. He says, “There are a million different ways to live your life and this grass is low-maintenance as is my life. I don’t do anything, I don’t even water it and I love that. I’ve only mowed about 20 times in 5 years and my barometer for that is when I can no longer find the dog poop, then I know it is time to mow. In fact I cannot remember the last time I took my lawnmower in to be serviced.”

Morrow purchased his Buffalograss seed off of the Internet and admits that it was a bit expensive but he thinks that it has more than paid for itself. Morrow’s neighbor has Buffalograss as well so the trend is catching on leaving more time for play and less anxiety about “keeping up with the Joneses green lawn.” Some neighbors were watering that day; Morrow shakes his head and scoffs while one of the dogs squats to deposit a little fertilizer into the lawn.