I need some help coming up with my fall game plan.
Front Yard
Last year my front lawn looked like the middle photo. In October I tilled the whole thing and planted with something called Shady Nook (fescue blend). It has come in pretty well for year one (see top pic). There are a few things I need to fix in the front. The ground is some spots is a little rocky. Just pebbles. There are also some low spots. I am going to fix this by top dressing the bad and low areas with about an inch of some good soil I have. As for the grass seed. I got more sun than I originally thought and definitely under seeded. I will probably use some fescue blend again. The biggest issue is that I was impatient when I tilled and didn't spend enough time leveling out the yard. Now it dips and waves here and there. I had heard you can totally soak the lawn and then roll it to level it out. I am a little suspicious of this method thinking you would have to have a very heavy roller. The earth
is not that compact so who knows. Maybe it will work. I have no idea if I need to thatch it or aerate it.Backyard
The backyard is pretty bad off (bottom pic). We removed about 5 trees last year so light is getting in there. I don't think there was ever any grass there or if there was it was about 5 years ago. The foreground has a lot of clay but I planted a ton of clover that has greatly helped the soil. Back behind that row of yellowbells in the center is mostly good earth. However there are a bunch of weeds, vines, moss and oak tree sapling that like to sprout up. On the far right is all pea gravel (it was were the guy parked his boat) and only weeds grow there. My plan is to bring in a bunch of dirt and till it into clay area. In front of the fence all the way around the back is going to be beds so the grass footprint is not that great. I will then level it out real nice and the put down seed. In the winter I'm going to nuke everything (lawn, pea gravel and the beds) with pre-emergent.
Am I missing anything here? I am on the three to four year plan on having decent grass so I don't need everything perfect straight out of the gate. Every day I walk into the backyard I cannot wait for fall when I can go crazy.
4 comments:
Well, let me first say that you are crazy. Okay, now that that is out of the way, I don't think I would do what you are planning on doing. I think you will get a much bigger
bang for the buck if you keep it simple. As far as the front yard goes, I don't think I would be leveling anything out. First of all adding soil in small amount isn't really going to solve any of your issues and adding a lot of oil is a huge in in the ass. Instead I would concentrate on unifying the yard. I would pick either pine straw or mulch and be consistent on all the beds.
As far as the grass goes, I would either Aerate or Slit seed the entire front yard. I wouldn't
worry too much about the gravel since it already looks like you are getting decent coverage, just need the yard to come in thicker.
The backyard is a different story. What you are wanting to do is crazy talk. :) However, I think the solution is basically the same as the front yard. Pick a bed cover (Pine Straw or Mulch) and create the beds that you want. Once this is done, I would focus on getting grass to grow back there. That means killing whatever is growing back there now, and then aerating/tilling. Since you will
be starting from nothing it doesn't really matter too much which one you do. The problem with tilling is that it will bring all sorts of dormant weeds to the surface, so you will need to use a pre-emergent in the late winter. You don't want to use preemergent now, because it will stunt your grass from growing.
As far as the gravel, I would basically, try to minimize what you do with that areas since getting rid of it is going to be a huge pain in the ass. You can try to scrape up as much of it as possible, but I would still try to make that part of a planting bed (perhaps a raised shade bed or something like that).
Lastly I would also powerwash your deck and fence and stain it. Not only will be protect your fense as water barrier but it will make it look 1000X better.
Next year or in the spring I would worry about putting plants in the beds. Right now, I would focus on
the grass part of the yard.
Thanks, I am more focuses on a plan for the grass. The other stuff (beds, fence, mulch/straw) has already been rectified as those pictures are at least 6 months old.
Is there any different in the end result between aerate or slit seed?
I will have to till much of the backyard (in hindsight the front yard wasn't that bad!) so I will have to deal with the dormant crap. I have no desire to remove the pea gravel and we will probably put a swing there in the future. However, will using pre-emergent in late winter stop all the weeds growing in the gravel?
Also, you mention 'killing whatever is growing back there now, and then aerating/tilling'. Is there something that I can put down now that will help me out later?
first of all thanks a lot for this great post. We need more of these. Seems like everybody is itching for fall gardening!
so anyways..
front yard is looking great. what an improvement. the small inconsistencies will probably level out over time on their own. I wouldn't think a heavy roller would be good for the ground either. loose is good, right? and don't underestimate the weight of an aerator. that fucker is heavy. it'll flatten some stuff too. So for the front i would just keep up the maintenance aerate and seed in the fall. I disagree with bret- additional plantings in the front would still be good and aren't that big a deal to do time wise. and if you buy small they won't blow your wallet apart. and the sooner you get them in the better. Prioritize the beds and get them well planted one at a time instead of spreading your work thin.
I do agree with bret on the matching mulch. usually you mulch in the spring, but i guess you can do it anytime. Personally i hate pine straw, but whatever.
In the back i'd say grass is the #1 priority. You may want to get a soil test to see if the soil is worth anything before trying the truckloads of dirt, but it might be necessary if it's really awful. Though i gotta tell yeah, my back yard ground is awful and i still got pretty good grass growing back there so i bet it won't be necessary. At least try growing grass there for a year first.
Preemergent doesn't kill weeds, it prevents them from growing in the first place. So putting down preemergent when you are trying to grow grass can be a little tricky, plus it may not do that much for the existing stuff.
There are tons of different products that kill weeds/grass/brush/all of the above. I would invest in some of those and go to town.
As far as the soil goes, you can get a PH Test, but more than likely your soil is acidic as that is the predominant soil type in this area.
Which means you can add some stuff (Pelletized Lime) to the soil to help control the PH. Basically, the same goes for other problems with the soil so getting it tested probably isn't a bad idea.
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