... and I certainly can't argue with either of you. Perhaps not well stated enough to make it apparent, but I have been in agreement all along. The reason I even broached this subject matter is a mirror of Pam's comment: "But the designer and educator in me will continue to try and broaden the way these posters look at their property and expand their approach in creating their own landscape to address those issues they by intent or ignorance (and I don't mean that in any sort of derogatory manner) choose to ignore..." Perhaps I am rooted in a paradigm far removed from normal. As a young boy on the farm, I was constantly being regaled with admonitions to consider the down line consequences of your actions. It was especially driven home by my father to give consideration to placement of things like building siting and fenestration. At an early age it was pointed out to me which direction the prevailing wind (especially winter wind) blew and to give it a prime consideration. Shingles and siding were to be lapped so that they would not catch this wind. Building openings were placed to minimize the impact of weather. Trees were planted in locations to take maximum advantage of summer shade, yet not create snow drifting problems and/or provide shelter from blizzard winds. Even the corn rows were planted in certain directions to minimize wind damage. In many ways, my father taught me early-on to avoid the classic, old conundrum of painting oneself into a corner. One of the potential benefits of this forum is that a few people will hopefully begin considering a few things beyond a shiny-new, brass kick plate on the front door of the home they are considering for purchase. My hope is also that a few more folks start to realize that it is their money on the line and that entitles them to be more demanding. For the most part (at least within reason), the builders don't really care (and it costs no more) where you decide to place things as long as they know about it beforehand. However, if you totally abdicate all decisions to them; well ... I guess they show about as much concern as you do. Unfortunately, you are the one who gets to pay for their dumb decisions! Landscape design involves more than flowers. As but one minor example: The placement of my garage was crucial in my planning stage; long before any dirt was turned. Firstly, I was adamant that I was not going to live in a home that said, "Welcome to my garage!" It quickly became apparent that was going to require me to purchase a corner lot; and there are not a lot of those. Secondly, I was adamant that my garage was going to be on the north and west side of the home to blunt the prevailing winter wind in order to conserve heating requirements of the home. Along the same energy conservation theme, I moved the setback of the home 4-feet to the south; which correspondingly made the garage stick out 4-feet to the north. This gave me a protected 4-foot nook to not only conceal my A/C unit but also create an area that was always in full shade; which bolsters cooling efficiency. I also made the garage 6-feet deeper than standard (very cheap to do at this stage) in order to accommodate an additional stairwell that went directly into the basement. Another change that I made from the conventional garage plan was to move the garage service door to the rear. This accommodated direct entry onto the rear patio for things like barbeque grills; which could now be conveniently stored out of sight in the garage. As a side benefit to moving the service door to the rear, it forces people to enter my home from the front doorway entrance; the way that I designed the home to be entered. I chose to be involved in all of these decisions. Invariably, most of these choices cost no additional funds. In fact, in many cases it saved me money. The largest investment was time spent in thought. However, the real benefit is that these active choices made my home (not just house) so much more livable. As Laag has repeatedly maintained, "Most problems are to do with elevation and grading." Even with all of the pre-planning, I was unexpectedly forced to deal with a cheapo-contractor that quickly slapped up what he called, "a luxury spec-house". He realized that digging a shallow hole for a basement costs less than a full depth hole. This placed that house a full two feet higher than any other home in the development. No problem! The eventual first-time home buyers never even noticed because they were concentrating on the shiny-new, brass kick plate on the front door. However, this forced me to adjust the previously intended grade levels of my garage floor, house foundation, basement egress window well and eventual patio. Grrrr... Anyway, I am just throwing a few of these real-life considerations out there for novices to see. There is no sense in making everyone "test the electric fence". IronBelly

Asking a bunch of lawn wackos whether you should hire somebody to take care of your lawn is probably not going to get a lot of endorsements for the lawn service. I used a lawn service for the first year I owned my house and my thinking was much along the same lines as yours. I'd get a professional service to get rid of the weeds and get my grass healthy and after that, I'd be able to do it on my own. I think they said that they used a specific set of chemicals that they sprayed that was tailored to my lawn and its needs, but the truck that they brought around had a big tank on it and they used the same tank on every lawn. When they would come by, they'd leave a notice on the door with recommendations for how often to cut, water, etc based on the conditions they noted in my lawn. But it was the same every time, regardless of the temperature, rainfall, etc. To top it off, the weed situation was no better than before and may have even gotten worse. I also wasn't really comfortable with the little flags they'd put out telling me to keep children and pets off the lawn for a minimum of X days because of the treatments. So I took matters into my own hands. I read things from the extension offices and started doing things that are pretty close to what gets recommended around here. Things started improving. Then I found various lawncare forums and things got even better. One humorous (or maddening?) thing happened a few years after I stopped using the lawn care service. A sprinkler head broke and a section of the lawn went dormant because it wasn't getting any water (the only water lawns get here is from sprinklers). One of the lawncare services pulled up and told me that I had a serious grub problem and needed to treat it right away. They went out to the area that was dormant and started pulling up sections of grass and telling me that it was due to grubs. I knew it was because of lack of water and suggested that as the cause, and they started launching into an explanation of why they knew that wasn't it. I then turned on the sprinkler in that section and showed them that it wasn't working, but they still tried to tell me it was grubs. Anyway, the main things you want to do are the following: Water deeply and infrequently. Apply an inch of water a week, but only water once a week if you can (in the desert, I often have to water twice a week, or once every 5 days, anyway). Adjust the amount (or the frequency) you water for any rainfall. This has a couple of benefits. First, it promotes deep roots, so the grass can better deal with periods of drought. I call grass a lazy plant, because it will only put down roots as deeply as it needs to for the water it gets. If the top inch of soil is always wet, the grass will have roots that are only an inch deep. Second, letting the ground dry between waterings will discourage weed seeds from germinating, because they need moisture to germinate. Mulch mow and mow at the highest setting of your mower and never cut more than 1/3 of the blade at one time. Mulch mowing returns water and nutrients to the soil and improves the health of the soil. It doesn't contribute to thatch and can actually contribute to getting rid of it. Mowing at the highest setting helps to make the grass stronger because it gives more surface area for photosynthesis. It also helps shade the surface so the roots are better able to deal with heat and drought. Also, it helps keep weeds from thriving because the weeds need sunlight. Fertilize once in the spring and twice in the fall. If you're using weed killers, don't use the weed and feed products (another reason I don't like the services--the one size fits all means they fertilize and kill weeds at the same time). Instead, spot spray weeds that you see sprout up. As for the lime, did they do a soil test? If not, there's no way to know whether lime is needed. Some areas tend to have low pH soils, but you don't know what the prior owner did. The prior owner may have applied lime regularly and heavily and raised the pH too high. If so, I wouldn't do anything to lower the pH because that will happen anyway, but you need to know if it needs lime before adding it. I guess my comment on the grubs is similar. Do you have grubs? If not, the grub treatment makes a lot more sense for the lawn service than it does for you.

By the way, if one goes to the Lawn & Garden Tractors Forum on the website, the Kohler discussion thread comes up. So (1) posting on an old discussion DOES NOT allocate it to the string ball of threads, (2) in fact it reinserts that thread onto the active file and (3) cpmsequently it appears on the current list of âÂÂOn topicâ discussions. (Curious category, one wonders if we still belong). Therefore, with the GardenWeb way of doing things, my posting (a) made it easy for everyone to locate the earlier discussions. It also (b) enhanced retention and retrieval of earlier useful comments, (c) retains the name of the original poster and creator of the thread, and (d) consequently it may bring others with experiences to offer into the discussion. Not bad for an eveningâÂÂs work. For guys like me, "Newbies" seems to be the operative term, which does seem unnecessarily condescending and not overly complementary. For example, I may be the oldest one on the thread, and certainly my mower is among the oldest. The first, but probably not the second, also applies to using (and fighting with, and yes trying to mind read the designers of) lawnmowers. Must I really be thought of as a âÂÂnewbieâÂÂ, canâÂÂt I just be âÂÂone of the guysâÂÂ?

Ya know, they were lucky, as I recall, you gotta have a funny like key thingie to remove the oven from the cabinet as I recalls, and I haven't the foggiest notion where mine is (removal Key). I best finds that succer, practice how to use it, and then put it where I know where it is! If the oven was off, when this happened, it should be reported to the proper safety committee, if it was off, "Your call", myself I might wait to see what Electrolux has to say, but if it turned itself on, then that's pretty serious! I had a cooktop, (Not Electrolux & not induction) that turned itself full on one nite and scared the *&%#@% (well you know), out of me! The company that made it went belly up, or I would have reported it. Gary