My lawn is environmentally friendly, it was installed as bahia sod when the St. Augustine grass died off. The bahia came with various field "weeds" and I pull out the ones I don't want. One that is a welcome resident is frog fruit which has performed even better than the bahia. It is beloved of bees and butterflies too. Frog fruit is the small green runner with small white flowers. Easy to trim up the edges where it creeps. This is the back yard which is full south facing sunny all day and no irrigation. This is the same location just on the other side with original bahia. You can see bare spots and frog fruit just starting to get a hold bottom right, which I would like to happen. I have used an edger in places to carve up pieces of sod with frog fruit and transplanted in bare spots around the yard. Labor intensive but the only way.I have tried seeding with bahia seed to fill in bare spots but haven't seen anything appear. There are butterfly vendors that sell frog fruit plants but in small sizes. I am happy with my bahia and frog fruit lawn, put in 2 years ago. The other plus is that it has not required mowing in 7 months, no kidding. That was over the winter and very little rain. Going into the summer I expect it will need mowing maybe once a month. Denise

We overseed with rye for several reasons, but primarily for winter fire protection. We live in a rural area where winter wildfires are fairly common, or at least they have been ever since 2005. Prior to that, we never had them. Our DS is a professional firefighter and also a volunteer firefighter and my DH is the chief of our local VFD, and also is a certified professional firefighter in Texas for the last 32 years. (I have to point out he primarily works as a law enforcement officer but at the time he was hired, they all went through the fire academy and the police academy so that they were cross-trained and had the flexibility to do both jobs.) Because we understand the rate at which wildfire can move and because we often are away from home at wildfires elsewhere in the county and are not at home to protect our own home from wildfire, it is important to us to maintain a green envelope around the house and detached barn-style garage. It isn't that green grass won't burn, because it can and it will....but just that it will not ignite as easily as dormant bermuda grass. Our hope is that when a fast-moving grass fire comes this way, the green rye grass will slow it down and keep it from reaching the structures before a fire truck arrives. Most years, the worst and most fast-moving fires have not been in our specific portion of the county very often, but one year we had 4 separate wildfires within about a quarter-mile of our place in a two-week period and I was pretty much a nervous wreck after that....especially when friends call me on my cell phone when I am gone to a fire somewhere and say "Are you at home? It looks like your place is on fire?" At least having the green grass on the acre around the house and other structures gives us a little peace of mind. Secondly, I hate, hate, hate bermuda grass. I'd rather have bare ground. It is horrifically invasive and will creep and crawl into every garden bed of any type. We did not plant the bermuda grass here. Whoever owned the farmland we purchased likely planted it as pasture grass. When we bought the land, it looked like your typical mix of tall and short prairie grasses mixed with forbs and a bit of invasive brush. Then, after we mowed the grass down short right before the builder started building the house, we saw the bermuda popping up all over in the absence of taller grasses to shade it out. One of our old-rancher/farmer neighbors noticed it one day and said "Oh, great! You have bermuda. You won't even have to plant any." I said something like "yeah, great" but I was thinking something else entirely opposite of that. Part of the deliberate overseeding every fall is to weaken the bermuda so that it will be slower to grow and slower to move into the flower beds, shrub beds, etc. My main weapon in the battle to defeat the bermuda grass is to shade it out. We've been here 14 years, and the trees and shrubs (we have planted many, many, many of them) are shading out the bermuda grass now in some parts of the yard. When they do that, I plant ground covers in the bare spots. I won't be happy until it is all gone though. So my goal is the opposite of yours. I hate it and want to get rid of it, and you want to grow it. We have red clay...the kind of clay that breaks shovels when you try to dig in it. That sort of red clay in combination with bermuda grass is a horrible combination. When the soil is dry, which is most of the time in this state, you cannot dig out or pull out the bermuda grass. Did I mention I hate it? If your soil is red clay, you need a real tiller. A big rear-tine tiller. A really strong, sturdy, rear-tine tiller. We have a Troy-Bilt. Those little cultivators/tillers (we have a Mantis and a Troy-Bilt in that size and the Mantis is far superior in performance) are great for well-enriched and well-amended soil that is not strongly compacted or for native sandy-silty soil that is not overly compacted. We've been breaking ground out back for an additional vegetable garden plot, and I used The Mantis for most of it. It has worked just fine on most of that area. When I hit the red clay at the north end of that future garden plot, Tim rototilled it with the Troy-Bilt rear-tine tiller. Now, in the future, since it has been initially broken and will be well-amended, I will be able to use the Mantis to work organic matter into the soil, but when I tried to rototill the dense red and very compacted clay with it last week, both the Mantis and I were bouncing all over the ground and barely making a dent in it. We normally only use the big tiller the first time we break ground. The cultivator is great for mixing in amendments, but I'm even trying to stop doing that regularly because any sort of tilling (or digging) is not necessarily good for the soil tilth. You don't have to buy a rototiller and, in fact, I wouldn't buy one if I just wanted to use it for one project. I'd rent one for the day. Or, if you check the garden section or the handyman section of your local paper, you may find ads for people who own rototillers and who will come rototill up a spot for someone. Around here, they usually charge a little less than it would cost to rent a big rototiller for the day. If the soil that was dumped into the place where the pool used to be is fairly loose and not heavily compacted, then the smaller cultivator might handle it just fine. I love my Mantis cultivator but it is not up to the task of easily rototilling very dense and very compacted clay. It's great for everything else. Dawn

Yes, soil is going to make a difference. It's not that hard to DIY it and you can save yourself 75%. Village Nurseries (various locations) sells a turf that looks pretty good. I watched the guys do it on my install and after seeing what they did, I'd do it myself. They took out about 6" of soil, put down about 5" of "road base", tamped it down, then put down a 3/4" layer of some kitty-litter type stuff that they claimed would prevent odors, tamped that down, got everything super perfectly level. Then they laid down the turf and nailed it down with 6" galvanized spikes around the edges. If you have to use more than one piece of turf you flip it over and tape the pieces together with a tape recommended for the product. Then they brushed play sand into the turf, which helps the blades stand up and stay up. Done. I think the key thing is getting the road base perfectly firm and level. If you take your time and are patient and meticulous about that, it just didn't seem that difficult. Luckily I needed soil in another part of the yard so there was no need to haul the removed soil away, which costs $$$. Mine has been in place 3 years and there's still no odor--perhaps a vague hint on a hot day in summer, but no reek. I was worried about that. If your soil drainage is poor it might be more of an issue. I give it a quick hose off when I wash the car. It is going to look good longer in shady areas. It does have UV inhibitors but the sun gets to everything eventually.

I am considering replacing our front lawn (in a gated, brick wall courtyard) with gravel and ground cover (likely a creeping perennial) and need some advice. The area is north facing, full shade, and the lawn is 440 sq. ft. with 2 trees (one lime, one unknown). Our 2 Golden Retrievers play out there on occasion and the puppy is quite active. :-o I love love love dymondia margaretae (silver carpet) and really want to plant it but it's apparently not good in full shade. :-( What can I plant instead that is low, tight, drought resistant, dog-friendly and a low-water user (going to take advantage of the LADWP lawn replacement rebate and can possibly get up to $1,600!). Thanks in advance for any advice!