I live in a condo. The lawn care company they hire just seeded yesterday and put down some fertilizer. They airaided our yards a in about October before the ground froze. I assume they are professionals and know what they are doing. So I think anytime now is good. BTW they cut our plants and flowers last year before winter.
Yard Care for Dummies
- Thread starter wxman1
- Start date
New grass seed will not work well or likely at all if a crabgrass control was recently applied. You generally need to wait until after the chemical has been broken down or washed away. In some cases that could take many months depending on concentration and what chemical was used. My general advice to those seeking to seed in the Spring is don't do it!
There are steps you can take however if you really need to fill in a small to medium sized spot. If you can find a dedicated lawn store or perhaps a Site One location nearby you can pick up field conditioner. It's basically a bag of a special kind of clay and commonly used to help muddy spots in baseball fields. Anyhow, you can put that down to a depth of 1/2 inch or so in the bare spot. Put grass seed on top. Cover grass seed with 1/8 to 1/4 inch more of the field conditioner. Apply water, some sun, and time.
Weed and feed should be applied when the grass is a bit wet, like with morning dew. 24 hours later you should water it in if no rain is expected. The weed killer in the mix needs some moisture present on the weed leaves to stick and be most effective. The fertilizer needs to be watered in, but not right away because you want some time for the herbicide to get absorbed by the weed leaf. If you wait too long to water in the fertilizer it's possible you can burn the grass. Chemical fertilizers are a salt and thus crave water. If you don't water it in then the fertilizer will steal moisture from the ground and the plant, desiccating the plant.
My yard is a disaster. My neighbors for years have done nothing so their yard is nothing but dandelions. You just can't stop those when there are so many next door.
This picture is from a couple of years ago. You can clearly see the property line. Since then dandelions have just been non stop in my yard.
This picture is from a couple of years ago. You can clearly see the property line. Since then dandelions have just been non stop in my yard.
We live right next to ground owned by our HOA, and they really dont do much for weed control. I typically will fertilize/weed control about 5-10 feet onto the property, just to create a buffer. With a drop spreader, is pretty easy to be inconspicuous about it.
We lost a lot of grass under a couple of trees a few years ago. IIRC, we didn't do a good job of raking and the grass underneath got really weak. The next year was very dry and it just withered away. Now, we have mostly dirt under the trees. We had them "overseed" the yard last year and some new grass grew, but not very much.
Any recommendations (funny and serious ones welcome)?
Any recommendations (funny and serious ones welcome)?
It is expensive and only marginally effective so make sure the ash is worth attempting to save. I have an ash that I will be taking down at the first sign or EAB because it just isn't worth the money to save. I have even considered starting another tree nearby so I have a head start on its replacement.
I'm in the same boat. One ash needs to go. Trying to decide if I should try to treat the other.
My tree is in the sweet zone right now that it is large enough to shade my roof-line, but not big enough to make it really expensive to treat. It's probably a 14-16" DBH and 40 feet tall. With Tru-Green, it penciled out to be about $100/yr to "protect".
I will be starting some trees in the right-of-way though for when this one needs to come down.
I'm dealing with the same issue. I'm cutting out a few roots at a time from different zones of the root growth. It'll take forever but won't harm the trees. Also, make sure there's mulch around the base of the tree so that the roots have there own area where they are not competing for water with the grass. Another issue is foot traffic weighing down on the ground. This one's pretty difficult to avoid when you have kids and you're not a yard nazi.
Is there a service where they come out, look at your lawn, then present you with a plan of how they can make it look better? We've tried TrueGreen and we tried Wright Outdoor. I feel like they stop out once a month, kill some weeds, then wait until the weeds are back. I've got several dead patches in my lawn and lots of rough areas where they did a horrible job laying sod. Weed control is fine, but I need someone to help me get a better looking lawn.
I aerated once and won't ever do it again. It made such a mess. Also, our ground is pretty sandy so it's not terribly necessary in our area.
Yeah, that part is never going to work for me. We have a roving pack of children migrating from house to house pretty much every day, weather permitting. I came home the other day and there were nearly 20 kids, some who I'd never seen before, playing mostly in my yard. 4 in the tree I referenced.
I need to remember to go to town with aerating and seeding this fall. Probably too late to do a lot of good this spring/summer.
Was this actually nearly 20 or more of a Hines "nearly 20"?
Mine is not the coring type so it may not work as well but I don't anticipate having all of those dirt chunks all over the yard if that is what you are referring to.
Anybody got a recommendation on something to kill crabgrass without killing anything else? I'm pretty happy with my yard but I do have some crabgrass issues I can't seem to get a handle on short of just pulling it out by hand.
One time I came back home late at night from a business trip and my yard looked awful. I noticed an envelope on the door with a $125 bill for aerating and over seeding from my lawn care company. I called them the next day and said it was nice of them but I never asked for it and had no intention of paying for it. Pretty sure they just did it and assumed I would pay them. I got rid of them the next year.
Well there were 3 boys from my house, 4 boys from one neighbor, one from the other, 3 kids from the end of the street, one from two doors down, two from around the block, 1 from across the street that I've never seen before, 2 from a block away that I've only seen maybe once, 1 little blonds **** from a few across the block who ticks me off, so that all adds up to...
18 that I can remember. I think there was another kid or two who my neighbor watches during the day as well, so it might have been an even 20.
What is Hines nearly 20?
