Stay At Home Dad Projects: Lawn Care

Mar 24, 2018

3 min read

The great, super, amazing thing about summer and parts of spring and fall in Calgary is you can be outside most days, all day. I love it. You don’t need to get all bundled up in snowsuits and brave the elements for as long as it takes until someone has to pee, or your limbs feel as if they have frozen off. One of my favourite projects to tackle first in the spring is lawn care.

With the arrival of warmer weather also comes a plethora of projects around the house and yard that you can/need to do, and the great thing about the warm weather is you can get them done while your kid(s) play in the yard with you. It’s a win/win! As a stay-at-home-dad I often find myself looking to find ways to contribute around the house in a way that is helpful, but also satisfies my interests.

One such project for the Dashing family has been reseeding our lawn. It was a project I started three years ago after discovering an interesting fact about grass in Calgary and reaching maximum frustration with the weed situation of our lawn.

Grass types, or why should I care?

Fantastic question. I know lawn care isn’t maybe the most exciting of topics, but saving money and sanity is fun….right?

Here’s the thing about most lawns in Calgary. They’re made from Kentucky Blue grass. You wouldn’t be criticized for thinking that Kentucky Blue grass is from Kentucky, but you would be incorrect. It’s actually native to most of Europe and northern Asia, and that’s how it got to North America, via settlers hundreds of years ago. Why does that matter? Because it’s not native to Calgary. Heck it’s not even native to this continent! That fact, combined with its short root system makes it SOOOOO much easier for weeds to infiltrate it. It’s why your lawn requires so much water, so much fertilizer, so much weed control and so much of your sanity!

So whether you’re looking for your lawn to be more eco-friendly, or your just lazy and want to cut and water your lawn less, there are a number of native grasses that can help you in the Calgary area.

Native Grasses

Personally, I’ve used Sheep Fescue Grass and after a few seasons of over-seeding I’m starting to reap the benefits. We have a fairly large, pie shaped lot (for the suburbs) yet it’s only taken one bag of seed to cover our lawn. I’ve used one bag in the spring and one in the fall along with a fertilizer perfect for dryer soils (our lawn gets a lot of sun and started out quite clay heavy, we have since put topsoil down to help richen the nutrients in our soil).

This easy and inexpensive process has cut down on watering significantly, as well as reduced the amount of times I’ve had to cut my lawn (last year I didn’t even cut if for August and half of September). It’s also helped produce a thick, healthy looking, lawn that is better resistant against weeds and makes for a fun place to hang out and play games with Clara.