Please critique my lawn do-over plan!

8 years ago

I live in Northern California, USDA zone 9, Sunset zone 14. The front yard gets 100% full sun and our summers are long and hot. The main lawn is ~950 square feet and the side lawn is ~450 square feet. Our plan is to sell in 8-10 years.

I bought a house about two years ago that was built in 1959, I believe was a rental for a while, flipped in the early 90's, and the previous owners did very little to maintain it in the 8 years they had it. So very much a fixer-upper. The previous owners watered and mowed the lawn but that was it. The POs also parked on the section close to driveway and drove over parts of it to park their ATV on the side of the house. We shut off the sprinkler system when we noticed a big leak in early 2014, and with the drought we haven't watered it all since then. There is only little mounds of dead weeds with dirt in between at this point. You can see depressions from where they drove over the yard and also some gullies where they dug up some stuff to move a sprinkler.

Assuming we get some rain this winter, our plan in the spring is to:

1) Install a short front yard fence

2) Dig out the old sprinkler system and replace with new

3) Install UC Verde buffalograss plugs

4) Plant some native plants in flower beds by house

Since we're going to be doing this ourselves and contracting it out, I'm not sure what the best plan is. I've heard conflicting advice on whether to rototill vs applying shampoo. I've got to dig the old sprinkler out anyway and minimizing digging or whatnot would be nice but maybe rototilling would be better since there are sections that were repeatedly driven over? I'm assuming that once we start getting rain in late October-early November (fingers crossed), that a bunch of weeds will sprout and my plan is to keep RoundUp'ing them. There are several areas within a block or so that are open spaces that are full of meadow grasses and so we get those weeds at any spot left bare. I'm also planning on putting down some organic fertilizer when we're getting ready to plant the UC Verde. I thinking that it will be around May went we plant the buffalograss so plenty warm by then.

So any advice would be welcome, I know I have a lot to learn.

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Comments (4)

dchall_san_antonio
8 years ago
Quickly, because I have to get going, shampoo where the car was parked. Repeat in 2 weeks and again 2 weeks later.

Don't rototill.

UC Verde only where you get 6-8 hours of unfiltered sunlight.

Where do you live? Your zones don't help.

Organic fertilizer now will help the soil. Helping the soil is a good thing at any time. Do this especially in the car parking area.

You won't necessarily sprout weed seeds in the fall rain. It depends on many factors.
hazeldazel
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
I live in Northern California. Currently 100 degrees ugh. Usually we get lots of weeds once we start to get rain since the really cold weather doesn't come until January (we get several nights down to 25-28 degrees). The area gets full sun all day (no trees).
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Full sun all day is the stuff of dreams & legends for Bermudagrass
hazeldazel
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
I'm interested in buffalograss since it needs much less water than fescue or bermuda. However, I'll keep it in mind if the plans change. I always considered it a weed since I hate the look of the tops. But it might make a good alternative.

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