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Home & Garden readers might also want to read Keep it Green, a gardening column by Michael Womack.

Saturday, July 21, 2001
Lawn begone
Give up your lawn and dive into a low-cost, no-fuss project
By Leanne Libby
Caller-Times

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

No more grass, declared Corpus Christi homeowner Joe Catenazzo two years ago. He replaced his lawn with Caladiums and other ground covers.

Joe Catenazzo hasn't exactly set out to blend in with his neighbors. In a sea of homes carpeted with well-kept lawns, Catenazzo's front yard is an explosion of plant life. Caladiums surround a stately oak tree. A dwarf magnolia boasts two giant blossoms. Begonias add a summery feel. But nowhere is there so much as a blade of grass.
   While many homeowners can't imagine suburban life without Saturday mornings behind the mower, others are giving the contraption the heave-ho. And in the Coastal Bend, where temperatures are high and rainfall is low, giving up grass sounds mighty tempting.
   Catenazzo planted a $10 oak sapling 14 years ago that has grown into a sizeable tree. Its shade is welcome, but it and the shadows cast by the two-story house were keeping the grass in the dark. Two years ago, Catenazzo declared the lawn dead and tore it out.
   Pain in the grass
   "Don't get me wrong; I love grass," said Catenazzo, a vocational counselor. "It's just too much maintenance. Now, all I have to do is water once a day for about 15 minutes."
   Using free mulch from the city and free horse manure from the stables, Catenazzo keeps his gardening budget low out front so he can afford to spoil his roses in the back yard.
   "The caladiums are a one-time investment," he said. "They die down every winter, but they always come back. After that, it's just a matter of buying six packs of things like impatiens. So you might spend a few hundred dollars, but it's all renewable."

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Padre Island resident Dawn Hees says her idea of a yard is 'all concrete.'

   Catenazzo's next project is to overhaul the strip of land between the sidewalk and the street. The arbor vitae is getting the ax; its bushy presence is blocking Catenazzo's view when he backs out of the driveway. He plans to anchor urns in concrete (he learned his lesson after pranksters yanked out the Italian cypress trees) and fill them with flowers. He's always changing one part of the landscape or another, but it's always with a common goal in mind.
   "There's always color here, all year long," he said.
   Birds and bees
   Yanking out the grass might help out area critters, said Alice Hempel, assistant professor of biology at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
   "That nice, green St. Augustine is the biological equivalent of the desert for wildlife," Hempel said. "As we clear field and brush for subdivisions, there are birds and butterflies that have lost their homes."
   Hempel understands that some homeowners need a grassy area for children to play in, but she is encouraged to see more people losing their lawns.
   "There are two types of people I've seen go to low- or no-grass," she said. "One wants to reduce the amount of time they spend working in the yard, and the other is interested in attracting more birds and wildlife."
   Is maintaining plants really less work than a solid stretch of grass?

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Joe Catenazzo has sworn off grass in his yard. Instead, he says, his landscape is year-round color.

   "The initial installation is a lot of work compared with having someone spread some seed on dirt," Hempel said. "The first year you will need to baby those plants a little. But once they are well-established, you don't have to do a lot of pruning, and it's easy to put a soaker hose on a shrub. Plus, you won't be paying those big water bills anymore."
   There's never been any love lost between Dawn Hees and grass of any kind. The front yard of her Padre Island home was landscaped with rock. No matter what she did, however, feisty weeds would push through. At the end, the weeds seemed to be winning. Two years ago, Dawn and her husband Don armed themselves with shovels and cleared the whole mess away.
   Today, a stucco wall conceals a swimming pool. Potted ponytail palmsand pgymy island date palms line one side of the sanctuary, and fancy leaf caladiums coupled with a pink penta add a splash of color in one corner.
   A plant bed outside the stucco wall adds a touch of green with soft tip yucca plants as well as strawberry and tomato plants. Dawn sighed and said there are weeds there too, and wonders whether she should have chosen a lower-maintenance idea. To be honest, she's not one to spend time in the garden.
   "My idea of a yard is all concrete," she said.


Contact Leanne Libby at 886-3615 or at libbyl@caller.com

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