Backyard no man's zone? Grass or no grass? Need your creativity!
sk805
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
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Bermuda Grass Front Yard vs back yard
Comments (6)The percolation test is quite simple -- Dig a hole about 1 foot deep. Pour it full of water and wait... Observe whether it soaks in... Then, once it has soaked in -- fill it up full of water again and let it soak in again.. If it all soaks in within a few minutes -- you may be draining too fast and the grass dries out too fast... If it doesn't drain within a day... you have other problems.... Sometimes clay soils will soak in great on the 1st round, then will become impermeable after the 2nd or 3rd round -- as the clay saturates... It can also help point out problems in the subsoil like pure coarse sand, big rocks and hard-pans... (Gosh, my lawn drains fine here, but doesn't drain at all over there... I wonder why?) The 2nd test is outlined on here somewhere -- but it is to determine your soil makeup.. You take a mason jar about 1/3 full of dirt (No rocks and sticks).. Fill it mostly full of water.. Shake it up really good and let it sit overnight... Then shake it up really good again and let it sit again... It will separate out into various layers.. Sand and rocks on the bottom, silt in the middle, clay near the top, and light organic material on the top or floating... You then measure the layers with a tape measure and it tells you the soil makeup... These tests will help lead you in the direction of which amendments will help vs which ones will hurt... If your soil is all sand and already drains too fast.. Adding more sand won't help anything... but adding a little Clay would help quite a bit... and vice versa. Thanks John...See MoreGrasses for backyard prairie garden
Comments (5)Virginia wild rye has a 'cuter' seedhead than does CWR. i would mix the two. frankly i dont really know if VWR has anything to do with Virginia but... indian grass can be a nice addition. maybe a plug or 5 would be a nice addition. it doesnt get too tall that u cannot stand it. prairie brome is a handsome plant. it grows well from seed. its short and cute in a fluffy,furry sort of way. im fond of LBS and prairie drop seed. i could roll around in those two all day and night. another neat grass is porcupine grass but read up on it before u plant it or ull take ur eye out. switchgrass is a hadsome plant also. but if u dont like the aggressive nature of it, there is a horticulture variety called 'Shenandoah' its a smallish non-fertile type that has a bright red fall color. froggy Here is a link that might be useful: prairie brome...See MoreBackyard grass woes (crabgrass)
Comments (7)I'm back now for a bit. If you have areas where the St Aug is completely gone you can spray a herbicide there. Where you have a blend of crabgrass and St Aug, then the baking soda works very well. Be careful to not inhale the baking soda or get any in your eyes. When the baking soda dust comes out of the sock it is very very fine and drifts easily. Also you don't need to use old socks. Baking soda does no damage to a sock, so you can use brand new socks. Now the question is, How do you get crabgrass in St Augustine? Crabgrass is a summer annual plant that is very aggressive in completely unshaded areas and grows poorly where there is even minimal shade. The crabgrass seeds will sprout in warm soil that maintains a certain moisture level at the surface for 1-3 days or more. Year old seed germinates considerably better than same year seed. Seed rototilled from 2-4 inches germinates better than untilled seed. If you did any of these things last spring as the soil warmed up, then you were encouraging the weed. The easiest ways to keep crabgrass out of St Augustine are proper watering and mowing at the mower's highest setting. Tall St Augustine, with it's flat coarse blades, will shade out almost all grassy weeds but especially the low and slow growing ones like bermuda and crabgrass. As for watering St Augustine, if you are watering too frequently, you are really encouraging crabgrass. In general when the temps are below 70 degrees F, you should deep water once per month. When they get into the 70s, move it up to once every 3 weeks. With temps in the 80s, once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 90s, once every 7 days. If you get temps higher than 100s, I would try hard to keep it at once every 5 days but watch it to see if it needs water every 5 days. I just pulled some St Augustine out of the grip of death. I thought it was dead 3 weeks ago because of the golden color, but when I put water on it, it's still alive. So that's why I could resist watering more than once every 7 days even with temps above 100. Our temps have been in the high 90s for weeks and that area I thought was dead has not had any moisture since May. So what is deep watering? Deep watering is one full inch applied all at one time. Time your sprinklers by putting cat food or tuna cans in the yard and see how long it takes your sprinklers to fill the cans. The range will be somewhere between 20 minutes and 8 hours. If you see crabgrass establishing itself in bare spots. There are a few things you can do. One is to walk on the new seedlings to try and break them off. The second is to rake the new seedlings and get the roots out of the ground, and third is to spray liquid nitrogen fertilizer on them to burn the tender shoots. Salt water or baking soda dissolved in water might work just as well. St Augustine will spread out via stolons above the ground when the temps are below 85 degrees. Make the most of that time in your neighborhood. What I do is to drop organic fertilizer along the stolons as they spread out. Mowing high or low does not seem to affect the growth of the stolons. I gained several thousand square feet of new St Aug in 2 years in an area I literally never mowed. As for your other weed, you might go to this website and try to identify the weed. I didn't see anything with that seed head, but you might be able to narrow it down with the other characteristics. For some you might want a magnifying glass....See MoreCreative ideas for backyard area
Comments (31)Sorry about the confusion. The "+" sign is a symbol representing the center of a plant. The circle represents its perimeter. In this case, it represents a small tree. The "." symbol is the same thing. In this case it represents a shrub form. The shapes in between the patio and house are generic plants ... there only to give the plan a vague sense that plants in that space are possible. When looking down from above (as in a PLAN) all individual plants are going to look like a circle with a center. The scalloped edge thing is a plant MASS .... where smaller plants are amassed together such that you do not see the individual, but only the perimeter of the group. Here, it's all generic and doesn't yet matter about the plants. I'm only showing them to say that "some plants can fit in this space." At this point, all you need to care about is the patio. The hardscape (patio) comes first. The plantings are subordinate and will comply with whatever way the patio ends up being. Since you don't want a deck, whatever steps you have will come fairly near the door. You'll still need a landing at the door (rather than immediately stepping down as that would be cheap looking and feeling, such as what one would expect to see in a mobile home situation) which is why I suggest make it and steps full width of the wall face. It will work and look much better than if you try to make it only one door width, as it is now. You only need 4 risers for the set of steps. You want a small patio. There is no need or reason to make a contrived or convoluted set of steps with this small, simple need. Keep them spacious and simple and you will have a nice finished package. Get cute or clever and you might like it for a while, but others will wonder why you bothered or the next owner may dislike it. Simple, well functioning steps will work best. You can glamourize them in the construction details, if that suits your taste. If you want something other than straightforward, it would be best if you sketch it out in plan view, and then I'd be happy to react to what you've proposed, giving the pros and cons. I think I mentioned before but did not see your answer .... you'll need to figure out the total square footage that you want for patio space. It doesn't need to be to the square inch. You just need to get into the ballpark on it. While I'm not working to scale -- just proportion -- I estimate the patio in the sketch to be about 170 s.f., which does not count the pure walking space in front of the steps. Including that, it might be around 200 s.f. Keep in mind that in order to do the same functions (cook and eat) requires a little more room outdoors than it does indoors. Outdoors, people move about faster and flail their arms more :-)....See Moresk805
2 years agosk805
2 years agoNeed2SeeGreen 10 (SoCal)
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2 years ago
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