Saturday was fix-the-lawn day at the Dump Garage. We actually were only fixing a part of the lawn because we realized that our ability to successfully nurture grass seed to life would be limited by our ability to remember to water the lawn, and having to water different sections of lawn might be beyond our grasp. Right now we’ve got a decent-sized patch planted (I’m guessing 15′ x 10′ and the sprinkler is firmly in place. When Mr. Dump is done showering (and dressing, duh) and he lets the dog out, he turns it on. So now it will get watered every day. Once we see that area sprouting, we’ll patch up the next (smaller) area next to the driveway.
As we suspected from past experience (and friend-of-the-dump Kiddicus Maximus, ex-landscaper, confirmed) we have a hellish grub infestation. I dug up a couple of dandelions from the area we cleared and in there were 3-4 grubs just in that one tiny hole. (And yet, the dandelions were still alive. Go figure.)
I also cleared out my little flower garden, which was really a weed garden, so that only the strawberry plants were left. Four of them look pretty healthy, and have a bunch of flowers. I am going to have to dig them up and transplant them, because I apparently planted something last year that spreads faster than the dandelions, and that spot is useless for growing much of anything other than weeds. I’ll spend a short while making sure I pulled out everything that was there (I suspect new plants will appear in a few days. I’m telling you, whatever it was, it was spreading into the lawn, and I don’t remember what I planted) I’ll turn all that soil, throw some topsoil on it and figure out what, if anything, to plant there. Maybe a big cactus so it will be okay if I forget to water it.
Now Christine did way more more yard work than I did, so I won’t complain about the muscles in the back of my legs from all the weeding I did. I know when I’ve been bested…
I’m no hero, girl. I just got shamed by my mom. I will say I’m not so disgusted when I look out my front door. M cut the front and back grass, so he bested both of us.
Well, Mr. Dump had to cut the front and back lawn (and find and remove all dog bombs before doing the back lawn) AND he did a lot of the work on the reseeding. On the other hand, I cleaned the bathtub yesterday. 🙂
Yeah, most of my efforts were focused on the inside, because we had company coming. And not just any company — MY MOM. There’s no way I could cut grass w/o having an asthma attack, so M gets stuck with it. We found a dude to cut the grass, but his mower is in the shop.
I learned a valuable lesson this weeken: If you plant tons of sod from Home Depot, it will, of course, die no matter what you do. However, the following spring, the stuff will just come right up and you’ll have this nice rectangularish WEED-FREE area in which to plant grass so you can enjoy it die over the summer. I didn’t notice many of the usual grubs, but I did see a disturbing number (as in three or four) of these mutant brownish-red mega-grub-like mini-cigar-ish things, all pointing straight up and seemingly immobile until I poked at them, at which point they did gross grubbish things (like, they moved, ew).
I wonder if there’s any chance the earthworms will eat them? We have a ton of those (yay!).
from the sounds of everybody’s lawn issues, i should quit the boring desk job and open my own landscaping business.
If you’re going to turn the dirt, drop some compost down before you topsoil. Manure works too, but it smells (more) like… well… poop than compost does. If you have access to a roto-tiller or a mantis, i’d recommend using that to work the compost in to the pre-existing newly-turned-over dirt. The mixture thereof, topped with a bit of topsoil & mulched (if you’re feeling up to it) will produce a healthy and weed-free garden/flower bed.
those giant brownish-red mutant grubs are basicall just that. Unfortunately, nothing will eat them and they will eat everthing green and desirable in your yard. Somehow those damn bugs are selective enough not to eat the weeds – smart little buggers.
Well my lawn looks the best it has in some time now that I did the grub killing thing along with regular fertilizer/lime. Now I have to find out when I should fire another shot at the grubs. Not sure if it’s yearly or just couple times a year etc..
This is a good reason to live in the city … well, there are some grubby people, but no grubs and no lawn.