The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

I agree with Warus. I think the round up piece is true also but can’t verify.

i can’t wait for people to get used to not having a green lawn. I’m using the quack grass situation to get rid of a bunch of grassy area

[walrus]

Citation needed.

It was all over the news. Apparently folks don't understand how much Round Up is sprayed in the US. Want your grains dead so you can harvest, lets spray Round Up and then grind it into flour or make animal feed, yea for Round up in your food. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glyphos...ling-chemical/

I'll never understand why people want to poison where they live for a lawn. And having a water table so close to the surface and using it to water the lawn means every chemical placed on the lawn means it goes in the aquifer also.

I'd also suggest googling how much energy goes into lawn/yard care in US and what impact does that have on global warming

[Slap Shot]

Almost certainly "quick green" or "contractor grass". Probably annual rye mixed in to whatever was

Also, the best way to water your grass is heavily once a week. It encourages the grass to push its roots deeper. Short waterings several times a week only makes the grass less drought-tolerant (and shallow root systems).

The once per week method might very well work, but I experienced very good results employing a different method. Bear in mind my house (had) and cabin (have) built-in sprinklers with timers. From my experience shorter spurts twice per day before the air temps rise and additionally after the sun sets produced a very lush result.

[dxmnkd316]

We had some grass recently placed in our front yard (maybe 1000 sqft?) before we moved in, probably to look nice and get the house sold, but it's been getting weaker over the past year plus. I was more than happy to mow it, since that amount takes all of 5 minutes, but it seems to be a losing battle to keep it alive. Plus they've cut back on lawn watering here to two days a week, and the grass was doing weakly at 4 days a week, so I think we may be fighting a losing battle here. We already have some fake turf in out side yard, and I've been seriously thinking about doing that in the front yard too. It does look nice, it's easy to keep raked, and it feels like having actual grass here is getting more and more irresponsible and untenable.

Almost certainly "quick green" or "contractor grass". Probably annual rye mixed in to whatever was

Also, the best way to water your grass is heavily once a week. It encourages the grass to push its roots deeper. Short waterings several times a week only makes the grass less drought-tolerant (and shallow root systems).

You need 1" per week, depending on the type and cultivar. I take the water meter readings, the area I'm watering, and then calculate a gallons/sq ft to give me a calibrated number for how long I need to water. You can easily do that with a small tupperware container while you water too.

[Swansong]

well that's awful

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Oh god the sulfur is so bad. I once had a corporate apartment in jax. The sprinklers at night made area smell like rotten eggs. I started washing my hair in distilled water jugs from Publix because the water was so gross

[LynahFan]

Lawn care here in Florida is amusing to me. Trying to keep nice grass growing on sand is….challenging. The good news is that groundwater is only ~6 ft down, so everyone just drills a pipe and plops a pump on top. The water filters through the sand and right back into the aquifer, so no harm ho foul. Unfortunately, most of the groundwater here is loaded with sulfur, so my kids coined the phrase, “stinklers,” which is perfect. Everything *except* grass grows like the land wants to return to the jungle, so I pay just as much in tree maintenance as I do in lawn care.

[French Rage]

We had some grass recently placed in our front yard (maybe 1000 sqft?) before we moved in, probably to look nice and get the house sold, but it's been getting weaker over the past year plus. I was more than happy to mow it, since that amount takes all of 5 minutes, but it seems to be a losing battle to keep it alive. Plus they've cut back on lawn watering here to two days a week, and the grass was doing weakly at 4 days a week, so I think we may be fighting a losing battle here. We already have some fake turf in out side yard, and I've been seriously thinking about doing that in the front yard too. It does look nice, it's easy to keep raked, and it feels like having actual grass here is getting more and more irresponsible and untenable.

[Swansong]

This surprised no one more than me, but I've really enjoyed yardwork since moving out of condo life and into a single family home. My yard is small - the whole lot (plus house, garage, driveway, patio, deck, walkway, sidewalk) is like 1/6th of an acre so it's not like there's a ton to do.

But I've found it super rewarding to see an immaculate lawn.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Lawns are dumb. I mow every couple of weeks so it doesn't get white trashy, and I occasionally hit the front with selective broadleaf killer to deal with dandelions so that we don't get in trouble with the city code enforcement busybody. Otherwise IDGAF and I'd just as soon turn my front lawn into something ultra low-maintenance. We do have to keep the back as long as we have a dog, but we're planning on eventually paving over part of it, installing some borders and planting beds, and transforming it into the bare minimum amount of grass needed for a dog run.

[Swansong]

I do fertilize spring and fall (and the occasional augmenting, like I'll do this week) and then overseed spring and fall as well. This summer has been especially dry here so I want to make sure no area bakes too much so I've been mowing higher than normal. My mower has a perfectly adequate mulch function so I just use that. It gets de-thatched in the fall when I rake up the leaves... ha


That said, I just reached out to a lawn care company for aeration quote and tips. Most of what I know about lawncare I've learned via youtube videos... or the hard way.

[Slap Shot]

I'd also recommend at least an occasional mulching and as such then at least every other year a de-thatching.

[dxmnkd316]

I have... but haven't been able to convince the ol' lady that it's worth the cost. Yet.

I think there are two things worth doing every year
1. Fall application of fertilizer (Get the generic brands. I use Menard's and it works great.)
2. Hiring out core aeration in the fall (this is a new one for me since my lawn has become so compacted w/ clay. If you don't have a severely compacted yard, you can probably make this an activity performed every other year or less).

This is my favorite resource for lawns:
https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-g...-care-calendar

YMMV, but I suspect Rutgers' and/or Penn State's extension program is an excellent resource for the northeast. I have read articles from both over the years and they seem to match a lot of the guidance Minnesota's Extension program does, save for a few details that are specific to each region. I'd generally recommend any of the Big Ten's Extension programs. They're all major research institutions and do a hell of a lot of cooperative work on these topics.

[Swansong]

I have... but haven't been able to convince the ol' lady that it's worth the cost. Yet.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Yeah I just have someone do it for me as I have no interest in doing that