Identify how you want to use the yard. Some examples for a front yard include: somewhere to put stuff you are loading/unloading from car, a meet-and-greet, a place for the kids to bounce balls while you can see them/are washing the car. A place to watch your plants growing. I'd caution you against rebelling against grass for the sake of rebelling against grass. Think of it as negative, open space that happens to be green, and you can always change it in your head to decking or paving/flagstone. The beauty of being a homeowner/DIYer is that you don't always need to have the master plan finished in your head in order to get started. You sound sure of a number of things. Do those. Or at least draw them out. Sometimes step two is more clear from after step one. Experienced people have implemented enough plans to be able to see step 7 from before step 1, but DIYers may need to take it one step at a time. One way to design is to mock up in person. Say, you want to do a low barrier and a courtyard. OK. Put a row or garbage cans where you think the hedge could be, and drag some chairs into the area and sit there. How does it feel? What's missing? Should the hedge move? Do you need shade? Etc. You might have analysis paralysis too. Taking the first step, even if you just go out and plant a tree where you want some shade, can help get you past that too. You can always move it for a year or two if you got the placement wrong. KarinL

Sorry for the double post, the links did not work as I had thought they would. Please see images DSC07056.jpg (shady area, sunny in background), DSC07065.jpg (sunny area and shady area rt. of redbud), and DSC07057.jpg (sunny portion of yard) from the link below for more details. Here is a link that might be useful: Examples of Bare dirt, Buffalograss, and weeds

The other day someone backed into, and knocked over, our mail box. So my husb went to set it back up, and when he picked up the post from the hole it had been leaning over from, lo & behold 2 feet of garter snake comes flying out of the hole & scoots across the driveway! Seems the post had been rotting a bit down in there, got a little nudge from a bumper & tipped--news to us about the rot but the snake had been enjoying the little cave. To encourage snakes: pile up a lot of rocks loosely in a quiet spot. Maybe even dig a bit of hole & start the pile in that! Leave it alone. Keep the kids away. Let some of the rocks be arranged so they get some morning sun--nice flat ones. Have the rest of the pile in shade---you want the snakes to have a place to hide from the hottest days, as well as to shelter from cold. Oue elderly neighbor has a stone wall across her back yard edge, with a shady ravine behind it. This spring she was in fits because she realized she had a garter snake living in the wall (that's the one she *saw*). She was calling the animal control officer to come & get rid of the snake! After they picked themselves up from laughing on the floor, they told her they do not come out to the woods to remove garter snakes! I wish we had her snake in our yard, but she has the stone wall & the ravine!

Everything you read about watering 3x per day is very consistent. It has always been my standing suggestion, but I see dogwind's point. This late in the season you can probably get away with less water. You might go to once a day and see how the soil dries out. What you don't want is for the interface between the sod and soil to dry out. You can put corn meal down on the same day as the grass if you want. John Dromgoole's nursery has corn meal. Be sure you get corn meal and not corn gluten meal. He has both. CGM is just a lot more expensive and is not known for helping with fungal issues. Sorry I don't know his nursery's name but if you Google his name it will come up. Also use Google Maps to find feed stores near you. Then call them all to find out what they have. I apply corn meal by hand like I was feeding chickens. It does not go through a spreader very well. If I had an old plastic colander (thrift store??) with big enough holes I would use that to shake it out a little more evenly. I just did that with corn gluten meal a few minutes ago and it worked well. CGM is finer ground than corn meal and went through the colander very well. Mow when the grass is tall enough to mow. At this time of year it might not get tall enough to mow until April. You don't ever have to aerate the lawn. If you water correctly the soil will be very soft after you water and become very hard before you water again. In that sense it is just like a sponge (hard when dry and soft when wet). Your stump area will be a problem for at least 3 years. The ground up wood will suck up nitrogen causing the areas to be yellow. Furthermore the one you back filled with compost mix will settle for years requiring you to level it. You can add sand any time but only 1/4 inch at a time. Search the Internet for the "Organic Lawn Care FAQ." It is all over the place including here at the Organic Gardening forum FAQs. You will probably also find some books on organic lawn care. I don't like them. They are all based on the Rodale philosophy that compost is all you need. Not true. You need real food like pounds and pounds of corn, soy, wheat, cottonseed, used coffee grounds, etc. to feed the soil microbes. The minimum application rate for ground grains is 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet. The max I've seen used without issue is 80 pounds per 1,000. Beyond that it starts to smell or smother the underlying grass. Organic lawn care should NOT smell bad. I fertilize on the federal holidays because I can remember them. With organics you can fertilize any day or every day. I picked those and fertilize relatively lightly from 10 to 15 pounds per 1,000. I know (crazy) people on other forums who fertilize up to 200 pounds per month. Their lawns look amazing. I start on Washington's Birthday, then Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. If you fertilize now, do it again on Thanksgiving. Being in Austin you are a little cooler so you could probably wait a week or so after Washington's birthday but why not just do it on the days that are easy to remember. Anything else? After you get off the initial watering plan, then water deeply but infrequently. I water for 3-5 hours all at one time. This time of year I water once every 2 or 3 weeks. In the hottest heat of summer I water once a week but I might water longer depending on the humidity, wind, shade, soil conditions, etc. Deep and infrequent watering is the single most important thing anyone can do for their lawn. Mowing high (for St Augustine) is the second most important. Fertilizing is the third.