A tall fescue lawn in a northern California winter is going to look a bit bedraggled, and hardly grow much. The thinning of the grass is probably due to lack of sufficient irrigation suitable for best growth in the hotter months, in combination with insufficient top soil with organic content added before you sodded it, and not fertilizing often enough to encourage better health and growth of grass. How many inches of topsoil did you add before rototilling, and how often and which months do you fertilize, and what is the N-P-K ratio of the fertilizer you are using? As to whether 20 minutes of spray irrigation is sufficient for a lawn in northern California conditions, especially if applied 4 times a week on a flat site, if anything this is overwatering, even with heavy root competition from the redwoods and oaks across the fence. It looks to me that you need to build up soil fertility in both the lawn, and particularly for the citrus tree, which shows signs of nitrogen deficiency in particular, and is probably also not getting water in summer sufficient to get rooting deeper. Just adding a mulch with chicken manure in it, or mushroom compost or similar as a 4 inch mulch, ought to help the citrus tremendously. I'd also suggest adding some time release fertilizer such as osmocote and work into the soil in March, for longer term/slow release of nutrients, and check with a soil auger how deep your irrigation is penetrating with the irrigation you are giving it. The lawn can also be top dressed with a light screened mulch after having it aerated with a core type aerator, and the top dressing raked in to help fill the holes, but it might be better to simply use a sod cutter to skim it all off, add a healthy 6 inches of organic compost to the lawn area, and resod. Lawns here typically benefit from several fertilizing periods, at least once in mid spring and again in summer and early fall, or refer to the web site referred to previously for recommendations. You might also consider using a mulching lawn mower that chops up the grass blades so that they return to the soil, and preserve the nitrogen that is otherwise thrown away with each clipping. As to Ink's complaint about "cliche" eyebrow plantings around the edge of the lawn, I don't think you are really looking at other solutions if you mean to keep the existing lawn size and layout, but I do second Ink's opinion that the narrowness of the planting areas against the fence is rather dull and static. Planting of vines to cover the fence, and widening the borders to allow at least some layering of shrubs and herbaceous plantings is entirely possible if borders were widened to minimum 4 to 8 feet wide if you can give up some lawn space. The proximity of those large redwoods and oaks across your fence is definitely tapping into the irrigation you are supplying. The vigor of the trees, and even some of the plants in your own backyard indicates to me that yours isn't so much a soil fertility problem, as it is poorly timed fertilizing and no ongoing attempts to increase organic content of your clay soils via mulching with compost, as well as not checking to see if your irrigation schedule is adequately wetting the soil to sufficient depth to encourage better growth and plant health under drought/heat stress of summer. Having dealt with many California gardens under or adjacent to redwoods and live oaks, the soil ph is unlikely to be the problem, as I am willing to bet your soil is only mildly acidic or even close to neutral. We just don't have moist enough conditions year round to create acidic soils from dropped leaves in a suburban garden setting. The problem is the root competition of water, and any plantings you add will greatly benefit from adding tons of organic component, mulching with compost on a yearly basis, selecting plants that tolerate root competition with redwood tree roots, shade and constant debris, and closely monitoring your irrigation cycles to see that the plants are getting what they need. Beyond a soils test and a landscape design, you need some help from a good horticulturist who can advise you what you are doing wrong/right in your particular circumstances. I'd also make darn sure the natives you have on your plans are compatible with redwood tree competition, as well as potential overspray from the lawn irrigation. Fertilizing more frequently for plantings below/adjacent redwoods is extremely helpful, and if you prefer the organic route, stick with a good organic mulch that has some manure in it, and reapply a couple of inches every year.

There are plenty available. I just typed in "garden newsletter" into google and came up with several links. You'll need to glean through them yourself to see what's what. T Here is a link that might be useful: Google search

Hi Tammy, If you can bake a basic sugar cookie, a cute idea is a bag of Leprechaun Kisses. I used a sugar cookie recipe that asks you to form the dough into a small ball on your cookie sheet... and I made really small balls, about 1/2" in diameter and pressed a Hershey's COOKING Kiss (which is much smaller than silver foil covered Kisses)into the center of each ball, which flattens it a tad.Bake until they are barely bowning,or per your recipe, and remove to cooling rack. Put 6-8 in the St.Patrick's Day motif cupcake paper cups or just use white ones, and stack 6 cupcake cups full in a cellophane bag ($ Tree) with the shamrocks on it(I used a piece of thick white cardboard from new shirts, cut in the exact rectangular dimensions of the inside of the bag,and placed in the bottom of the bag, and between each layer of cookies, to give the cupcake cups of cookies more stability, and keep the bag upright. I punched 2 holes near the tops of the bag and threaded green and white curly ribbon thru the holes and added a decorated tag that had the Leprechaun Kisses poem on it!I'll try to find the site on the net for the poem,and e-mail it to you, and you can go directly there and print out the tags. I made these for my daycare moms and dads, too, and made teeny weeny cookies with a Nestles' semi-sweet morsel stuck in the top! They were the cutest...just a tad bigger than Goldfish. Oh, I sold the tagged and bagged ones for $4/bag to the Teamsters,in DC where my sister works... and I had so many requests for "normal sized cookies" that I made the standard size cookie with the regular Hershey's Kiss in the center and sold them as "Bunny Kisses for Easter !(2 Doz for $4! Enjoy !

THANKS gals!! A couple questions: Anne: I did just join Facebook a couple days ag-still navigating that but you can request to be my friend and of course--I'll gladly accept! UH..how do I tell you who I am on there? Just give you my name? (DUH!) I will definitely do Lexulous! HELLION & MIMILM: Is Pogo a pay site? Sounds like their Scrabble is exactly like the one I;m on now..I am playing the 'Intermediate' games-have won 25-lost 1. (tee hee) Do you get to write a comment to the person youre playing against? KAT: On Literati...why do you suggest I don't use the games under 'social'????