Okay--we have one here at the store, came from my Grandma's funeral 16 years ago-"irene" as she is known is about 8 feet tall, after being "chopped" down 3 or 4 times, she got ot 12 feet tall like a Palm Tree and slowly bent her head over 1 day and came down on top of one of my employees head. He yelled ,Get that "weed" off of me and I thought he said get "irene" off of me--thus her name. Anyway, she all of a sudden has about 20 "spikes" (look the color of leopard spots) coming out of rolled up leaves all over the top of her. What the heck are they- in 16 years, she's never done that, Even her "babies" which were repotted during the chopping are about 3 ft now and don't have these things. What are they??? Help????

I would suggest getting a mow lawn. Did you look at all the pictures for the no-mow lawn? The only reason they call it that is because it happens to flop over and becomes unmowable when it is too tall. Furthermore, I would suggest getting a mix of Kentucky bluegrass (for full sun) and fescue (for shady areas). Of if you don't really have shady areas, then just go with KBG. KBG has the advantage of never needing to be reseeded (like fescue does), but it comes with the disadvantage of turning brown in the winter. Having said that, Marathon III is a very compact (dwarf) variety of fescue. That might work for you. Never till to prepare for a lawn. There, I saved you a couple hundred. If you want to soften your soil, try spraying it with shampoo. First test the hardness using a screwdriver. From what you say it won't even penetrate 1/8 inch. You'll need a hose end sprayer (Ortho red and yellow model is about $10). For 13,000 square feet you'll need about 40 ounces of shampoo. The hose end sprayer holds 32 ounces, so fill it up, take the screen off the end of the down tube, and start spraying. The setting doesn't really matter. You will need to spray as evenly as you can until you have used 40 (or more) ounces of shampoo. I suggest generic baby shampoo from Walmart. It has to be clear like baby shampoo. Spray that and then come back and apply a full inch of water with your sprinkler. Measure 1 inch using small cat food or tuna cans. Time how long it takes to fill the cans so you'll remember. Then wait a week to water again. Water again the following week. The second week after, repeat the shampoo and water. That should do it. If you get runoff before you can apply a full inch of water, then stop watering for 15 to 30 minutes and resume after the water has soaked in. If you get runoff again, stop and wait again. Repeat until you get a full inch into the soil. Since your soil is acting like clay (there are may reasons why a soil might act like clay), it might take more than 2 applications of shampoo to soften it and get it to accept moisture. A week after the second application of shampoo, water an inch again and test the penetration with a screwdriver. What the shampoo does is allow the water to penetrate much deeper into the soil. When that happens the beneficial microbes in the soil will come back and soften the soil for you. You can help them along by adding organic fertilizer periodically. My favorite is alfalfa pellets. At a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet you would need 6 bags of rabbit chow type alfalfa pellets. That size will go through a broadcast type fertilizer spreader. Then stop using whatever other fertilizers you were using because that's all you'll need. I use alfalfa on the federal holiday schedule. They are easy to remember and I am home those days. More specifically, for you in KY, first app would be on Memorial Day, then 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. Living in the south I also apply on Washington's Birthday. You were correct in saying why your soil is "compacted", but you were incorrect about it being compacted. It is simply hard for the reason you said. Compacted soil requires mechanical means such as cattle plunging through soggy soil near the edge of a pond or playing football on saturated soil. The soil has to be saturated first or you cannot compact it. Oh and do all this seeding in early September when the summer heat is beginning to back off.

I had to google "tumbleweed" and good grief that is some plant.

Thanks very much. I would say it looks defiantly like a Silene sp. I searched on the USDA plants database for Silene sp. and the only possibilities I narrowed it down to are Silene regia and Silene virginica. So I then searched on Flora of North America and it says Silene virginica blooms in spring and Silene regia blooms from summer to fall. But the thing is they say Silene regia has 3 but sometimes up to 5 stamens and that's it. But on this one I counted about 9 stamens. Plus Silene regia pictures I see on the internet have short points or lobes on each petal. This one has 3 to 4 points or lobes on each petal plus deep petal "sinuses". So it might either be a new very rare species of Silene never found before and new to science, or a species not known to Alabama. So if I found a new species I might pass out. LOL