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SpartanIvy posted:Your before is even better than my year after I can post a picture of my current one, it will make you feel infinitely better. Looks like the Sahara
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Aug 22, 2019 22:17
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I had an area that seemed really dry, I found one sprinkler wasn't getting the distance to really water so I swapped it for another nozzle. That's when I found out that the zone wasn't even set to water in the first place.
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Aug 22, 2019 22:20
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Don't hire TruGreen to spraypaint your lawn. Hire a real landscaping company to come out and handle it for the same $1000/year. (Maybe $1500/year.)
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Aug 22, 2019 22:50
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get rid of your lawn this is what mcmansion hell lady had to say about them https://www.curbed.com/2019/3/13/18262285/mcmansion-hell-kate-wagner-lawn-care-mowing Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Aug 22, 2019 |
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Aug 22, 2019 23:31
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I'm strongly in favor of everyone else getting rid of their lawn, for sure.
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Aug 22, 2019 23:35
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Sirotan posted:Looks like you can just go full clover too: clover is the best because it tucks itself in for sleep at night and it's the cutest thing
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Aug 22, 2019 23:39
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legit clover is symbiotic with grass, it fixes nitrogen and acts as a natural fertilizer, if you must have a grass lawn seed it with clover and that'll make it a better grass lawn
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Aug 22, 2019 23:41
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that sure as hell cuts down on the Spectracide budget.
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Aug 22, 2019 23:48
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Go ahead, be the weirdo in the neighborhood that either terrascapes their lawn, installs turf, or converts it to a garden. Although I agree that lawns are such an opulent luxury under the radar. The time and money to maintain it is such a bougie thing that is given to the masses. E: although i do love the smell of fresh cut grass and the look of a fresh edging
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Aug 23, 2019 01:16
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Medullah posted:I'm bad at lawns too, and I'm in a house where it sort of matters. Anyone have a "here's the basics of lawn care" website or something? I already let the lawn get nuked in the heat so 30% of it is brown, so I'm expecting it's done for the summer and I should focus on Fall prep If you have brown spots, then those spots probably just aren't getting enough water. Less rain and hotter days == less water available for your grass. You can either accept having some brown patches, provide more water to the brown areas (use a hose, alter the irrigation system to water those areas more frequently, etc), or strategically landscape around those areas; for instance you could set up a nice little rock path or some pavers that go over areas that go brown first, then you don't have to alter how much water you add. Or you could rip out your entire lawn because grass is bad and stupid (I have not removed my lawn yet; little by little I am converting my back yard into garden boxes, which the local bees and butterflies love, and trees, including a very young avocado tree that probably won't even bear fruit before I've moved to some other house, but it's fine because the world needs more avocados) occasional fertilization can also help; healthy root systems can absorb water from a greater volume of dirt more effectively, but if your soil conditions are already good then it won't matter. You can buy soil test kits at any hardware store TraderStav posted:Go ahead, be the weirdo in the neighborhood that either terrascapes their lawn, installs turf, or converts it to a garden. There are really good alternatives, xeriscaping can produce something that looks very nice and often consists of mostly local plants to keep maintenance cost and effort way down.
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Aug 23, 2019 01:45
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I did some homework on artificial turf and it seemed TERRIBLE for a few reasons -Incredibly expensive, like $10k to $30k for a small to moderate yard -It doesn't last very long -Horrible for the environment since it all ends up in a landfill for 10,000 years Also if you have a dog and it pees on the turf, you have to water it with a hose and worry your neighbor is going to see you and think you had a stroke.
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Aug 23, 2019 01:49
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Also like anything else that has a bunch of small crevices, it will accumulate dirt and weeds will start growing in the dirt. So you'll have to weed your fake grass, or spray herbicides on it.
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Aug 23, 2019 01:51
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yeah don't get artificial turf, what a phenomenally stupid product for anything that's not like a minigolf course
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Aug 23, 2019 01:58
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You can have my lawn when you pry it from my hot dead yard.
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Aug 23, 2019 02:01
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Yeah my lawn is connected to my neighbors lawns so I doubt I'd get away with ripping it out. And yeah, I know the brown spots came from lack of water. We had a ton of rain and then scorching heat and I didn't even realize it was as bad as it was. I've been watering it pretty heavily since and it's come back a bit but still very dead.
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Aug 23, 2019 02:08
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Super unfair to hear that over-watered lawns mimic the appearance of under-watered lawns???
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Aug 23, 2019 02:14
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I'm in the Sacramento, CA area and xeriscaped my front yard a few years ago with decomposed granite, rocks, olive trees, agave, yucca, lavender, sage, various grasses etc and it looks excellent. You have to do it right though, and let stuff grow in. There is still maintenance involved, but it mostly involves hunting down weeds, trimming and replacing plants that crap out and replacing irrigation bits as needed. In the backyard, I did a regular lawn using Bolero dwarf fescue grass, but cut down the size considerably after doing some leveling and planting and using more stones and mulch. 
Keyser_Soze fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Aug 23, 2019 |
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Aug 23, 2019 02:23
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Keyser_Soze posted:I'm in the Sacramento, CA area and xeriscaped my front yard a few years ago with decomposed granite, rocks, olive trees, agave, yucca, lavender, sage, various grasses etc and it looks excellent. You have to do it right though, and let stuff grow in. There is still maintenance involved, but it mostly involves hunting down weeds, trimming and replacing plants that crap out and replacing irrigation bits as needed. Lawns are dumb but what's even more loving dumb is areas where it's illegal to have anything but grass/turf covering your front lawn, like my city. Your yard looks great btw.
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Aug 23, 2019 02:45
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Medullah posted:Yeah my lawn is connected to my neighbors lawns so I doubt I'd get away with ripping it out. You can do whatever you want within your property lines and within what's permissible by the HOA, if you have one There are a billion yards out there where a turf lawn turns into something else, it's completely fine to rip that poo poo out and put something else there
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Aug 23, 2019 03:38
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This is 1 year of lawn improvement in my front yard.  I still need to fix the drainage issues that are apparent in the first picture, and I literally just bought an edger last weekend so hopefully I can get my sidewalk edge figured out. Also it's significantly less green now that the 100+ degree sun is out in full force for the summer.
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Aug 23, 2019 05:46
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There's an area of my front yard that is nominally "lawn" in that there was grass there when I moved in almost 10 years ago. It grows some weeds in the spring and I mow the weeds. Our intention is to replace it with native plants, but that's had to take a lower priority than the dozens of other things we need to do to our poor neglected house. Anyhoo yeah natives are awesome because they're already adapted to your climate so it cuts way the gently caress back on how much you have to constantly work just to keep the stupid plants alive, and plus they also attract like local songbirds and native pollinators and butterflies and stuff. We went on a native gardens tour in our area a few years ago (self-guided, you just go to the website and dozens of people register and you just go to their houses and check out their yards, it's pretty cool) and saw a ton of different approaches to it. Most gardens still had a few non-native things, especially stuff like fruit trees. My wife and I aren't 100% on the same page as to what we are gonna put in, though. For example I really like the ceanothus bushes but she is leaning more towards sage. We agree on milkweed, maybe some smaller varieties of manzanita, buckwheat, and maybe some kind of sedge.
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Aug 23, 2019 07:14
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Leperflesh posted:My wife and I aren't 100% on the same page as to what we are gonna put in, though. For example I really like the ceanothus bushes but she is leaning more towards sage. We agree on milkweed, maybe some smaller varieties of manzanita, buckwheat, and maybe some kind of sedge. We are slowly working on our privacy buckwheat in the front yard. It's great and gets tons of bees. And if you ever have to hack through it to replace a water main it will be back to its usual self in a year or so. We over water it but whatever. It's about 3' deep at this point.
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Aug 23, 2019 07:22
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I’ve basically given up on a good yard until I have less than three dogs. I am losing a lot of soil in some spots and need to fix the grading this weekend.
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Aug 23, 2019 12:43
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Keyser_Soze posted:I'm in the Sacramento, CA area and xeriscaped my front yard a few years ago with decomposed granite, rocks, olive trees, agave, yucca, lavender, sage, various grasses etc and it looks excellent. You have to do it right though, and let stuff grow in. There is still maintenance involved, but it mostly involves hunting down weeds, trimming and replacing plants that crap out and replacing irrigation bits as needed. your lawn/landscaping looks great and I'm envious, but FYI I hate your spotlights. I mean those little path lights that shine down are one thing, but people need to knock it off with these massive lighting systems that throw light up in to the air. Our neighbors have a bunch of those in their backyard that stay on all night long and shine in to our windows. Not our bedroom, but it's still annoying, especially in winter when the trees drop their leaves so there's nothing blocking the light. And oh god I hate Christmas time when for some reason people in the south put a wreath on every window and then put on 10 billion lumen spotlights pointing at them so that everyone on the ISS can see the wreaths. I hate light pollution.
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Aug 23, 2019 13:08
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I just let my yard grow whatever and mow it when it's getting high. It's a motley collection of stuff but I don't care, and I'm not pouring water and money onto a yard. At some point I'll get more focused on it and actually landscape some native plants but for now it's just thunderdome and whatever can make it gets to stay.
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Aug 23, 2019 13:23
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DaveSauce posted:your lawn/landscaping looks great and I'm envious, but FYI I hate your spotlights. haha....they are not that bright in reality, basically the low voltage LED Home Depot "8 footers" with a 300w transformer/timer and the light sensor turns them on at dark and then a timer kicks them off right at 11pm and then the even lower light solar lights take over. I would also advise everyone to just skip the weed barrier fabric stuff, especially if you are going to have mulch on top of it. I had to tear most of it up that the landscaper put down in the backyard as various things tried to pop up into it, I had to repair/re-route irrigation for new plantings, etc. It also seemed to hot-box the soil underneath and grow a bunch of mushrooms and poo poo that were killing some new plants. The mulch needs to interact with the soil and breathe, especially if you have lovely clay a foot down like I do. 
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Aug 23, 2019 20:06
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Keyser_Soze posted:especially if you have lovely clay a foot down like I do. Nice humblebrag. I'm lucky to have 4" of topsoil.
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Aug 23, 2019 20:21
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Ashcans posted:I just let my yard grow whatever and mow it when it's getting high. It's a motley collection of stuff but I don't care, and I'm not pouring water and money onto a yard. At some point I'll get more focused on it and actually landscape some native plants but for now it's just thunderdome and whatever can make it gets to stay. I am jealous
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Aug 23, 2019 21:01
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It must be nice living somewhere where the absence of care results in lush wildlife and not a barren desert wasteland.
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Aug 23, 2019 21:02
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Motronic posted:Nice humblebrag. I had 10 yards of lovely soil removed from that backyard to level it and amended it with 3 yds of topsoil/2 yds of planters mix stuff - that helped a ton! They roto-tilled it and added the new stuff. It started off looking much like an abandoned WW1 battlefield. 
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Aug 23, 2019 21:39
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Keyser_Soze posted:I had 10 yards of lovely soil removed from that backyard to level it and amended it with 3 yds of topsoil/2 yds of planters mix stuff - that helped a ton! They roto-tilled it and added the new stuff. Ohhhh....I know that look. You're in a development aren't you? That's the "we sold off the topsoil after we graded" look that so many developments around here have. For me this is just geography. In fact, it has it's own soil classification: https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/D/DOYLESTOWN.html A few inches of top, a few inches to a foot or two of clay, and then BAM, shale. When i first moved here I was trying to use a post hold digger in my yard. My neighbor came by with a spare digging bar and said "welcome to Plumstead, here's you digging bar." I think all new neighbors should receive this necessary gift.
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Aug 23, 2019 21:49
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Where I am at in Roseville, CA - there are massive amounts of red clay stuff. I'm not sure what they did for topsoil back in 1980 when it was built, but the backyard had a 5 foot slope to the house from the back fence and many failed coverup attempts over the years to address it. A lot of the mess of my yard was from me letting it go to poo poo the year prior in prep and flinging rocky mud around having trenches dug to run new water supplies over to the other side of the yard, digging new drainage trenches by the patio/house, etc. I was lucky and found a contractor that sublet out the job to some smaller guys but also let me do all the materials ordering/delivery which saved me a ton. Most contractors either walked away from the job after looking at the site, never bothered to submit a bid, or gave me an annoyance one of $38k or similar. I got it done for $12k + $7k materials. It looked better when I bought it in 2014 below, but all the probs were there and just waiting for some rain. There was minimal drainage and the old drainage stone was 20 yrs old and just filled with mud as were the old drain tubes. Now it drains from multiple places in the yard all the way out to the front yard.  Now it's time to start saving up for a new roof, mine is disintegrating pretty badly and the inspector said it had about 5 years left (5 years ago)! 
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Aug 23, 2019 22:16
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Keyser_Soze posted:I'm not sure what they did for topsoil back in 1980 when it was built Whoever was working the equipment during grading was selling it off to people like me when I was a landscaper back in the 90s around here. Show up with a triaxle, a six pack and $20, leave with a triaxle full of top.
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Aug 23, 2019 22:26
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Keyser_Soze posted:Where I am at in Roseville, CA How's living in Roseville now? I grew up as a teenager there (hated it) and moved out and never really went back. Any better as an adult / home owner?
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Aug 23, 2019 22:44
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Medullah posted:Have you gone there 3 times in one day yet? My record is five separate trips in a single day. I think I’ve done six in 24hrs though.
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Aug 23, 2019 22:48
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Motronic posted:For me this is just geography. In fact, it has it's own soil classification: https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/D/DOYLESTOWN.html quote:mesic Typic Fragiaqualfs https://sites.google.com/site/dinpuithai/Home/taxonomy/j-alfisols/ja/jae/jaee quote:JAEE. Typic Fragiaqualfs.—The central concept or Typic subgroup of Fragiaqualfs is fixed on soils that have dominantly low chroma in all horizons between the fragipan and the plow layer, if one occurs, and that have a color value in the plow layer that is lighter than that of an umbric epipedon. Typic Fragiaqualfs have less than 5 percent (by volume) plinthite in all subhorizons within 150 cm of the mineral soil surface and have less than 25 percent (by volume) recognizable bioturbation, such as filled animal burrows, wormholes, or casts, in all subhorizons at least 25 cm thick (cumulative) within 100 cm of the mineral soil surface. These soils are nearly level and are saturated for long periods in winter and early spring. Most Typic Fragiaqualfs in the United States are in the Central and Northeastern States. Typic Fragiaqualfs are of moderate extent. Most of them have been cleared and are used as cropland. Artificial drainage is difficult, however, and some of the soils are used as pasture or are in forests. nice
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Aug 23, 2019 22:54
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Leperflesh posted:Fragiaqualfs Good point. MODS! Name change! (no....please don't)
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Aug 23, 2019 23:13
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My houses backyard has uncharacteristically deep soil for Texas. Usually it's clay and rock just below the the first few inches, but when I had grounding rods put in, the guys were able to push them by hand the first 6 feet in. It might explain why I have some giant gently caress-off trees back there too.
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Aug 23, 2019 23:13
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Motronic posted:Nice humblebrag. Dude, lucky - our front lawn has 3” of topsoil and then the clay starts. Like so much clay that you could dig out a shovel load of dirt and make a pottery out of it. But the grass still grows and is lusciously green because it’s still pretty good soil and it won’t stop loving raining (and flooding our basement). Anyone know how they handled topsoil when they were carving out lots in the 1890s - 1910s? This was the time period during which our neighborhood was developed. If we do nothing with the land (which we haven’t been) it tries its hardest to turn back into forest and the weeds and creeper won’t loving stop. We have like five good-sized trees in our small backyard and I think four of them are volunteers. We also have moderate lead contamination in the backyard, which means the ground hasn’t turned over since the heyday of the steel mills. But despite contamination, it’s very nice soil (the folks at the garden center soil testing counter were like, “wow amazing soil too bad it’s full of lead”).
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Aug 24, 2019 00:39
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to be fair, grass is the first plant to colonize any niche anywhere, it's an amazing plant. It can grow in the cracks of a sidewalk very happily, so you don't need dick for "good soil" to grow some grass. And if you look at it that way, it's really telling us something that it can be so hard to maintain a nice lawn. it's telling us that most grass naturally grows, seeds, and then dies off, and having evergreen lawn is an affront to nature
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Aug 24, 2019 00:50
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