Our landscape features a lot of areas with trees and shrubs located over turf grass. In other words, the groundcover is completely turf grass.
I know that if, for example, groundcover and trees are found together in an area, then the category "mixed" is to be used for that area.
I would also like to use the values for "mixed" category for the proposed design for the turfg grass -shrub/ tree combination areas, but my conscience tells me that in reality turf grass is much more water hungry than reflected by the "mixed" category.
What is your experience with proposed case calculations involving turf grass as groundcover?
Allison Zuchman
Green Building ConsultantFore Solutions
34 thumbs up
September 9, 2010 - 11:20 am
You are correct - turf grass is more water hungry than other types of vegetation, and it would be a good idea to account for this. I think that you can use still use the "mixed" vegetation by accounting for the turf in the Species Factor (Ks) you choose. See page 185 of the Reference Guide for the chart with Species Factor choices (Low, Average, or High). "Turf grass" independently has a higher species factor than "mixed", so if using "mixed" that includes turf be sure to choose either the Average or High coefficient for the Species Factor based on how much turf there is in comparison to other vegetation.