Should I even consider this change, because from what I am seeing a reel mower means lower cutting heights. Will this be to much stress on the grass? Manicuring turf (as opposed to "just" mowing it) describes the action of clipping a small part of the grass blades. You can use the rule of thumb to not remove any more than one-third of the grass height at any one mowing. An example of this would be if you are maintaining your lawn at 1.5 inches, mow the lawn when it gets to about 2.25 inches. To-date, the only method used to manicure turf is a reel mower where the reel, in conjunction with a bedknife, creates a shearing action, as compared to an impact with a rotary. The shearing action is one that duplicates a pair of scissors. Just like a pair of scissors, the reel blades should be acting with the bedknife with very little (preferably zero) clearance between the two. If you have been "just" mowing with a rotary mower and change to a reel mower to manicure your lawn, one thing you can do almost immediately is to bring down the height of cut. Mowing lower is possible because you are doing minimal damage to the grass blade and you are cutting the blade tip off cleanly, not leaving a ragged edge on the blade. This causes less yellowing and gives your lawn a better and healthier overall appearance. What are the best heights for the Zosysia Jamur grass Rotary and Reel mowing? JaMur Zoyziagrass is a medium to course textured zoysia primarily developed for use in high traffic, high visibility locations. JaMur is similar in appearance to a dwarf variety of St.Augustine and has many of the same uses. The recommended cutting height, with a rotary mower is 2 to 3 inches. Using a reel mower you can mow between 3/4" and 1-1/2". Using a gang reel setup, I'd recommend the higher end of the reel recommendations. Using something like this would make fairly quick work of your 1/3 acre while providing a manicured look: Good day, Dan

Passiflora incarnata, is a native to our area. It flowers well and the fragrance is awesome. I started some seed of the passiflora incarnata and of the passiflora caerulea. Around here I have seen the maypop or the p. incarnata growing in a vacant field in full sun with not a lot of moisture. So they aren't high maintenance plants!!

It's an old argument, between those that don't see the point of bringing up old threads and those who don't have a problem with it. I am in the camp of not having a problem with it. Also I'd like to point out, that Houzz often places links to these old threads next to current threads and people click on them without realizing how old they are. That being said, I have to agree with GGal on the subject of natives. I was an organic garden 40 years ago, when few people knew what organic gardening was all about. Protecting, supporting and nurturing the ecology of your little garden corner of the world. And going along those lines, I also became very interested in growing native and started to buy a lot of them. 20 years Later, I still have many natives in my garden that have performed well, but I also have replaced or lost many others. Including two types of native trees that were expensive to lose. So my own personal experience supports each point that GGal made. It must be exciting to discover all the benefits that native plantings have in the wild and quite a project to devote yourself to replace everything in your garden with all natives. I would find it interesting to follow along with your progress and see how it all works out, so I hope you share your experiences in the forums. But… these statements that you made, provoke conflict. “…there is way better beneficial native shrubs that will offer pollen, nectar, sometimes fruits or seeds and can be a host plant for moths and butterflies which will feed baby birds.” Implying that non-native plants do not? “I could suggest some species but I need your state, it’s always better to plant for your region.” “Our pollinators and wildlife needs us, better add beneficial plants.” You sound like you are ready to set up your own seminar on natives right here in the forums and you are all ready to help us uninformed gardeners to get on board. Evidently you believe that you are doing the right thing for pollinators and wildlife and if we are not doing what you are doing then we are not. To say that ‘natives will ALWAYS be more beneficial in general’ That statement has been proven to be untrue by a number of people in these forum including myself. That’s a fact, not an opinion. We all want to support pollinators, but a native plant that won’t grow in your garden, does nothing for anyone. And there are many non native plants that provide what pollinators need. I’m always interested to hear about a new plant that someone is in love with and why. So any time you want to share how happy a plant is making you….do that. If you would just leave out the rest, it would be appreciated.

Przemek, You could say that the water table is where the soil is saturated underground. Your soil sample found this to be at 4'2" at site 1 in mid-May; so that is probably about as high as it typically goes down by the flood plain. They did not find the water table in the two holes where you plan on building, but they only went down 5'. The water that sits in the soil at this level is not typically safe to drink because some bad chemicals that exist on the surface (ground) haven't been filtered out yet (like from animal and human waste). A well at this point is often called a "sand point" well and would only be used for irrigation or filling a pond. Good drinking water is found by drilling down into the rock layers below the soil. These deep aquifers contain water that has been filtered by the soil and protected from contamination by rock. They can still get bad chemicals into them though, but they are most often only contaminated from surface water running into the aquifer from the well itself. So just because your drinking water is found at 130ft doesn't mean you won't have a lot of water at 10'. For my well they drilled through 130' of sugar sand, then about 30' of stone to get a high quality aquifer. Meanwhile, only about 50' down the hill from my well is a wetland with multiple springs that empty into a small creek. There is so much water pressure in the upper 50' sometimes that the springs will "shoot" the water a good 6" up into the air. In low permeable soil you should be able to pump away the water even if the water table comes up somewhat above your basement floor.