Two years before the grass
We've wanted to give buffalo grass (Buchloe dactyloides) a try in place of the St Augustine (with a trace of Bermuda) in our small backyard lawn once the declining shade trees came down. It was highly recommended to spend a good portion of a year when feasible making sure the old turf really is dead and gone - especially where Bermuda is involved. So, we turned off the sprinklers and lightly solarized almost all of the turf by mid-summer 2014.... before realizing scheduled home repairs would have contractors rolling around much of the backyard into 2015.... oops. What we decided to do was just let any forbs not recognized as obnoxious "weeds" grow and continue to pull or spot treat (with glyphosate) the turf or weed grasses as they reappeared. The following photos are a walk through these adhoc transitions.
Forbs and vines established by September 2014 included various morning glory/bindweed, honeyvine (Cynanchum laeve), scarlet sage (salvia coccinea), and the blue wild petunia (Ruellia nudiflora). The Mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera) and Turkscap (Malvaviscus arboreus) were natives that escaped from the borders. American germander (Teucrium canadense), Whitemouth dayflower (commelina erecta), Texas dandelion (Pyrrhopappus pauciflorus), and clasping Venus's looking glass (Triodanis perfoliata) were some of the others that appeared at some point, but not clearly visible at the time of this photo. The pepper plant was a critter gift from the compost pile and yielded well:
By mid-May 2015, scions of our two Barton Springs Nursery Ratibidas had largely taken over the bare clay (they were not nearly as aggressive when there was turf) :
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Comments (24)Apparently your neighbor's irrigation system is working and yours is not :-) Kidding aside, your grass looks like it needs just generally better care ... watering, edging, dethatching, etc.... and eventually, more light as the tree grows. That is so cool to have the barcodes on the neighbor's edge restraint. Will be a great way to help future archeologists in your area research people of our time. :-) Meanwhile, I'd slap a brick/paver mowing strip along that edge, matching its height, and then feather the grade on your side, by adding a little topsoil, to the top of the mowing strip. The grass will easily grow through it to the new height. When you do the drive, widen/flare it enough at the street to meet where the curb becomes full height. I don't have an objection to stamped concrete as long as the installer is well qualified. (Too many novices have to cut their teeth somewhere and need to be avoided.) Example. "I tend to like the look of light driveways with darker borders as well." That's going to make the prettier driveways harder to recognize! :-) Having more experience with pavers, I can't speak knowledgeably of fading issues of stamped concrete. Maybe someone who has more experience with it will know and can chime in. I once did a commercial patio where they were trying to cut the budget. We ended up with UNCOLORED stamped concrete. It was surrounded by a 12" wide plain border and the field was stamped with basketweave brick. It was quite handsome and vastly dressier than plain, unadorned concrete. A side benefit was that there would never be issues with chipping either (which if you've seen stamped concrete that has had a fair amount of chipping or surface wear, it can bring the look down.)...See More
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