Hello. Thanks for the great information! It'll really be nice to get the grass looking it's best. The dying "junk tree" in the corner will be coming down, and I'll be tearing down the concrete wall and putting up a nice 6' stockade fence (with metal poles; the best way to go, IMO). In the corner where the wall is, there's a concrete foundation of an old stone shed; I will be putting a shed there for the lawn care items to free up the 2nd garage stall. My tenants deserve more parking... The last thing I'd like to do is wrap a deck around the sunroom. Just enough for a good-sized table, the grilles, etc. In the middle of the stone wall, there's another (weirdly placed) concrete slab. To the left of it is where my garden is. I'll be building a better vegetable garden this year, too, with raised beds and watering pipes, and whatnot... I was REALLY depressed after de-thatching the grass; my yard had brown strips all over, and I could see the soil in some spots, even ant hills... I thought I did more damage than good. But, after reseeding, applying the fertilizer and Epsom salt mixture, and watering every single day for a few hours, (I've never once fertilized or watered the grass before!), everything turned out beautifully. I think I had it set in my mind to reseed just because I figured seeding twice would be better to get nice, thick turf... Perhaps it won't be necessary. The grass seed I use is University of Rhode Island Number Two Improved. It's a mixture of Kentucky Blue, Creeping Red Fescue, and Chewing Fescue. A couple questions. When mowing, what is the best method: Mulching and Discharge, or bagging the clippings? I've never had a bag for my old Cub Cadet mower, so, since I've owned the house, about 14 years now, I've always used the mulching blade and side discharge. I think this helped cause the thatching problem... Before reseeding the grass, however, a neighbor threw away a little 2-year old mower that they used twice... It has a bag, so since I've reseeded , I've been collecting the clippings. What's the best method? Also, what's the best watering schedule for "normal" times, ie. when not seeding? I know morning time is the best, but how often should one water their lawn? Hopefully, after everything is done, the grass will look even better this year than it did last fall.

I concur with Kimpa. My neighbor 2 doors down tried to get rid of her sedges last year by using SedgeHammer. She says the SedgeHammer didn't work. (I don't know if my neighbor used it correctly or not and didn't probe to find out, but she is a retired teacher, so I would have to say she probably did follow instructions to a tee.) The other day while she was in my backyard, she was surprised to see that the many sedges I had in my backyard last year were all gone. Shocked, she asked how did you get rid of the sedges? I told her I pulled them every single time I saw them, trying to get as much of the rhizomes as possible. After a little practice, you can get the hang of it and can sometimes finesse a small portion of the rhizome out along with the upper plant. You won't get all of the rhizome though. But the key is just pulling the plant out repeatedly. Eventually the carbohydrate reserves inside the plants' tubers buried in the ground will be used up, so the plant won't have enough energy to send up new shoots. At that point, it will die. It may take 3 or 4 pullings for the sedges to die. You could also dig into the ground to remove the tubers along with the shoots to kill the whole plant in one fell swoop, but I never did that because I didn't want to disturb the surrounding grass which was good, healthy zoysia. I learned about this procedure from David Mellor's great book called The Lawn Bible. I think he (or someone else maybe) wrote that the first time you pull a plant, the plant can exhaust 60 percent of its energy reserves to recreate its upper shoot. Do that enough times, and it just exhausts all its energy. The plant makes energy through its leaves through photosynthesis from the sun, so you don't want to allow the leaves to regrow for too long, otherwise the plant replenishes some of its energy reserves. I also tried this multiple pull procedure on dandelions. It was harder to eliminate my sideyard's dozen dandelions that way than it was the sedges. The sedges were much easier to eliminate this way than the dandelions. But eventually the dandelions were no more too. You could try eliminating the dandelions quickly by removing their tap root. At least with dandelions you know where the tap root is (directly below the plant), unlike the sedges' tubers. By the way, removing the shoot (which is defined as everything above ground for the plant) and then burning the very top of the dandelion's tap root with a blow torch didn't work for me. The tap root recovered after a week or so and produced a new shoot. And I tell ya, I burned the tops of those tap roots to a crisp, and they still recovered. Of course, I haven't tried The Dragon torch--just a regular blow torch--so I can't speak to The Dragon's effectiveness, but I have my doubts. Anyone tried The Dragon on dandelions' tap roots?

There's a bit of FUD here. Is a massive amt. of glyphosate on the roots of a tree going to cause problems? Possibly. Is a once or twice a year use at appropriate dilution levels on a roadway going to cause problems? No, absolutely not! But it's not the main thing you need anyhow. Use a correct (spot) application once to kill any live weeds. Then, 2 or 4 times a year depending on climate, use a broadcast application of something pre-emergent like Surflan, to keep SEEDS FROM GERMINATING IN THE FIRST PLACE. Believe me, there are golf courses where that is applied for years, and years, and it doesn't affect nearby mature plant growth. And that's over the huge area of greens. Along a typical 12' driveway, you'd be applying much less. (and btw, people act like spray drift is some 'phantom menace' that can spread several feet from where you are intending to spray. It just doesn't happen with glyphosate unless you're being an idiot, or using a high pressure electrical sprayer and being careless. I finally had it happen for the first time this spring - because I was being an idiot. And it was in a very, very specific spot/situation where I was spraying the edge of a stone retaining wall and forgot that just under the edge of the wall, invisible to me at that position, was a small rhododendron. So, it was more about forgetting where something was, not some sneaky malfeasance on the part of the product! *OTOH* the vapor drift of ester chemicals IS a very real thing, and can be quite scary, but that's not this discussion. There is no ester of glyphosate)

Weed B Gon...well, I'd test that theory before using it, although if the previous owner got away with it, it should be OK. There are plenty of species of grass you can't use it on. Still, I'm not willing to give it a green light without knowing the exact species of ornamental and seeing that species on the label as being OK and wouldn't recommend using it without testing unless you have that assurance. RoundUp will kill any green plant it touches that hasn't had a certain gene sequence inserted. Yours are not immune. Don't use it. With my Zebra grass, a lot of manual effort is required. It's often best to inspect weekly and take care of problems as they develop. That little tree is easier to remove as a tiny seedling rather than wait until it's a sapling. Annoying, sure. But that's true of most problems, I guess. Mulching will certainly help, as will application of Preen early in the season next year (although take a look at the weeds you actually get and match the correct pre-emergent to the correct weeds. I have been...well, less than impressed with Preen, let's just say, due to my weed profile). Reapply said pre-emergent when the shield runs out, which will be dependent on the pre-m and the dose used (my Prodiamine lasts 9 months, but that's the dose I use--and it's the maximum for the year). Like any other summer-growing grass, these also benefit from a moderate feeding on-schedule. You can look up care online, or just ask and we'll outline the care and feeding strategy for you. This is already getting kind of long.