I assume you mean you have pasture type or K-31 tall fescue intermixed into your lawn that is primarily bluegrass, perennial rye, fine fescues, or a combination of those grasses. It is wrong to say all tall fescue is undesirable to have in a lawn. Turf type tall fescue produces a very nice turf with the newer cultivars being fine bladed and dark green, and will blend with many cultivars of KBG. If you remove the tall fescue patches, and you have KBG, the KBG should fill in bare areas, but only if your soil is good, and it is well fed. Perennial rye won't spread, and creeping red fescue will take a long time to fill in areas, a lot longer than the weeds will. If the tall fescue is just left by itself, the other grasses won't "squeeze it out". Instead of pulling the TF, you can spot spray any areas with Round-Up. That will kill it and the other grass wherever you spray, leaving a brown spot in 2 weeks. There is a specialty chemical that will selectively remove TF called Certainty. It is pricey, and not the easiest stuff to use as it can harm other grasses if overapplied. It will also kill any turf type tall fescue you might have in your lawn. With regards to your soil. You say you have clay, and a lot of people think this is the case. Mass isn't particularly well known for clay, but I'm sure their are pockets in the state. You should spend the time from now, till you seed to get your soil in better shape. This means having a soil test done (I recommend Logan Labs, $20 basic soil test or you can send it to Umass, which is $5 bucks cheaper). You can also do a jar test to see if you soil is mostly clay. When you get your soil test back, you can then add amendments to correct any imbalances or deficiencies. If you are saying to yourself "I don't need no stinking soil test, my grass grows fine", then you are only fooling yourself. I was the same way, until I did one, and saw how bad my soil really was (back yard pH was below 5). It will save you money in the long run too by not overapplying fertilizers, and amendments.

I would think this late in the season, females would not be receptive to males. However, last weekend I had a juvie at my feeders that was the smalest hummer I have ever seen. She couldn't even fly very well or perch on the feeder without getting out of balance. I think it was her/his first day flying. Your in Houston, and there is enough time for her to raise two more, barely! Rob

That's great you're offering to host. The 13th is probably the better date, so people can get plants in the ground as early as possible. Hosting the Spring Swap was easier than I thought it would be, because people were so helpful about bringing refreshments, set up, and clean up. "Many hands make light work" so they say, and it was true in this case. It went very smoothly (aside from the parking situation, but that is particular to my house). What I did was start a thread about a month before the Swap date for people to hash out what they have to offer and who wants what. About a week before, I asked people to email me so that I could have their email on record, know what their first name was, and then replied with an email that included directions and details.

Excellent video , tmc2009 - I enjoyed seeing the hummingbird's tongue darting in and out as it paused in between feeding. It was interesting that the hummer chased the chickadee away at 4 min 13 seconds but fled from the bee(?) at the end. I guess chickadees are annoying but bees are very dangerous. Claire