WBUR 5/13/11:  Local man invents new uber grass. The first thing you notice about Jackson Madnick’s house in Wayland is that there’s no lawn. He lives by a pond, so for eight years he experimented with grass seed by growing batches of it on his patio. "We had thousands and thousands of little cups with numbers on it and I kept a log book," said Madnick. And he examined the seed in relative secrecy. People would come by and ask about the little cups of dirt on his patio. Madnick said he would just tell them it was "for a little experiment." "I didn’t know whether it would ever turn into something as useful a breakthrough as it is," Madnick said. Madnick’s breakthrough is called Pearl’s Premium Low Maintenance Lawn Seed. Once it’s established, it doesn’t need watering or fertilizing. The grass also stays greener in the winter and it grows slowly, so it needs less mowing.