Yep, it's true. If dear neighbor has a great lawn, did you think he was trying to sabatoge you? Weeds want the same basics that grass wants, air and water. The only thing is, they want them in different way and utilize them differently. Keep the grass higher than the weeds to shade the weeds from sunlight and smother oxygen. Deep water to irrigate grass roots because weeds are basically shallow-rooted and like shallow water conditions. But, there is more to mowing that best serves the grass plants, themselves. And don't be afraid of the weedkiller. It is likely you have bluegrass (please correct me if I'm wrong) in your lawn and maybe other species along with it, but the bluegrass, given the opportunity, will fill in the empty spots. One good thing for you is it isn't a good idea to broadcast herbicide anyway (although I must admit I would probably do that being the way you describe your lawn LOL), so just get a trigger spray and spot spray some at a time. Give the grass a couple weeks and spot spray some more. I am suggesting this along with a good maintenance schedule to follow. Scroll down that link for schedule outlined in red. Pay particular attention to the paragraphs on watering and mowing. I feel like a broken record because I say that so often, but it is necessary and very important.

I agree esther. The truth is, it probably was something else causing the problems but you wrote it off to the direct sunlight. Hey wait...aren't they a filtered light plant? LOL Adamink Nearly all plants are sun plants, the question is how much, when, etc. Violets grow well with some sun so we arranged the shade cloth so the plants got quite a lot of direct sun in the morning and afternoon. Hosta love sun and will grow like weeds in full sun, they may burn later in the year but you will have a lot of big roots for next year. With hosta it is the lack of water that is a bigger problem and heat trumps water. Some may remember the experiments I did with the types of misters used to cool people around a swimming pool. I ran the mister 24/7 on plants in full sun. They showed no ill effects period from sun or heat, they had a lot of water (I mean soggy) and no heat, the mister reduced the temp by as much as 20 degrees.

coffeemom!!! LOL Good one! I watched the show. I love to see how different people live their lives. I think firemans wife had a good term "morbid curiousity"! Frankly, despite their "weird" situation, they mostly seemed happy. Are the wives fooling themselves? Probably? What will all those kids grow up to become?? Who knows? There seemed to be an inordinate number of girl children in that family or maybe it's because there is really only 1 older boy, who seemed to shoulder a BIG responsibility, taking care of all his siblings, because his mom worked all day 6am-7pm. So she works, the husband works. Thought the 3 different apartments in the house was an interesting idea. Wonder where #4 will go?? 2 of the 3 women grew up in polygamist (sp?) families, so it probably seems "normal" to them. Had to laugh when they said "having the one husband spend time with the other wives a few nights a week, really frees up time for me!" But how could there not be jealousy of knowing your hubby is sleeping with other women each night? In this particular case, it's not a dirty old man preying on young teen girls. He did seem like he was on uppers the way he was bouncing around all the time. The husband is around 40's and the 3 wives are just 2-3 years younger and it sounded like they all met when they were 19-20s. His 4th wife is in her 30's. Guess it's the perfect life for him? They don't "appear" to be in a cult like the families that were found in Texas. They weren't wearing the amish-like outfits. They seemed fairly normal. If you can call that normal. The kids were homeschooled then went to a "church" school where everyone has multiple wives. Weird, but I'll probably watch another episode, until the morbid curiousity is gone!

Ach! Vee, some people seem to be looking for something -- anything -- to get incensed about. I don't remember lice being a problem when I was a child in Iowa, and I was lucky that I never got lice in my travels, but when my older son was about seven years old, he managed to pick them up at school. When I was notified by the school nurse, I was mortified, but she waved it off as such a common occurrence that it was no more shameful than a kid getting a cold. She told me matter-of-factly what to do. However, when I told my mother, she said she was hanging up the phone and she would be right over. In typical Hausfrau fashion, she directed an all-fronts attack: DH shaved son #1's head and dunked him in a bath of "Rid' while mother and I threw out all son's possessions that couldn't be cleaned and we washed all his bedding and clothes in hot water and dried them on high heat. We even hauled away his mattress set. When I triumphantly told the school nurse what we had done, she only said, "You didn't have to go to that much trouble." Nevertheless, for several weeks after, I think all of us were sure we had lice every time we had an itch. Dear son learned the lesson to not share combs or anything else that touched his hair or head -- we think he got the lice from sharing headphones. Carolyn, hee! I did the same thing -- the first time I shaved my legs I used my daddy's razor with one of those single-sided blades. I managed to take off as much skin as I did hair and I had to plaster Band-Aids on my ankles, shins, and knees. Mama, who had told me that she thought I could probably go without shaving my legs indefinitely because my leg hair was blonde peach fuzz, just shook her head in resignation. It's funny: I swear that my leg hair did get thicker and darker after I started shaving. But when I lived in Europe I stopped shaving because European women didn't usually shave back then and the hair reverted to its previous softness and was hardly visible except in bright sunlight. When I moved back to the U.S., I took up shaving again, bowing to peer pressure I suppose.