After several years of establishment, the Johnston’s backyard buffalograss lawn has provided a low-maintenance, drought-tolerant landscape.

Tribune photo by Steve Johnston

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While I was growing up south of Powell, my dad offered to pay me a quarter for every bucket of rocks I picked up from our horse pasture. It started out as a grand plan to get rich, but after 20 or so buckets of rock picking, I quickly learned it wasn’t worth the time or money. I think my sister figured out it was a waste of time at about bucket number 10.

Fast forward 40 years and I found myself standing in the middle of my own 2 acres of land south of Powell wondering how I was going to clear the ground of rocks so I could try to plant something. 

I brought up the bucket idea to my son. He mumbled, “are you kidding me?” and walked away. So I began to rake rocks ... alone, aside from the lone sagebrush that inhabits our lot. I filled bucket after bucket, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with rocks.

My son did open the window one hot summer day to shout, “It’s looking good, dad.” He then promptly shut the window and went back to his bowl of cereal and into his air-conditioned gaming room.

However, I came to realize that maybe the rocks were the least of my landscaping problems.

Where I live, irrigation water is hard to find. A drilled well only produced enough to allow us a few plants and trees around the house. 

I believe it was my mom who suggested that I should try planting some drought-tolerant buffalograss. I didn’t know what it was or how it looked or grew, but I envisioned it like the sickly-looking patchy grass that you can find up in the McCullough Peaks or Badger Basin.

Research quickly debunked my worries of an ugly looking grass. Buffalograss is known for low water usage, winter hardiness and low vertical growth that reduces the frequency it needs to be mowed. It has a medium green color and fine leaf texture. 

Sticker shock quickly set in as buffalograss seed is very expensive. Nevertheless, beautiful vibrant green pictures of lush grassy fields on multiple websites had me hooked. I was going to give it a try. 

There are many varieties of buffalograss; Cody, Bowie and Sundancer seed are commonly used as turf. I decided on a few pounds of Cody and ordered from a seed company located in Nebraska.

With my limited water, I had to plant my grass in sections, hoping to get one section established before moving onto the next. Sounded simple enough to me.

Bring on the patience

Every little green patch that popped up was scrutinized to see if it was buffalograss. I kept scrutinizing until the only thing that seemed to be growing was weeds—nothing but weeds for the first year, it seemed. I was devastated.

The second year was a little more promising. Buffalograss was in fact sprouting up but it was still competing with the vast amount of weeds. “Pull the weeds.” “Spray the weeds.” “Watch out for cheatgrass!” It seemed everyone I asked had ideas and advice on things I could try to eradicate the weeds without harming the newly forming buffalograss. 

The whole process of my first small planting was anxiety-inducing. I worried about the grass: How was I going to give it enough water? Should I try to mow the weeds? What about fertilizer? It’s been two years!

I was exhausted from worrying about the grass and weeds for the last two years — eventually throwing up my hands in defeat and deciding that the next spring, whatever happened, happened. It would either work or it wouldn’t.

To my surprised delight, the third year was my breakthrough year: The grass grew beautifully. I gave it a mow here and there and felt like I had conquered the world. Plant it, water it the best you can and be very, very patient. Who knew?

I moved on and planted another section of grass. Watered it the best I could and waited to see what would happen. First year weeds, second year some grass and lots of weeds, third year pretty darn good looking grass!

Sure, buffalograss has its drawbacks. It takes years to establish. It’s a warm-season grass so it’s late to green up in the spring and early to yellow in the fall. But it’s grass that needs far less water than other grasses around my house and it sure beats rocks and weeds.

The first time I saw my dog plop down in the grass, roll over and squirm around to scratch his back made me realize the hard work was well worth it.

But better still, this past summer, after I had finished mowing the grass, my son opened the window and shouted to me, “It’s nice to finally have an actual lawn!” He then shut the window and went back to his bowl of cereal and into his air-conditioned gaming room.