A lawn that survives August

A green lawn in Valencia in August costs around 2,000 litres of water per square metre a year. Most of the lawns we replace were watered every evening and still turned the colour of straw by the end of July.

There are two honest alternatives, and which one fits depends on how the space is used.

For walking on: a tough mix

Where children play or a dog runs, we sow a mix based on bermuda grass and zoysia. Both go golden in the heat and green again with the first September rain. Mown high and watered deeply once a week, they use about a third of the water of a classic lawn.

For looking at: a meadow

Where the grass is mostly seen, from a terrace or along a path, we sow a meadow. Our mix has 24 native species: grasses like brachypodium and stipa, and flowers like poppy, cornflower, wild marigold and viper’s bugloss.

A meadow is sown in October, after the first rain, and left alone. The first spring is mostly poppies. By the second, the grasses fill in and the flowers come in waves from March to June.

The upkeep

We mow paths through it every few weeks so it looks intended, and cut the whole meadow once in July. The hay stays for a week to drop its seed, then gets raked off. It is only watered in the first summer, and only after three weeks without rain.

That is the whole calendar. It looks wild for a month after the cut, and better every year after.