Best Practices for Lawn Care in Western Oregon: where to get the best information on what really works here


Western Oregon supplies 75% of all the grass seed in the world. As the State Agricultural school, OSU expertise fuels the industry. As part of the outreach of the OSU Extension Service, 10- Minute University™ is dedicated to sharing best practices information customized for home gardeners.

This article is a guide to resources for gardeners in western Oregon and western Washington. Much of the information is applicable to other areas; the exception is anything related to our long annual summer drought conditions.

The core resource for home gardeners is this free, online, 29-page well-illustrated guide to all aspects of growing and maintaining a healthy lawn: “Practical Lawn Care for Western Oregon” https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pub/ec-1521-practical-lawn-care-western-oregon It was written in 2018 by Alec Kowalewski, head of the turfgrass program at OSU, with Doug Voderberg.

It addresses

  • Appropriate places for lawns
  • Realistic expectations
  • Selecting proper seeds (and why every lawn eventually turns into a “climax” lawn, a mix of 4 grass types)
  • Alternatives to conventional lawns
  • Critical cultural practices: mowing, watering and fertilizing

A key strength of this article is that it gives distinct guidelines for different levels of lawn. Your expectations for grass in your mow strip are probably different from what you want for your front yard, while standards for a manicured putting green are different again. This paper gives best practices guidelines for high input, medium input, and low input lawns.

About the time he prepared the resource above, Alec Kowalewski prepared a parallel YouTube video “Integrated Pest Management for Turfgrass” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_RM2Igwk5o. It presents most of the same information, targeting the professional growers like parks, schools and athletic fields, but still very useful to homeowners. The emphasis is on three critical cultural practices of mowing, fertilization and watering. He demonstrates weed control and pest management, which can be largely controlled by proper use of these three cultural practices instead of chemicals.

An alternative basic guide, not as in-depth but still very thorough and aimed directly at home gardeners, is the 10-Minute University™ video on Lawn Care, prepared in 2015 by Sherry Sheng. If you prefer learning from video to learning from text, this is your go-to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ-Fp68FxDc&t=24s

Over time, new research has modified those original recommendations somewhat. The most striking change is that the recommendation for less frequent, deep watering has been radically changed. “Ten years of sold research,” says Kowalewski, “has made it very clear that around ¼” of water applied four times a week, totaling 1 inch per week, will result in a greener, healthier lawn with fewer weeds than a lawn that receives one inch applied in a single application.” That 1” is an average; during high-heat events both the total and the frequency should increase.

This and other new lawn care information recently appeared in a new publication by Alec and Brooke Edmunds: “Through thoughtful practices, lawns can be climate-friendly.” https://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/lawn/through-thoughtful-practices-lawns-can-be-climate-friendly

Alec provided the same information with many more photos in a recent 10- Minute University™ video presentation.

Both the written report and the video show that lawns are very effective at carbon sequestration, second only to forests, and better than all other land uses for this purpose. They also describe how lawns are far superior to other uses in cooling the ambient air temperature that can be fatal during higher summer temperatures and increasingly frequent heat events.

And both provide updated information on best practices in mowing, fertilization and watering (which can eliminate almost all weeds without use of additional chemicals –or labor), based on the last decade of research at OSU.

The question of summer dormancy is addressed in these resources. Dormancy is the natural response to our summer dry season if supplemental irrigation is not applied. It is not fatal but will allow more drought-tolerant weeds to become established, requiring control later.

During dormancy, lawns are more fragile, and it is important to protect them from foot traffic and other compaction that would not faze a green lawn.

Lawns here in western Oregon store enough energy to quickly come out of dormancy when the fall rains arrive. However, avoid bringing them out of dormancy prematurely unless you are going to switch to a full irrigation program for the rest to the summer; if put back to sleep before having time and water to recharge their resources, lawns may just not have the energy to re-awaken that second time!

Click here for a printable pdf of this article. Written by Justin Dune July 2024 photo page 1,3 by Justin Dune, page 2 OSU publications