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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:It wouldn't make a ton more smoke than someone burning leaves. Burning leaves has been illegal everywhere I've lived since at least 1990. I, too, loved the smell.
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Aug 28, 2023 21:47
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Arsenic Lupin posted:And Motronic will be right here to help you with that! Ha! I literally just walked back into the barn from mowing this year's wildflower experiment. Well, topping I guess....I had the brush mower at about 12-14" and topped some taller weeds before the dropped seedpods and was able to keep above most of the flowers. It's completely different than it was in the spring as far as varieties in bloom. Should be different next year as well since I know I have some that will not bloom until they've been through a frost and some biennials. Some sections are looking pretty overrun with unwanted weeds. Lots of moncots, grassy crap like tall fescue and creeping bentgrass. I may be able to find a selective herbicide for those, but I'm going to see if I can't cultivate my way out of this with the right timing and fertilizer applications so I can get my desired plantings to outcompete in the problem areas. This section is nice and representative of the 4 major things that are up now. Clover, buttercup, black eyed susan and whatever the blue/purple stuff is. Maybe some kind of prunella vulgaris. 
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Aug 28, 2023 21:53
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Every block has "that house" on it, which is the most lovely or run down. That's my house! Update post on trying to deshitify my front lawn. Before picture. Fun fact! The hedges in the front were used as a stash by the local drug dealers. I would sometimes find little baggies of fentanyl in them when trimming them. The drug dealer went to jail recently, so no baggies have been found this summer.  And after. Someone here suggested a creeping juniper. I picked that because my neighborhood has many bad dog owners as well as reckless wildlife like deers and moose that eat everything. So I got 6 calgary carpet creeping junipers along with a cubic yard of mulch. 
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Aug 29, 2023 00:32
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What are the odd little circles in the lawn? Alien landing spots? The world's smallest crop circles?
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Aug 29, 2023 01:58
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They're circular stepping stones that lead into a dead end at the side of the property. I'm pretty sure the previous owners did meth, which explains many of the odd choices throughout the home and garden.
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Aug 29, 2023 02:04
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Supposing I wanted to set up a drip irrigation system, but for reasons not worth wasting 1s and 0s on, I don't want to permanently run distribution tubing. Can I just attach the head unit to a stake near the destination and run a garden hose out to it when needed? As long as I keep the inlet capped I can't see any reason why this would be a problem.
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Aug 29, 2023 14:54
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Discussion Quorum posted:Supposing I wanted to set up a drip irrigation system, but for reasons not worth wasting 1s and 0s on, I don't want to permanently run distribution tubing. Can I just attach the head unit to a stake near the destination and run a garden hose out to it when needed? Yeah. There are timers/pressure reducer/backflow valve combos that are literally meant for this and come with the spike an everything.
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Aug 29, 2023 15:55
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That would actually be perfect. Do you have an example or magic keyword? Searching for anything drip irrigation with the word "stake" or "riser" gives me tons of irrelevant results.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:48
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Discussion Quorum posted:That would actually be perfect. Do you have an example or magic keyword? Searching for anything drip irrigation with the word "stake" or "riser" gives me tons of irrelevant results. This place used to have them: https://www.dripirrigation.com/ but I don't see them anymore. I did some quick searches and am finding that a lot of the old simple combo timers have been replaced with a bunch of bluetooth/wifi/whatever garbage. Disappointing. I'm not saying the don't exist at all anymore, but 5 minutes of searching didn't lead me to any so this may just be a product that doesn't exist anymore. Progress!
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Aug 29, 2023 20:46
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A few of Orbit's BHyve controllers, like the XD Smart Hose Timer, can still be used as fully dumb devices if you prefer. The newer/cheaper ones lack any meaningful physical interface so they have to be used via the app.
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Aug 29, 2023 22:28
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Speaking of apps and sprinklers, I have a sprinkler system from the previous owner that’s connected to its own little well. The controller works fine, but it’s annoying to have to remember to go to the garage to turn it off if rain is in the forecast. Does anyone have a recommendation for a more modern controller, hopefully HomeKit enabled, but that at least I can use an app with?
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Aug 29, 2023 22:51
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FAT32 SHAMER posted:Speaking of apps and sprinklers, I have a sprinkler system from the previous owner that’s connected to its own little well. The controller works fine, but it’s annoying to have to remember to go to the garage to turn it off if rain is in the forecast. Does anyone have a recommendation for a more modern controller, hopefully HomeKit enabled, but that at least I can use an app with? What make/model? It might be stupid simple and cheap to add a rain sensor to it. They're very common and have been for a long time.
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Aug 29, 2023 23:35
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FAT32 SHAMER posted:Speaking of apps and sprinklers, I have a sprinkler system from the previous owner that’s connected to its own little well. The controller works fine, but it’s annoying to have to remember to go to the garage to turn it off if rain is in the forecast. Does anyone have a recommendation for a more modern controller, hopefully HomeKit enabled, but that at least I can use an app with? We had a Rachio, and it worked beautifully. Dry weather, it sprinkled, wet weather it didn't. My major complaint was that you couldn't say "I want N gallons" or even "I want N% pressure for 10 minutes", but you had to say "It's a 60% slope in shade", then lie to it until you got the degree of wetness you wanted. Then I left the house for the realtors to fix up. I warned them that whoever did renovations -- flooring, paint, whatever -- had to plug the router back in afterward, or the garden would die. Guess what happened. They called me in a panic two days before the open house to ask what they could do about all the dead sod they'd put in two weeks before. I said nothing but spraypaint.
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Aug 30, 2023 00:41
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Motronic posted:What make/model? It might be stupid simple and cheap to add a rain sensor to it. They're very common and have been for a long time. It’s an Irratol total control, as far as I can tell Arsenic Lupin posted:We had a Rachio, and it worked beautifully. Dry weather, it sprinkled, wet weather it didn't. My major complaint was that you couldn't say "I want N gallons" or even "I want N% pressure for 10 minutes", but you had to say "It's a 60% slope in shade", then lie to it until you got the degree of wetness you wanted. Wait, are their products that exist that can water until ½” is applied to each zone? I have to calibrate mine in the spring and it sounded beyond annoying
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Aug 30, 2023 00:56
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FAT32 SHAMER posted:It’s an Irratol total control, as far as I can tell
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Aug 30, 2023 01:10
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Has anyone tried any of the big box less than $2k chippers? Or am I better just to get a rental of a big Vermeer for a weekend? I potentially have a lot of chipping, but not sure I can justify an expensive chipper.
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Sep 1, 2023 14:55
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Yooper posted:Has anyone tried any of the big box less than $2k chippers? Or am I better just to get a rental of a big Vermeer for a weekend? I potentially have a lot of chipping, but not sure I can justify an expensive chipper. What will work or won't work depends entirely on what you have to chip and how much work you're willing to do limbing stuff/cutting things down to smaller sizes. There are three major things to look for in a chipper, the first two matter more than the other for a home gamer. - Size: what's the largest opening? If it's a 4" remember this means you'll need to fully cut all the slash off of 4" stalks to get it through. It also means a lot of bending and fighting to get your slash through especially if it's lacking: - Feed: automatic feed that's going tp pull thing in and through, or "gravity" where you have to shove it. You can make it work with slash, but you're gonna be doing a lot of work and need pusher sticks, etc on the smaller ones to clear and re-start leaf clogs, etc. - Speed: least important for home gamer. This is largely related to how heavy the flywheel is. Most man portable ones are slow because they want to cut down on weight. The flywheel is the obvious place. Lighter flywheel, faster speed reduction on chipping/feeding. So you'll have to go slower and wait for it to spin back up more.
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Sep 1, 2023 15:38
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Motronic posted:
That's a great point, I really don't want to limb Buckthorn as it's nothing but limbs. I'll get the monster chipper for a weekend, thanks!
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Sep 1, 2023 18:37
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This seems like a good place to ask for a recommendation for a 4-port hose manifold and maybe a good brand of hose-end quick-connect fitting system. There are tons of "cheap" options (which aren't necessarily that much cheaper) out there from home improvement stores or no-name companies on Amazon, but I'd like something that won't turn into a leaky piece of poo poo right away. I was looking at this Claber (which ticks both boxes) or this Melnor manifold but it's hard to find long-term reviews of this kind of thing.
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Sep 1, 2023 20:11
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Everything I’ve read points to Eley making the highest quality and best quick connect fittings, but I haven’t actually gotten around to buying any to find out
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Sep 1, 2023 20:49
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FAT32 SHAMER posted:Everything I’ve read points to Eley making the highest quality and best quick connect fittings, but I haven’t actually gotten around to buying any to find out I’ve had them for a couple of years now. They’re great. They’re huge so they don’t limit the flow like cheap ones. No leaks, serviceable o-rings.
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Sep 1, 2023 21:25
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It's time for post-emergent turf applications here in 6b. I've decided that this year/next year it's time to correct my lack of doing much of anything other than fall nitrogen for the last two. I'm being overrun with various crab grasses in the back (full sun) and violet-type low growth and purslane in the shady sections up front. I know for a fact that my pH is low, just not exactly how low yet (soil samples will be sent off to the extension lab shortly). My basic management plan for the fall is to burn out all of the broadleaf weeds and as much of the crabgrass as possible as soon as possible, then I'll dethatch/rake, core aerate, drag to break up the cores and over seed/heavy seed in the areas where I've burnt out space from the weeds. I'm not sure what seed varieties I'm gonna use yet, but that can wait. Right now I need to start burning down the weeds before it's back in the 90s next week, because my preferred stuff for this are all esters. I'm gonna try to do all of the herbicides in one load. Here's what the spray calculator spit out: quote:INPUT SUMMARY I'm currently following the label instructions for Drive to do a compatibility test:    .....and as I've been tying this out the 15 minutes is up. It didn't break the emulsion, even though it looked like it was going to or going to precipitate badly when I added the Crossbow to the water and Drive mixture. A little bit of lighter stuff settled out on the bottom, but that's expected since not all of this stuff is entirely water soluble and you are warned that you need tank agitation. Anyway, looks like this is going to work, even with my hard well water which sometimes can cause problems for mixes like this.
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Sep 1, 2023 21:34
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Violets are awesome. 
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Sep 1, 2023 21:40
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Motronic posted:It's time for post-emergent turf applications here in 6b. I've decided that this year/next year it's time to correct my lack of doing much of anything other than fall nitrogen for the last two. I'm being overrun with various crab grasses in the back (full sun) and violet-type low growth and purslane in the shady sections up front. I know for a fact that my pH is low, just not exactly how low yet (soil samples will be sent off to the extension lab shortly). Oh poo poo ok, I think we have the same turf interests and similar climate (6a) I bought some quinclorac, mossEx, and whatever the tri- stuff is for clover since what I thought was probably a broader grass from Scot’s ezseed turns out ro be crab grass. I was gonna spring for the fancy pantsy sublime and drivexlr8 but then I realised most of this will die in the cold, so might as well see if what I have does enough work for me to spray tomorrow and then next weekend dethatch, core aerate, and overseed on the heavy side Planning on using tall fescue and hoping my carpets of moss go away between the mossEx and core aeration I know it’s generally recommended to let the cores sit on top or break them up with a scarifier, but in heavily compacted and wet soil, is it worth picking them up so you don’t have the same problem later?
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Sep 1, 2023 22:52
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FAT32 SHAMER posted:fancy pantsy sublime and drivexlr8 but then I realised most of this will die in the cold It absolutely will. And you can put down a pre emergent in the spring to stop the seed it drops. That's the better way to do this, but I have enough that what I'm doing is a corrective measure: I'm trying to burn it out to make bare dirt space for a fall grass seed planting. Then I will also do the preemergent in the spring, probably 2 applications. After that, we're on cultural controls rather than herbicides.....hopefully, if all goes well. FAT32 SHAMER posted:so might as well see if what I have does enough work for me to spray tomorrow and then next weekend dethatch, core aerate, and overseed on the heavy side Sounds like a good plan, we're just doing slightly different things and you are also fighting with moss, which I'm not. FAT32 SHAMER posted:I know it’s generally recommended to let the cores sit on top or break them up with a scarifier, but in heavily compacted and wet soil, is it worth picking them up so you don’t have the same problem later? I certainly wouldn't bother picking up cores here with my clay soil. There's just more clay soil......... I also don't bother breaking them up unless I'm going to over seed. The point for me is that I'm making some decent soil for soil contact with the seed. Years where I don't over seed I just core aerate and leave them. Before dropping any lime. I've been told by multiple ag extension peeps that the looser soil and even the core aeration holes help a lot with retaining the lime and getting it to work better/faster. Motronic fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Sep 1, 2023 |
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Sep 1, 2023 23:09
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I will know I have gone to Heaven* if there's no clay in the soil. * not betting on it
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Sep 3, 2023 06:36
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I will know I have gone to Heaven* if there's no clay in the soil.
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Sep 3, 2023 13:31
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So I've got this little strip between my driveway and my neighbor's fence: It's pretty dead right now because it hasn't rained since we moved in two months ago (and really hadn't rained much before that either - we are firmly in D3 drought intensity in my part of SE Texas, and D4 is creeping our way). Also I hit some of the bigger paspalums with a spot shot of glyphosate, just to see if it would actually work in this heat (it did!). But other than a lone purslane at the far end, it's just a bunch of grassy weeds. I was thinking of taking this down to dirt and seeding a native wildflower mix this fall - something like this - and seeing what grows. Thanks to the weather I have no idea how this patch is when it rains. Our soil is poorly draining clay - maybe it dries out quickly from the heat of the pavement, maybe it stays mucky, right now you could throw a coconut at the ground and the coconut would lose. Given that, I think the mix will give a better chance of finding something that likes it there. It's shaded in the morning but gets blasted by the midday sun (driveway runs N-S, this pic is facing north). I am not expecting a lush meadow in my eight-inch strip of dirt, but would like it to be nicer and maybe a little useful to the pollinators. is there anything else I should consider? It does widen out a bit as it continues outside the frame, ending up at about 3 feet near the garage where I may try to plant some native bunching grass, wild-type sunflowers, and/or milkweed.
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Sep 3, 2023 17:32
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Why not just hit it with the weedeater and get a clean edge showing on your concrete?
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Sep 3, 2023 17:53
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Yeah sure I could do that, but I like native plants and am looking for excuses to cram in more Right now nobody cares about a bit of scrubbiness because there are people with a whole-rear end dead lawn, and that was before we got watering restrictions e: gently caress it, it's like $7 in seeds to cover this area, kind of silly to overthink it Discussion Quorum fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Sep 3, 2023 17:58
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About the only thing I'd say is avoid anything that will spread with like rhizomes or similar. They might creep into the neighbor's yard and they may not like it. So yeah just check if any of them are aggressively spreading from roots and act accordingly.
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Sep 3, 2023 22:30
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Discussion Quorum posted:So I've got this little strip between my driveway and my neighbor's fence: If it were my house, I'd be looking at something like mondo grass/liriope (maybe not if it gets alot of sun), agapanthus, daylilies, crinums, maybe phlox or plumbago (butterflies loooove both) but they can get big. Basically something that will grow leaves that look okay, grows some flowers occasionally, and most importantly, has enough foliage to suppress weeds and roots to hold the dirt in place. IDK your climate exactly (I'm on the very wet northern Gulf Coast), but agapanthus are great for that kind of space. Drought tolerant, they like tight spaces and actually bloom better when crowded. The foliage will die back with a hard freeze, but in mild winters it usually doesn't. You could plant other spring/fall blooming bulbs in among them too. If spider lillies (Lycoris) grow well in your area, they are great because they bloom in fall and have leaves all winter when the agapanthus might not. Oxblood lilies and naked ladies are similar too. If you don't mind something bigger but want really seriously tough as nails, crinum lillies are awesome. There are a million kinds that bloom at different times/different colors and they are nigh indestructible. Plenty of them are growing in long abandoned cemeteries and homesteads, and pretty drought tolerant as well. If you want to stick with native stuff and a more meadowy look, there are perennial sunflowers, coneflowers, and asters you might look into mixing. I've had great luck ordering from here: http://www.marysgardenpatch.com/bulbs-for-the-south IIRC they are in Texas, but in any case they are very aware of the challenges of the southern climate. They sell bushels of daylillies etc for cheap, if you want to fill up a large area all at once. I don't have personal experience with this place, but they are Texas-based and focus on tough heirloom bulbs. https://www.southernbulbs.com/ I have a book around here somewhere called 'Bulbs for the South' that I think was written by a Texas-based author and I know it has more info and sources if you want more info. E:looking at your pic, I would actually just fill that with landscape fabric topped with gravel or just some bricks and roundup it twice a year. That's kind of an obnoxiously tiny space. I have a similar situation that has grass on it (though its a good bit wider) and I hate it. Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 02:32
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:E:looking at your pic, I would actually just fill that with landscape fabric topped with gravel or just some bricks and roundup it twice a year. That's kind of an obnoxiously tiny space. I have a similar situation that has grass on it (though its a good bit wider) and I hate it. Yeah, so about this: I took the weedeater out and scalped it. It's gravel! Not a layer of loose gravel though, It's packed/settled into the soil. It's a shame the fence is there or I would just torch it (after we get some rain). Was hoping I could plant something that could (mostly) crowd out the weeds, but you kinda confirmed my main worry. I'm renting for 2 years with a possible purchase at the end and permission to do basic landscaping - so I'm willing to do a bit more than the average renter in terms of deferred payoff, but anything that costs big money is staying in a container. Sowing $15 in seeds and waiting 3-6 months is fine. $25 of landscape fabric is acceptable. Planting 30 feet of agapanthus, based on the prices I see online, is a NOPE 
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Sep 4, 2023 03:23
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Agapanthus are one of those things where once you have a few agapanthus you have a perpetual and infinite supply of agapanthus because you can divide them every few years but they are a bit pricey to start if you want to instantly fill X space, yeah. They are a great pass-along plant though!
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Sep 4, 2023 03:49
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If I can find a few locally, I may try them up at the head of the driveway. There's less gravel there, and they may make a nice buffer by the wider portion, where I still plan to plant something more substantial (sunflowers probably). But yeah, 3-4 years per division is a bit longer of a time horizon than I may be in this house.
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Sep 4, 2023 04:34
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Ordered the prairie grass/wildflower mix today, and I’m gonna borrow a nice trimmer with blades attached from a friend and cut down and rake up all the tall grass this weekend. Then it’s time to mow as low as my mower can go and start spraying glyphosate + dye.
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Sep 8, 2023 01:03
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Anyone have an idea of how much it’d cost to pay someone to core aerate? I was going to rent the machine, and then I realised it weighs 300lbs, and I don’t have a trailer, so I’m looking at like $250 to rent one, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t something I can do in the spring in 6a or 6b or wherever I am
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Sep 8, 2023 01:32
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FAT32 SHAMER posted:Anyone have an idea of how much it’d cost to pay someone to core aerate? I was going to rent the machine, and then I realised it weighs 300lbs, and I don’t have a trailer, so I’m looking at like $250 to rent one, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t something I can do in the spring in 6a or 6b or wherever I am I paid someone $100 for my front and back yard on my quarter acre lot a couple years ago. Call around and see who's still available to get added to their routes, some were done offering aeration by this time of year.
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Sep 8, 2023 02:14
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A class 3 receiver and drop hitch is probably a tad excessive for the back of a zero turn and a 48" dethatcher, but the parts are cheap and readily available. Problem solved. This also solves the problem of the leaf cart egging out the stock hitch on the mower (which I kept welding washers to as sacrificial wear parts).
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Sep 9, 2023 21:11
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This might not be the correct thread to ask, but the house I’m renting is next to a business, with a chain link fence separating us. I was wondering if there are any temporary options for covering up the fence, that wouldn’t be super expensive? I’d rather not be able to see through the fence when in my backyard and vice versa.
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Sep 9, 2023 22:16
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