A Guide to Planting a Chamomile Lawn

A Guide to Planting a Chamomile Lawn

Preparation, preparation, preparation

This is the most important aspect of the entire project. Chamomile lawns are a lot harder to create then normal grass lawns, you have to do a lot of work to get the ground ready.

First off, if you’re replacing a grass lawn, then every trace of grass must be gone. Grass will out compete Chamomile, resulting in endless weeding of what is meant to be a low maintenance lawn.
To get rid of the grass you have two options. The first is weedkiller, the second is to manually remove all traces of the grass yourself.

The weedkiller option is easier if you have the time to wait for it to disperse. The ground will need to be clean again by May, so you need to time it carefully. I didn’t do this myself.

The second is to dig up the grass to a depth of six inches, so as to ensure you get all the roots. This is what I did.
If you use the weedkiller method you will need to dig over the soil until its finely broken up, and remove every stone. Stones prevent Chamomile from taking hold, so this is particularly important.

If you use the manual removal method, you need to replace the missing soil with a mix of new soil (root free), compost and sand. Using compost and sand alone is possible, provided they are mixed sufficiently to give the compost a bit more body. You should also buy a plank and press down the compost/sand mix well before planting, or it will sink a lot when you walk on it later, at least at first, the roots will firm up the ground once the lawn is well established. I would suggest you use new soil until you’ve got two inches to go and put a compost/sand mix on that.

A note on buying in soil. You’ll still have to go through it again to remove any stone or roots. You could get some suitable soil from your own garden by digging down a few feet, getting soil from there and replacing it with the clods of removed grass. I did this to get some of the new soil I needed.
This would be a good plan, since if you don’t have a tip nearby, getting rid of the grass and soil you removed could be difficult. Don’t do this where the lawn is going to be or the grass may find its way back. If you have limited space then just make sure you dig down more than two feet. That should be enough to prevent the grass from reappearing.

If you have the room you could stack the clods of soil that have grass in upside down in a pyramid shape somewhere where they can dry out, killing the grass and making the soil available for new projects. When doing this you need to make sure of two things, or you won't kill the grass - (1) that the pyramid of clods dries out and stays dry, and (2), that no grass which was previously exposed to the sun is visible.

I know it sounds like removing the grass is the harder option, but replacing the existing ground with the mix of soil sand and compost I described gives the Chamomile a much better chance of doing well. I am told that poor preparation is the main reason that Chamomile lawns fail.

Before you move to the planting phase of chamomile lawn creation, you need to make absolutely sure there is no more grass hiding around the area of your lawn. Just pulling it up is no good, you have to dig it up, roots and all, or kill it with weedkiller.

Planting

While you can plant chamomile lawns from seed, those seeds will spend a lot of time competing with other seeds that will inevitably end up on the same ground.  Stopping other plants from taking hold is hard, probably too hard for anyone who doesn't have time to be weeding their garden every day. Therefore its best to purchase chamomile lawn plants from a garden centre.

If you do decide to buy plants (I stress again, this is the option which is most likely to succeed) it is] best to let them know in advance how many plants you will need, so they can have them ready for you. We were advised to let the garden centre we purchased ours from know how many plants we wanted a month in advance.

Always try to buy your plants from a proper garden centre, one with knowledgeable staff. Its almost certain this means the plants will cost more, but there is a considerable advantage in dealing with people who are not only able to answer your questions, but enjoy the process of doing so. To be frank, if the staff are better, the chances are good that the plants you buy will be higher quality.

When buying them, get the largest plants you can, because a larger chamomile can be split into several smaller ones, which saves some money.

Put them in the ground four to six inches apart from each other. We went with four inches, then later went back, dug up, and split some plants that had done well, replanting the split portion into areas where growth was slower.

Initial Care

You will need to water the Chamomile at least once a day, in the evening. If you live in a hot climate, this may need to be twice a day. Water sparingly, it needs to be 'moist to dry', not drenched. Chamomile which is too wet will start to yellow, so if this happens, cut back the watering.

Cats

Unfortunately the soil conditions most likely to produce a good chamomile lawn are also those which cats find most attractive for use as a toilet. As cat owners we are unfortunately able to verify that this results in a fair bit of digging and plant displacement in the nascent chamomile lawn. Cat excreta is also damaging to chamomile. As luck would have it the answer is fairly simple. Netting such as one would use for stopping birds works just as well in stopping cats.