I'm west of you in Martinsville, VA and also had awesome results from overseeding last fall, but made 2 mistakes which I will remedy this year: 1. No pre-M in fall, which resulted in massive Chickweed bloom that I had to battle into late spring. I'm adding Tenacity at overseeding and a pre-M 6-8 weeks later as well. 2. No fungicide in spring, which resulted in large Brown Spot outbreak in May and killed a lot of my new grass in the back yard. So, next April-May (when nightly temps hit 70F), I'll be putting down a fungicide. I like your plan and agree with the above posts. Good luck and pray for rain soon!!

The Japanese-American plums seem to be promoted mostly for northern climates. Does anyone know how they would do in a more southern climate (I.e high elevation desert)? They are rated to zone 8 , which should be fine by that standard. What I want is a fairly small tree with attractive spring blossoms and good fall color, which I hear Toka and Alderman have. Basically I want an ornamental tree that happens to have tasty fruit. My other option is a crepe myrtle, which has flowers and fall color, but no fruit.

1. Testing No, there's nowhere local that does it :-( There used to be a county agency that did it, but by time I got around to using them they had lost funding. Now I have no clue how to do it. 2. Quality Seed Meh... I've bought Scotts and Pennington from Lowes (the only local option) and Amazon. I guess they're good brands in general, but there's a good chance that they lay around in warehouses for years. But again, I'm not sure what my alternative would be? 3. Watering The front yard doesn't have any type of alternate watering other than rain, but ironically, it's the better lawn!! LOL The back yard is enclosed and I have several flower gardens set up there. I have 2 sprinklers (hooked up to water hoses laying on the ground) that I run every other day unless there's been a fair amount of rain. The back yard is FULL of weeds, though. I don't know the types, but a lot of it looks like grass, has very thick (green but woody) leaves, and grows very fast. But it dies away every Fall. There's also a ton of crabgrass, dandelions, clover, and some sort of broadleaf weed that looks kinda like dandelion, but it gets really big and has pricks that are sharp enough to cut you. I try to dig them up manually, but I guess they spread seed before they get big enough to see :-( 4. Aeration I have not, but probably should. Most of the front yard is nice and soft, but the back is very hard! I tried to run landscape wire earlier in the year and could hardly get a shovel in... and when I did, it often broke up in chunks or just red dust instead of staying in clumps. The full shade area near the garage (that actually floods) is pretty soft, but the other shade area (farthest from the house) is dry and hard. I was originally thinking about Round-Up'ing (Rounding-Up?) the whole yard, then in 2 or 3 weeks running a tiller or something to till up all of the dead roots and mix in fertilizer or garden soil, then either laying sod or spreading new seed. Is there a better (eg, "faster" or "cheaper") option? I can borrow a tractor, so if you think it's better to buy or rent an aerator and spread new seed again then it's an option.

Hi I live in 7b. I am very new to gardening. I will have some milkweed and butterfly graden type seed coming soon. I just love watching stuff grow an I am open to any type of swap trade or buy at a reasonable price.😊 I look forward to planting to see what will come up. If you can help. Thanks in advance. If not Tons of blessings and only the best harvest to you.