New Build House Lawn Reno
Justin Harrod
6 years ago
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Comments (12)
PLF (Middle TN, Zone 7a)
6 years agoJustin Harrod
6 years agoRelated Discussions
New house - new lawn - who is responsible for this
Comments (11)Hi, Most builders use contractor seed as many posters have said. The reason why is that as well as been cheap it has the advantages of (1) sort of bullet proof in that it will come up and (2) it will come up fast. The real concern for a builder and the town building inspector is not your nice lawn but the run off from your land due to all that top soil with nothing to hold it there. Grass is a very effective binding agent to hold the soil in place. No one wants a mud slide into the street or into the neighbour's yards. SIlt fencing will stop some run off, but not for a large amount of top soil. Contractor seed therefore has a high percentage of annual seed, one year one shot only grass. This stuff establishes fast. It does have some other grass seed to so that over winter something will be there. However in general it does not give you a particularly nice lawn going forward. Best, Mike....See Moremight build a home on old horse farm - lawn planting questions...
Comments (4)Livestock do not damage soil. Lack of livestock damages soil by stopping the nutrient cycle, allowing weeds to move in, and by not providing enough disturbance. Most tree huggers and even many ranchers do not understand that disturbance of the soil is a necessary requirement for continual renewal of the soil. It is required at least annually to keep a pasture in good condition for grazing. I would be much more concerned about the prolonged lack of animals than any possibility that a horse, or even a large herd of horses, might damage the soil. Livestock grazing and even stampeding is one of the best things you can do to plant seed. Mother Nature uses that as Her preferred method for replanting the prairies of the world. Farmers are learning the method, too. One rancher here in Texas borrowed a neighbor's 800 head of cattle to eat down an overgrown pasture of about 50 acres. If you know anything about cattle, it took about 24 hours before the land looked like the surface of the moon. Every plant was gone either eaten down or trampled down. He didn't do anything else and the grass started growing immediately. The next season started out with an abundance of fresh grass where once stood a mess of grass and browse. But anyway, if you do not have a ready supply of livestock located conveniently on the other side of one of your fences, then you will need some equipment to grade for your house and then regrade, after the builders leave, for your garden. The tool the graders will use is called a box blade and it sits on the back of a tractor. A good grader could grade 4 acres of pastureland in a morning if there are no obstacles. If there are buildings, concrete, sprinklers, roots, or other things in the way, it could take as long as 2 days to get the last details. Rule of thumb for trees: the roots will extend to the edge of the tree canopy. Some smaller roots may continue beyond the edge of the canopy. Do not turn the soil over. Mother Nature never turns the soil over. That is the worst thing you can do in preparation for anything you have planned. Definitely don't do it for under the house, and don't do it for the lawn. The box blade is all you need. If the driver feels the need to use the ripper bars on the box blade, at least that tool is under control. Other tools that dig or till the soil will cause an increasing bumpiness problem for three years. After that the soil will have settled and you can level it. Thank you for writing before you made any mistakes....See MoreBuilt new house now need to build a lawn
Comments (7)Till if you want to. see my post on tilling. It is fine if necessary and done in the right way. It does bring up weed seeds, but if you control them then you can till just fine. Yes, tilling makes the ground 'bumpy'. So get a rake and a roller and you will have the grade that you want in no time. If you are going to till, rent a BIG walk behind one or one that can tow behind your tractor. The drag that you are talking about can be helpful to lightly scour the surface of the soil after rolling (instead of raking) and also after tilling to rake up the rocks/roots/crap that comes up when you till. 100 lbs of seed will cover about 1/4 acre of new lawn if you are seeding from scratch. Actually, a little less, but you get the idea. Usually for tttf it's 7-8 lbs per 1000 sf. Please do cover it with straw. Straw does not contain any weed seeds and, when used sparingly, helps retain the moisture that your new seeds are going to require to germinate. Please NEVER use HAY to cover seeds. HAY has weed seeds and you will end up with a nice hayfield if you use it. BTW, just use enough straw to lightly cover - basically you want to be able to see the dirt through the straw - not a heavy straw mat. Good luck!...See Morenew home; lots to do; new gardens to build
Comments (10)yes joel, quiet a shift you pretty much have it one mate, yes a shift in lifestyle to a degree definately a shift in location, but not a shift in the philosophies i aspire. yes i will in all aspects adhere to what i suggest recommend to others, no i can't change the mcmansion manicured lawn set, yes the lawn on our place won't look that manicured it won't get any watering from us nor will it get any other man made or chemical application. as we are on a corner block the footpath represents app' the same area of available lawn space, so we will be planting the footpath with habitat trees as mauch as we can, that will minimise that grass area to a small degree, however there will not be much lawn in the yard, the yard will be utilised for those supplementry type activities (i find terms like sustainability and self-sufficiency don't carry any attributes to attract the masses it is like "tooth fairy" stuff isn't it, and sad to say with the undercurrent of making dollars in the permy' sector that word to is now being rejected by the lack of following building in the simple terms of it). so we need vege' gardens and as much room as possible for food trees as well as some of the more exotic natives especially to create atmosphere around the pool/patio area, where we will pretty much live in the summer time. at present (this could be modified) we are wanting to put in two 5,400 (24,500 ltr) imp' gallon water tanks, they will take up app' 14.2 sq/mtrs of space. the tank size could yet be settled back to the 3,200 imp' gal' (14,300 ltr) size, city administrators think that a tank in a garden looks uglier than most garden sheds but you can put as large a free standing garden shed as you like where you like, not so when it comes to water conservation, silly hey?? but yes i am still very much critical of what we humans are doing in the name of providing accomodation, in these new suburbs now the ruling bird is the crow (in my opinion not native but so out of control the officials don't want to deal with it) and the indian myna(h) ferel. so we have new generations of children who if they don't get to go to an expensive tourist attracting nature park/zoo/circus will never know that we have more birds than the 2 afore mentioned species winging our skies. where we are is close to some nature reserve so at least i can attract some of a small variety of resident good birds. there are no frogs but we can change that. still after spending many months living in a newer sub-division than that where we currently are there is no likleyhood that i can see of this mythical but wonderful shed-culture that existed in the 'burb's way back in the 40's & 50's and in rural up to about the 80's, but i would welcome it with open arms. and as our 2 car garage will be converted to a games room for the pool table and an area for tall tales and fishing stories we may well attract some of the neigbourhood hey? of course in today's world of litigation they will have to sign a waver won't they?? one neighbour has come over and introduced himself as i will when i catch site of other neighbours in their gardens, certainly want to be friendly at least. and our quicky vege' garden has already been a trail blazer though it hasn't attracted any looks from neighbours so far. and where the yuppy standard for water conservation is a tank of less than 1,000 litre capacity (no enough to brush your teeth with hey chuckle) our tank(s) will reset the goal posts. please excuse the typo's len...See Morereeljake
6 years agomishmosh
6 years agoJustin Harrod
6 years agomishmosh
6 years agodchall_san_antonio
6 years agoJustin Harrod
6 years agoJustin Harrod
6 years agoJustin Harrod
6 years agomishmosh
6 years ago
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