A garden for every need: a lawn resistant to foot traffic, drought, and temperature fluctuations

The climate is now constantly evolving, and global warming is severely testing the resilience of lawns and gardens to the increasingly extreme temperatures of our time. The normal requirements of a well-used garden, such as having a lawn resistant to foot traffic, cold, or salt spray, are therefore combined with new external factors, such as drought, intense heat, or temperature fluctuations.

There is certainly no lawn that is resistant to everything, but there are various types of alternative lawns that adapt easily to a range of resistance parameters, making it easier for those who know exactly what type of garden they need to choose.

These lawns have their own characteristics that make them more or less suitable for different requirements, but in any case, they are low-water-use plants. This characteristic makes them all particularly drought- and heat-resistant, as they adapt easily to the current climate, with very little rainfall. Their characteristics allow them, in fact, to remain lush even during long periods of high temperatures without the need for the maintenance and irrigation costs required for a traditional lawn.

Lawn resistant to foot traffic

One of the most requested characteristics concerns the resistance of lawns to continuous traffic, whether from people, pets, or wheeled equipment. There are some varieties of alternative lawns that are particularly resistant to foot traffic.

Lippia nodiflora lawn in the two varieties var. canescens and var. non canescens is the perennial groundcover that adapts most easily to heat and requires very little irrigation. The Verbena hybrida lawn, on the other hand, is a very walkable creeping plant that also makes a great impression with its purple flowers. Finally, the Zoysia tenuifolia lawn creates an extremely soft plant carpet that not only resists foot traffic easily, but above all allows for the creation of a real carpet in your garden, soft and pleasant to the touch, which you can walk on even barefoot.

The resistance of these plants can therefore be severely tested, provided, of course, that you do not overdo it. Always walking the same path on a small area of the lawn will inevitably make that area thinner and different from the rest of the garden, so it is preferable to move freely over the entire surface rather than favoring specific areas.

Furthermore, it is essential to wait for the lawn to establish itself before overdoing the foot traffic: once planted, it needs 2/4 weeks for the roots to adapt to the environment and make the lawn effectively more resistant.

Lawn resistant to cold

The relentless heat of recent summers is compounded by short winters with sporadic but very intense frosts. For those living in particularly cold places or at considerable altitudes, there are some types of alternative gardens that resist down to – and sometimes even below – 5 degrees below zero. Of course, these are lawns unsuitable for mountain landscapes with overly harsh climates and high altitudes, but perfect for areas where winter temperatures reach -5°C.

Among the most cold-tolerant lawns is certainly Achillea crithmifolia, which is particularly resistant even to temperatures colder than -7°C, and with its grey-green foliage dyes the garden in those muted but intense colors typical of winter landscapes. With a very similar resistance to cold, you can also opt for the Achillea tomentosa aurea 'BDG' lawn, a variety of this plant tested right in our botanical garden. The Frankenia laevis lawn, then, even reaches -10°C and earns its place as an all-resistant lawn: it adapts to both full sun and partial shade, and is resistant not only to intense but short-lived cold. The cold tolerance of these lawns also depends on sun exposure. If the gardens are south-facing, their resistance to low temperatures will clearly be greater.

The peculiarity of these plants is that, being low-water-use alternative lawns, they form drought- and cold-resistant lawns, combining the requirements of extreme seasons without the risk of either causing particular damage. Their resistance to low temperatures also allows these lawns not to be damaged by the temperature fluctuations resulting from ongoing climate change.

Lawn resistant to salt spray

Not all alternative lawns are suitable for creating coastal gardens: in these cases, you need to know how to select the most salt-spray-resistant ones. Among the lawns already analyzed for their high resistance to harsh conditions such as cold or foot traffic, the most suitable for coastal gardens are certainly the Lippia nodiflora var. canescens lawn, Zoysia tenuifolia lawn, and the Frankenia laevis lawn. Added to these versatile types of lawn are also the Dymondia margaretae lawn, a very distinctive plant that forms an impenetrable carpet on the ground, and Arctotheca calendula, a groundcover that allows you to have a flowering lawn for much of the year.

Lawn resistant to shade

If you can draw on the entire Botanical Dry Garden catalog for a sun-resistant lawn, you need to carefully choose the right type for lawns that grow lushly even in partial shade. Among the lawns already mentioned, those best suited to a partially shaded area are the Frankenia laevis lawn, the Achillea tomentosa aurea 'BDG' lawn, and the Arctotheca calendula lawn. In addition, Erigeron karvinskianus, a groundcover with a blanket of white-pink daisies, is also able to grow lushly in both full sun and partial shade.

Lawn resistant to weeds

When talking about weeds and lawns suitable for resisting them, you should not focus solely on the type of plant, but also on its condition. Once they have closed and covered the entire surface, all the varieties at Botanical Dry Garden leave little room for weeds. Problems can therefore arise mainly in the first few months of the lawn's life, when there is still a lot of bare earth between one plantlet and the next. For this reason, during the first few years of our lawns' lives, we always recommend more frequent mowing throughout the year to contain the growth of weeds and stimulate the horizontal growth of the plantlets.