My house lawn looks TERRIBLE (photos inside). How do I fix?
Dat Le
7 years ago
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reeljake
7 years agoRelated Discussions
Too much oak in the house- how do I fix it?
Comments (11)1. How do I handle this? do I need to make sure all the wood on the doors, trim, and floor have the same color stain? >>This is a matter of personal preference so there's no absolute right answer. Personally I like the doors, door trim, base and crown mold to match. They don't need to match the floor but of course they do need to be complementary. 2. If so, is it possible to stain the existing woodwork darker without an excessive amount of work ( like sanding it all the way down)? >>Yes it is despite what I've read others claim. Speak to a reputable painter who is skilled at wood finishing. Just as is used on kitchen cabinets, there are stains that can be brushed or sprayed over existing finish once it's properly prepared. As long as you're going darker, it's not necessary to sand all the way to raw wood. 3. Is wood trim and moulding considered dated, these days? >> Styles come and go. Unless you move every few years, do what you like, not what would appeal to the majority. 4. Would it be better to go with replacing it all with white composite? (Lots of the woodwork needs repair as the previous children used it as a medium for carving pictures and their names) >> If you're going to paint, damaged areas can be filled, sanded, primed and painted. Just keep in mind that the grain on the old wood might show through in the finished product. Do a test on a piece to determine whether it meets your expectation and consider the cost difference between replacement and refinishing or painting. 5. The windows are also the same color of wood, would it look strange if they didn't match the trim around them? >> There again it's personal preference. I prefer that they match. There's nothing that says you can't paint the wood....See MoreHelp! My front lawn is looking terrible.
Comments (3)Well you don't have to worry about the zoysia anymore! There is some green stuff. It doesn't look too ornery, so maybe it's fescue. If it starts to spread before your eyes, then that stuff is Kentucky bluegrass. Many people in the north will seed with a mix of those two grasses to get the benefits of both. What do you expect your summer high temp to be? You might be able to seed now if you hurry. Spring seeded lawns usually die out from the heat by July, but coastal lawns often get away with it. Fall is the time to seed northern lawns, so start planning for that now. For you the time to seed might be as early as late August. You want to do it early in the fall to make up for any mistakes you might make before the first frost. Established lawn's should never be watered every day. It could be you prekilled the lawn with your kindness and the -18 temps took advantage of the damage you had done. If you ever get temps in the 90s, then you should water no more than once per week. With temps in the 80s (probably more your summer temp), then you should water once every 2 weeks. When you water apply 1 full inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans in the yard and turn on your sprinklers. Time how long it takes to fill the cans. That will be your watering time from now on. Every time you water, do it for that time. My time with my water pressure and my hose and sprinklers is 8 hours. It might be as little as 20 minutes for some high flow systems. You'll have to check your system....See MoreNew house, terrible lawn, where do I start?
Comments (8)I said you need to have soil removed, because you have soil washing out over the concrete curb onto your driveway. Looking back and zooming in on your first picture I see you have a wash out situation at the front porch. So you need topsoil there but you already have a retaining wall in the front. Is that last drawing from an architect or did you make that in Google SketchUp? The drawing shows two steps down from the house sill, so that means pouring concrete up from the current porch to the top of the front door landing. They you're showing a concrete pad down to the new soil level. That means removing all the soil down 4 more inches to form the new concrete surround for the asphalt. Filling it back with concrete will bring it up to grade which looks to be several inches below the grade you have now with the washout onto the driveway. It's hard to see in the darkness of the shadow, but I don't see concrete between the red bricks and the soil. You should have at least 4 inches of concrete house pad showing under the bottom brick. Pushing soil up against the house pad to the bottom of the brick is a bad idea. The drawing shows the white add-on side entry going all the way to a new lower soil level. The drawing also shows the retaining wall being removed. So if you're going to do all that, you'll need a grader to come in and contour the soil so that it does not wash out into the street or onto the driveway and so that rain does not flow backwards into the house. And anyway, generally for new grass you don't need to add topsoil unless you have low spots to fill. I don't see any low spots. Your current soil is very likely to be fine for your new garden. If you want to tune it up you can adjust the chemistry following a good soil test (Logan Labs $25) and fix the biology with organic fertilizer. If you're trying to get this to look like the drawing, you need professional landscapers to get going before time runs out to seed grass this fall. A tractor with a box blade can break up the soil and concrete in a morning and finish regrading in the afternoon. A front end loader with a dump truck can haul the concrete and excess soil away....See MoreHow can I fix my mostly St. Augustine lawn?
Comments (23)Ideally you should start a new topic. I believe you did not get a normal amount of rain this winter. Have you been watering? I ask because I see some nut grass in the pictures, and nutgrass prefers really wet roots. Once you start watering deeply and infrequently, the nutgrass should go away/dormant without doing anything else. Raise your mower all the way to the top. The top is around 4 inches, but it it is 6 inches, so much the better. Look up above in this thread to the picture of my back yard with the cat in it. See how the cat is nestled down into the grass. In fact, since this is your back yard, you don't have to mow it at all. St Augustine will grow up to 32 inches tall. It's not a lot of fun to play in, but the point is the grass will do very well even when left alone. In mid April spray the yard with this product from Walmart. Atrazine is the important ingredient. This herbicide will wipe out everything except the St Augustine and bermuda. Spray on a day with little wind, walk backwards when you spray, and walk into the wind so any wind carries the spray away from you. This is a leaf misting spray, not a soil drench. You don't have to spray longer where the weeds are. It takes about 3 weeks before you realize all the weeds are dead and gone. If you are watering deeply and infrequently, both grasses should thrive. Ultimately the St Augustine will march through the bermuda and choke it out, because the tall St Augustine provides too much shade onto the common bermuda. This will take a few years or you can buy new St Augustine sod to speed up the process. You should not ever need to reseed into bermuda. If you have bermuda and it's not doing well, you're doing something wrong and even new seed will struggle. Besides, for you in Covina the best time to put down bermuda seed is in late June and July. If you put seed down now it won't germinate until late June or July when the soil is hot enough. Two more things: First, spray your yard with baby shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. If your yard is 1,000 square feet, put 3 ounces into the bottle of a hose end sprayer, fill the bottle with water, set the adjuster on any spray flow, and spray it all out evenly until it is gone. You can use any clear shampoo - it doesn't have to be baby shampoo. Whatever Dollar Tree has and you like the fragrance is fine. Second, call these feed stores to see if they have corn meal, soybean meal, or alfalfa pellets (ask for rabbit chow). Get prices for a 50 pound bag. Any one of these materials will do, so pick any one you like and spread it at a rate of 15 to 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Corn meal will be the cheapest at under $10. If they quote you $20 or $30, they're talking about corn gluten meal, not ordinary cornmeal. CGM works, too, but it costs more. All these are organic fertilizers. I think I mentioned to wait until late May to fertilize. If you use an organic, you can do it NOW (two weeks ago). Your soil looks gray and not healthy. If you want to get a soil test, send it to Logan Labs in Ohio. I know UCR and UCD do soil testing in California, but Logan Labs performs more tests on the soil for less money than the universities do. Get the $25 test. Let us know and we'll tell you where to send the results for a free reading telling you all about the soil. As a side note, it looks like someone has topdressed your yard too many times with too much soil. The soil level looks about 1.5 inches too high. It should be down closer to the edge of the concrete. If you ever chose to renovate, you should be removing soil and not bringing in more....See Morejerzeegirl (FL zone 9B)
7 years agodchall_san_antonio
7 years agodchall_san_antonio
7 years agoreeljake
7 years ago
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