Is there an undisputed "low maintenance" grass type champion in Raleigh?

[orulz]

We tried mulch in our back yard for years. That is a lot of work too, because you have to replenish it each year (which for us is about 50 long, roundabout wheelbarrow trips with significant hills). Mulch ain't free, either. We were spending a couple hundred a year. It looks awesome when it's fresh, but give it a couple months and you do inevitably get weeds. And since they're green on top of the brown mulch, they *really* stand out. You can spray with roundup but honestly who wants to do that every few weeks all year long? I'll take my cancer risk from diet soda and sun exposure, not lawn chemicals - thank you very much.

So, this year, we've seeded fescue in the back yard. I'd like to transplant some of the excess mondo grass from the front yard as well so we can do the fescue->mondo thing, but I probably won't get to that until this winter.

[orulz]

Originally Posted by wheelsup

It will take a loooooong time to fill in. Even the normal kind (not dwarf) which I planted last year with a solid 6" of new good top soil is hardly close to filling in, in a defined area.

I would guess that it took somewhere between 5 and 8 years for the Mondo to give (what I consider to be) a pretty stunning result. The time could possibly be made shorter by planting plugs more densely. Maybe the top soil will help but I did no such thing and it seems to be doing fine.

It's important to note that these 8-10 years were not spent spent babying it by religiously mowing, watering, spraying, fertilizing, aerating, topdressing and reseeding. (Gosh just looking at that list makes me dislike conventional grass even more!) They've been spent doing relatively nothing - including mowing it less and less frequently as the Mondo chokes out the old fescue to a point where it's basically negligible at this point. Maintenance these days consist of:

(1) Mow it a few times a year
(2) Pull out some weeds that sprout along the edges
(3) Pull out the undesired shoots that pop up under the azaleas and rose bushes (and transplant them elsewhere if I feel like it)

[orulz]

Originally Posted by wheelsup

You say that but you've been on here before and never answered when pushed. I do wonder what it is you actually have since mondo seems to grow large and clumpy.

https://www.city-data.com/forum/rale...natives-6.html

https://www.monrovia.com/plant-catal...9/mondo-grass/

After reading this post I did start to question myself - is what I have actually mondo grass (ophiopogon japonicus), or is it monkey grass (liriope spicata)? The two are very similar and can be difficult to distinguish.

After reading up some more I am convinced that I do in fact have mondo grass. Here's the characteristics:

(1) Leaves are 1/8 inch wide (liriope spicata should be closer to 1/4 inch)
(2) Uncut leaves are uniformly 8" long (liriope spicata should be closer to 12)
(3) When it flowers, the flowers are white and grow low to the ground - only 2-3 inches above it (liriope has longer flower stalks, as long as or longer than the leaves)

For the life of me I honestly cannot remember what color the berries are. Mondo grass berries are supposed to be blue; liriope's are black.

It does seem a little uncharacteristic for Mondo Grass that mine is doing as well as it in a sunny spot like this, but if I think about it, it's not literally sun-bleached all day long, it gets maybe up to 6-8 hours a day during the peak of the summer.