New Home Owner needs Lawn advice

16 years ago

Hey guys,

My wife and I just got our first home and we are getting ready for Spring and we want to do some things to our lawn to improve it. We have a really nice front yard for the most part but the back yard needs some work.

First there are large spots that are nothing but clover that I would like to get rid of.

Then we have a nice slop on the back yard and there is no grass growing in that area. The slope is shaded by 2 large oak treas most of the day but it does get some sunlight.

I do not know what type of grass I have but I do not want to plant something that will not blend in well.

What should I be looking at? should I till it all up and then plant seed for the whole back yard or should I just plant seed in the bare sports or should I buy plugs or plug from other sections of the yard?

Thanks for the help

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Comments (3)

dchall_san_antonio
16 years ago
NEVER TILL TURF. Yes I was shouting. I don't care that Sunset Magazine and all the rest talk about tilling in preparation for your lawn. They apparently have never had to live with a tilled lawn. They are lumpy, bumpy, and hard to walk on. You can recognize them by the many scalp marks after being mowed. Just don't do it. There are other better ways.

If you have any shade and live in the south, St Augustine will dominate other grasses. Nothing else will grow in shade. Still it can't resist invasion by clover and other clover looking weeds. Those have be plucked or, if you want, spray with something like Weed-B-Gone or simply household vinegar on a hot day.

St Augustine spreads by runners on top of the soil. It will fill a 10 foot area easily in a season and will dominate nearly any grass including bermuda when watered and mowed high. The slope should be no problem for it.

If you want to try an organic program, it is what I call, "no hassle" lawn care. Go to the GardenWeb Organic Gardening forum and find the faq for Organic Lawns. It is inexpensive the way I do it and hard to make a mistake. More important than your fertilizer, though, is to water deeply and infrequently; and to mow at the mower's highest setting. Those two things will do more for the appearance and ease of management than anything else.
rutgers1
16 years ago
dchall....Do you have photos of your lawn? I read your posts religiously and would like to see how these practices work for you.
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OK, so you have 30,000 square feet. KBG is generally seeded at 3 lbs./1000 sq. ft for new lawns, half that for an overseed. So you are looking at 90 lbs for a new lawn, 45 for an overseed. I think it needs to be said, 30,000 sq. ft. is a big job, even for someone who knows what they are doing. Unless you have a sprinkler system, keeping your seeds moist for about a month is also going to be a big job. It requires 3-4 short daily waterings, unless it is of course raining. Were you planning on renovating (killing everything with round up and seeding) or merely overseeding? Seed Super Store is pricey, but the more you buy, the cheaper it gets. There are plenty of other good seed sellers on the internet that offer better prices. Pawnee Butte, AVSeeds, Williams Seed, Rose Agri Seed, Outside Pride, The Hogan Company, etc. Planting grass seed isn't rocket science, but it is a little more involved than just spreading the seeds. I won't get into in now, as I don't know if you are planning on overseeding or renovating. Also you should know the best time to plant grass seed isn't now, it's around Sept. 1 in your location.
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40 degrees or 40%? I don't know of any 4 stroke lawn mowers that are rated for slopes of 40 degrees. Oil starvation.
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chefjbs, tiemco probably referred to that because warm season grasses typically are cut lower and more frequent then cool season grasses, and as such the type of mower (reel) for warm season is usually recommended (but also more expensive). If you were to not have the tree debris and didn't mind exercise the Fiskars 6201 push reel mower (ie non-powered) is a great mower at around $200 (can be occasionally found on sale for ~$150). For your price-range maximum and the tiny lawn (about the same size as mine) there is no need to go crazy on the price/features. I have a Murray mower powered by a 6.5hp Briggs and Straton engine I got 10 years ago for $150 and it is still running great. Yeah it's heavy, and it's not self-propelled, but it gets the job done reliably. For mulching you don't want to skimp on engine size (or risk stalling the engine/getting unclean cuts), but unless you can't deal with the weight of the mower there really are no other reasons to spend up (IMO of course). Save money on the mower, and spend a couple bucks on some good replacement mulching mower BLADES (I personally use Gator mulching blades but there are many different types), and you will be quite happy. Just keep up on proper maintenance, as no matter how much you spend, leaving gas in over the winter, never changing the oil/air filter, using dull blades,etc. will make any mower choke prematurely. HTH
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G'Day! For lawn info, i'd start by reading past postings at: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/lawns/ the lawn care forum. i noticed you list tractors as a favorite topic. Depending on what land you have besides the lawn, you may want to use a tractor-pulled mower, like we use for our pastures. If so, draw the edges of your garden beds and such to suit the curves your tractor and mower can fit. If not, with under an acre to cut, and flat at that, you really could do it with a reel mower - the old fasioned mowers you used to be able to hire a local teenager to do the lawn with for $10--. You'll probably end up with a power mower and an edger/weedeater/weedwhip. If you can, edge your flower beds and such with bricks laid side by side, not end to end; this will provide a wide enough margine you can mow right along and not worry about massacaring the "floppage" (overhanging part of plants.) You may also want to wrap the base of small trees with trunk tape before you accidently scar the bark. A ring of mulch provides a nice mowing-safety margin for trees too, but don't build a "volcano;" mulch should be only 1/2" next to the trunch base, thickening to 1" a foot away and 2" two foot away. Mulch too thick right be the trunck can rot the trunck bark above the root line (trunk and root barks are very different), and shelters wee critters than nibble bark in winter. 'Fraid i know nothing about caring for lawns exept to be sure to get the roots of any weeds. A lot of folk around here disapprove of chemlawn. All that stuff that gets sprayed goes in to the water table, and we who don't live in town pump it back up from our wells. Not so great for folk or our livestock. A perfect lawn is a very unnatural environment. Sure you don't want ot rip the whole thing up and make it all into garden? To each his own. You've got a couple month left to plan. Have fun! -vlad Here is a link that might be useful: GardenWeb Lawn Care Forum
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davidandkasie
16 years ago
i would bet you have bermuda since it won't grow inteh shaded area. my lawn is bermuda and in the front i have a large bare spot each year where the house shades the area from noon on to sunset, the bermuda just won't grow there. the patch is even shaped like the shade of the house!

go with st augustine or zoysia, either one seems to do good here inthe Delta, and at my parents house the SA filled right in and blended well with their bermuda. now the SA has almost taken over the front and you are hard pressed to find the bermuda at all.

if you do till the ground, you MUST make several passes from different directions or you do get lumps and bumps. a friend ended up tilling his entire 3 acres 12 times before he got all the bumps out that were caused by the tiller.

New Home Owner needs Lawn advice

Comments (3)

dchall_san_antonio

rutgers1

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