Oh I just love the robins! Thanks so much for continuing to share the pictures. My little house sparrows in my propane tank have hatched. I know a lot of people don't like house sparrows but I don't care, I love any type of critter and who can fault a baby bird for being what it is? I'll take pictures and post them soon. Thanks again for sharing the babies! Makes me want to take a marker and draw baby birds (now that they're cute with feathers LOL) hatchin' out of my tattoo! The robin lovin' Robin in NC

Compost is applied with a wheelbarrow, shovel, and push broom. For the shampoo, put 3 ounces into your hose end sprayer, fill the sprayer with water, set the dial for anything, and spray evenly around the entire area until all the contents are gone. That will be 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. What we're trying to do with watering is mimic Mother Nature. To tend to your grass, you need to keep an eye on it. Water it when the grass tells you. In the winter that is harder to tell. Once a month is good for the soil regardless of whether your grass is growing or not. As the temps climb, you will be watering more. How much more depends on your soil, climate, grass type, grass height, shade, etc. There is no guide for that. In the heat of summer most people outside of triangle formed by El Paso, Palm Springs, and Las Vegas can water once a week. If you are in the triangle, you might need to go to every 5 days and sometimes every 4 days.

I can only address the striping issue, but it is a feature that evolved from Simplicity's patented deck mounting system... the "free floating" mower deck. It has the deck attached only to the front of the tractor and "floating" at the rear, riding on the rollers. It's been on Simplicities since the 50's and has been able to make stripes since then. Only in the last few years has Simplicity been pointing this out as lawn striping became more popular led by the professional lawn care guys and of course, baseball parks. Striping is simply the result of a roller pushing the grass down in one direction as it's cut; a pass next to it in the opposite direction will lay the grass in the other direction and the difference will appear as a stripe. Stripes going away from you will appear lighter,stripes toward you will appear darker. You could actually stripe your lawn with just a lawn roller, it has nothing to do with the lawn being cut. Although the floating deck was developed to deliver a smooth lawn appearance, when striping began to gain popularity, this unintented feature started to appear in Simplicity's marketing efforts. Some people like it and show off their striped lawns, others don't particularly care about it and cut their lawns without regard to a striping pattern. Most folks usually cut their laws in a circle, going around the outside and moving toward the center with each pass. I guess if you looked at the lawn when they're done, one side of the lawn may look darker than the other with the most noticible difference where one pass is next to another in the opposite direction. The Regent used to have a "hybrid" mower mount in the rear that didn't put the full weight of the deck on the rollers, but it still striped pretty well. That may have changed by now. Don't rule out Simplicity just because you don't intend to stripe your lawn. FJ

I guess I should have explained better. The neighborhood has gone seriously downhill since the housing collapse. I had equity once but now owe twice what its worth. Anyway we are the stepchildren of the city, crime is going up and the residents don't take an interest, for the most part. The whole thing has turned into a nightmare really but to make a long story short I can expect no help from the city, been there and done that. The neighbor's yard is huge and this sedge has had years to get well entrenched - if that doesn't get me then the crabgrass will. I used to hoe like crazy this stuff out but then the crabgrass moved into the bare ground, its amazing how that stuff can move a foot or so a night in expanding. Anyway on account of the financial thing I have very little funds to work with and so sodding is out of the question. My neighbors are very unpleasant people so no I don't talk to them. I wish I could move my house and my garden somewhere else, its a simple house but I've done tons of work in landscaping and added a nice big covered patio. If I move I'll never be able to afford another place - it will be to an apartment with a postage stamp deck and I live for summer and my garden. You know if it wasn't for the mud thing I'd almost so OKAY I give up - I don't care what grows here as long as its ground cover so I can quit with the mud tracking in the house. Its really, I guess, a no-win situation. I could get rid of my dogs that would solve the mud problem but I was brought up in a different age/mentality I guess where the person who was screwing up was the one who had to change, now I find myself constantly lowering my standards - and why should I have to lose my dogs, not fair to them for sure. I have puzzled over this and all it does is depress me. The way it is my garden is where I spend most of my time and as long as I don't have to go out into the neighborhood I love it there with my birds and squirrels and flowers and stuff, but the outside keeps working its way in. My children, lke I said, are frustrated with me because grass is not high on their list. It's like they take good care of their cars so how would they like it if their car was always muddy even though they just cleaned it - that might get thru to them better. But the city and my kids and the neighbors have come to an agreement - I'm the problem. Because I want a nice garden. I'm getting depressed thinking of it. As for the tilling, I really didn't mean tilling, I think it just said work it into the ground so that what's down there but not emerged gets exposed to the chemicals. i will try to found more information or find someone in the business who knows, it all gets confused in my mind. I did put down annual grass in the spring and it took over fast but died about July and then I was back to the bare ground. The problem in the fall is that I have lots of trees and about the time its time to do the seeding the leaves start falling and smother any new growth or make it so I can't water. I can't rake the leaves away because the grass seed would go with it. I have spent a fortune on water and seed and I have the ugliest yard to show for it. Maybe I will just put the sedge down I think it said a month before you put down seed and see what happens and if it doesn't work then I either need to adapt / or move. I did try out front putting down some ground cover which survived but it would be very expensive and take years. I dunno. I dunno but thanks for your suggestions I will read again later when I'm not so discouraged. All I want for Christmas is to know I will have my lawn back in spring.