Perennial grasses for lawn making under the conditions of Western Siberia

In the planting of cities and towns lawns are a major component of landscape compositions having a marked versatile value. The present article gives the experimental data of study of seven species of grasses under the conditions of Siberia which are meadow grass, red fescue, meadow fescue and sheep fescue, white bentgrass and metropolitan bentgrass, perennial ryegrass, which in our country and abroad are usually used as a part of landscape compositions to create perennial lawns for various purposes, a qualitative assessment is given by de- veloped herbage productivity of shoot formation herbs, projective covering and decorative grass, the quality sod cover. Investigations were carried out in the southern forest-steppe of Omsk region on meadow chernozem soil. It was found that for gardening of settlements of the region the most useful lawn grasses are grass-roots, rhizom- atous bunch grasses - Kentucky bluegrass and red fescue. They form especially thick decorative (11427-11843 shoots/m2) uniform dark green herbage with a strong turf (13.2-14.0 cm), as measured by 30-point quality scale ranging from 25.0 to 26.5. These types of herbs should be used for making perennial high- ly decorative parterre and sporting lawns. To create a less common ornamental lawns along with Kentucky blue- grass and red fescue meadow fescue and sheep fescue white bentgrass and metropolitan bentgrass are suitable. They are characterized by uneven regrowth, at tillering intensity, closeness and decorative grass sward. Perennial ryegrass forms thick sward only in the year of sowing, from the second year of life it thins out and falls, there- fore it is of little value as a lawn grass for Siberian conditions.