The 13hp Kaw is a decent engine. It will easly handle a 36" belt drive walkbehind. It will mow through some tough grass if needed. Just make sure you demo this belt drive mower long enough to get a good feel for how it steers and operates. The down side to a belt drive walkbehind mower is the reverse gear. You have to shift it into reverse or manhandle it some when you want to go backwards. Do this a few times during your demo. Ask for the manuals also. If he does not have them, you can always download them. One more thing that you may want to get is an extra set of blades to have on hand. If the current blades are the standard ones, get a set of Gators with a medium to high lift sail. A commercial mower, that is only used as a residential mower, will hold it's value.

Hi dozerboy, let me see if I can help a little. First things first, don't panic, and don't start fertilizing and all just yet. My advice would be to find your local county agent office, or your local university agricultural extension service, which generally have a branch dealing with helping homeowners with their landscape concerns and veggie/fruit growing. If you read a Scott's lawn book, or even talk to a local garden center, in my opinion, they will try to sell you a product or a system, not necessarily out of a malicious intent, but feeling the customer wants a quick fix. I'm not sure exactly where you are and what zone, and your climatic conditions, becoz Texas is a BIG state, but in lots of the south, the grass is winding down now and should not be fertilized. Sometimes it is a good idea to "winterize" your lawn to get it ready for the cold season, and I beleive it helps the roots, but not a fertilizer for top growth. Your county agent will know this and the exact time for you to do this. And when to fertilize next season, and probably several times in the growing part of the season. Actually your lawn doesn't look real bad to me. You sort of have to decide if you are going to do a program of lawn care with these winterizers, fertilizers, and herbicides for weed control, or go organic (which is what I recommend). Visit the other forums like lawn/turf and organic lawn. Don't be in a hurry. As to the oak trees, they are very young and look good to me. The white stuff is probably lichen and is probably not a problem, the little balls are probably galls and probably ok too, the tumbleweed stuff looks like spanish moss to me, not a problem at all, and usually desirable and attractive on oaks in the south, but you could have mistletoe which is not a good thing, a definite parasite. I would again recommend you share the pics with a county agent type person familiar with your area of Texas. You may want to remove the tree rings and just use some mulch, and realize that most lawns will not grow well in shade, as the trees mature. You will most likely need to grow a ground cover or other shade plant under there in years to come, again not something to worry about right now. May I suggest visiting the Renegade Gardener website (just do a search) and he has some funny and helpful landscape tips. Ok, the shrubs look like ligustrum (the large ones), maybe some little hollies or boxwood and liriope (the grassy one). I would just remove the yellowing leaves. I would water when there hasn't been a good rain in a week, I would deep water at the roots. I would watch the drainage, does it drain well or stay wet. I would go organic, adding compost, and keeping it mulched. I am not an horticulturist, botanist, or expert by any means, just a gardener x 26 years. Hope some of this is helpful to you. Laurie in north Mississippi, formerly New Orleans

Here's water softener 101 ... Get a water test from an independent lab. An independent lab has no agenda and won't be trying to sell you water treatment equipment. This is a MUST DO because without it everything is a guess. A quickie water test from Sears or a water softener company won't be as accurate (and possibly not as competent) as from a certified independent lab. If you're on a well a comprehensive water test is even more important because you have to make your water safe and nice. Annual water testing for bacteria and nitrates is a good idea when living on a well. If you're on a water system the water utility can supply you with the specs of the water AS IT LEAVES their facility but that is not necessarily representative of the water conditions at your water meter. Hit the Yellow Pages and call at least three local water treatment pros. Make sure you call at least one of the big dogs like Kinetico or Culligan for comparison and at least a couple independent pros. DON'T TELL THEM YOU HAD YOUR WATER TESTED. Give each an opportunity to offer suggestions and provide you with a quote to meet your water treatment needs. IGNORE ANY THAT DON'T TEST YOUR WATER THEMSELVES as they can't speak intelligently to water treatment without knowing what needs to be treated. "I sell softeners in this area all the time and I know the water" is not a substitute for a comprehensive water test. Ask lots of questions. Softening the entire house or just the water heater (IMO a bad idea)? Warranty, parts & labor or just parts, how long and on exactly what? Install, permits required, licensed plumber? Routine maintenance and costs? Do they stock parts? Response time for emergency (water leak) calls? If they don't explain things to your satisfaction that is a good indicator of how you'll be treated after the sale. After they've gone use your water test to compare with theirs. Are all your treatment needs being addressed? Ask your neighbors if they have any water treatment experience. They might tell you who's good or who to avoid. Come back here and post the specific recommendations and hardware components with the costs and we'll give you our opinions. If you're a DIYer then you have other options but remember, when you do it yourself there's no one else to blame.

Good! First, send a soil test ($25) in to Logan Labs in Ohio, post the results here, and morpheuspa will read it for you. He'll tell you what to apply, how to apply, how much, when, and where to buy it. Logan has the best soil tests and morph is the best at reading them. Next, and you can do this immediately, STOP WATERING FOR A FEW DAYS. Was I shouting?? OMG, you'll never have a great yard by over watering it. You are SO close to the ocean, I mean, seriously! Stop watering. I was in Phoenix a few weeks ago and visited with a former GW member I've been writing to for years. He waters once a week...in PHOENIX, with temps around 115 every day. Having said that you have to know how much to water when you do. Put out some cat food or tuna cans and time how long it takes your sprinklers to fill all the cans. It might be exactly 2.5 hours or it might be 8 hours. Every sprinkler is different. My neighbor's takes 20 minutes. And having said all that, you cannot go cold turkey with northern grasses. You'll have to wean your lawn off of frequent watering into infrequent watering. So start by watering 1/2-inch, twice a week for a few weeks. Then back off to one inch, once a week. By then the temps should be in the 70s for you. Keep backing off until you're watering once every 3 weeks. ONCE. Every 3 weeks. That's for temps in the 70s. When the temp drops back into the 60s, back off to once every 4 weeks. What that does is grows much deeper roots which can get nutrients from much deeper in the soil. Those roots will be more drought tolerant in the summer. Furthermore by withholding water in the spring you will not be sprouting weed seeds. Mulch mow at the mower's highest setting. Are you interested in an inexpensive approach to organic fertilizer? Way back when I introduced the idea of using grains from the feed store to fertilize the lawn. The idea has caught on and most all the lawn gurus are doing some form of it. Basically you get a bag of corn meal, soybean meal, cottonseed meal, or alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) and apply at a rate of 15 to 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Those ingredients are the main ingredients in the better organic fertilizers. You can get them at the feed store and save about 5/6 off the cost of fertilizer. There are many advantages to organics, but I'll wait to see if you're interested before blasting into that essay. Don't do anything else to the lawn. Don't aerate, dethatch, top dress, compost, dig holes, or anything without getting the pros and cons from the members here. Don't just do stuff because your parents did or you neighbor is doing it. In fact even if your county ag agent tells you, please ask here for our thoughts. If you want the yard of the month, you could really screw it up by jumping off the wrong cliff. The cost to have the yard of the month is not really much more than the weeds of the month. You just need to be doing it right. Here's a motivational picture. Planetary yard of the epoch. It's KBG in eastern PA. Thanks to morph for having the best lawn around. Pic was taken in July a few years ago. The neighbors water like you do. Morph waters once a week. Morph is organic (mostly). The rest are unknown.