The official "get off my lawn" thread

I was thinking tits myself, but good call by the wife!

 

damn birds are comin after my grass seed...little buggers....lol

 

I saw the pic of the birds in the live thread. Yard looks good is that seed?

 

I keep my lawn in 'near-pristine' condition. My neighborhood has a lot of retired guys. You know, a leaf falls on the lawn at 2:31 PM - it gets picked up no later than 2:49 PM types. Further complicating the situation is we're on a corner lot. If I let things slide too much it is immediately apparent.

 

yep, put some down in the bare spots that you can't see from that angle.

 

I have some weeds in my yard that I really want to get rid of. It looks awful. We had a company spraying but it didn't seem like it was working very well and they charged an arm and a leg and weren't reliable. I want to get my lawn nice, green and weedless. Any suggestions on how to really get rid of them? i.e....weed killers and stuff!

 

Have you ruled out pulling them by hand, followed by reseeding? Some kds seem to like doing this chore

 

I've been walking different parts of mine since we moved in and pulling the big weeds by hand and just reseeded yesterday in hopes of smothering out the smaller ones.

 

I've got MOLES!!! What do I do?

 

pellet/bb gun, lawn chair, and a few beers?

 

I like where your going! Except you never see these bastards unless they are lying dead on your lawn. I think the neighborhood cat has gotten a few. They make poisons but......

 

Get rid of the grubs that the moles are eating. They actually sell a guillotine device that works well.

 

At this point in the summer it's almost too late to apply weed control products. Many of them are temperature sensitive and should not be applied when turf is drought stressed and/or daytime temps are above 85 degrees.

Find a local reputable spray company (NOT TRUGREEN! they're the biggest lawn company scam in our country. They're a marketing company who happens to do lawn applications). Doing it right isn't cheap. Trugreen will make your lawn really nice at first but they slowly taper off the applications and apply fert and herbicide at way less than label rate, then try to upsell you on applications you don't need such as fungicide and grub control. Fungicides and Insecticides should only be applied if really necessary. Most of the time fungii can be controlled by changing your fertilizer and water practices and never require the use of fungicides. Same with insects.

A spray company is never going to rid your lawn of weeds 100%. You'll always have a few that get past the pre-emgergent barrier. It's completely unrealistic to expect 100% eradication. Especially the broadleaf Fireweed/Pigweed because it grows in the thatch layer on top of the pre-em barrier. Just pull them by hand if you see them. I still get a few weeds here and there mostly fireweed and dog fennel, I just walk the lawn in the evening and I'll pull a couple weeds here and there that I see. My subdivision still has a bunch of empty lots and was built on a cow pasture so weeds are inevitable for me.

Lately I see a lot more dallisgrass around here (looks similar to crabgrass but grows very flat to the ground in a clump) since the EPA banned MSMA a few years ago. MSMA was awesome for post-emergent crabgrass and dallisgrass control. I usually just carefully paint the leaves with a little glyphosate (roundup) if I see it since the chemicals to treat it are really expensive and I don't have enough to treat to justify buying $150 in herbicide.

 

Not a lawn question per se...



Helping a friend out and putting down pavers and when prepping the base today, we discovered that one part of the soil is VERY wet (ie, you step on it and foot sinks ankle deep). The rest of the soil has dried out but this one spot. I'm thinking the rain gutter above it was leaking and the area is just extremely water-logged. Any idea how to fix this so we can finish his project tomorrow?

 

I'm getting my butt kicked by dandelions, and conveniently my upwind neighbor couldn't give 2 craps about their yard, or I should say their dandelion forest.
Here is the front.

Here is the back. Its kind of tore because of the dogs. I am going to section them off of it, just havent had time yet.

 

I've got three that don't care about there back yards

I didn't have a problem growing my yard from seed - put down both bermuda and centipede - and they both grew great. But that was a few years ago and maybe the seed has changed

ME TOO!!!! and a completely destroyed back yard from the dogs digging trenches looking for the boogers

Wish I could use poison.... I tried some of that grub killer stuff and it didn't work, or I had too many to kill them all. I've been using some caster oil spray and pellets and can't tell yet if it's working.


Some of you guys have beautiful lawns / yards.

 

As stated already, remove their food source and they will leave, but not always. Try Juicy Fruit chewing gum in their holes/tunnels. Get it in without disturbing the area too much and DO NOT touch the gum with your hands, keep the wrapper on till u drop it. Or try a repellant, ultrasonic device or worse comes to worse, get some mole poison.

 

A free lawn tonic can be made by creating a compost pile of your food scraps (no meat or fats), grass clippings, leaves, weeds etc. Once your compost is established and you can take from it, fill a pillow case half full, tie the end closed and suspend the "tea-bag" in a 55 gal barrel of captured rain water for a few days. Build an elevated platform for the barrel under your favorite downspout and let it fill. Add a ball valve on the bottom and use it to attach a hose and sprinker head to fertilize the lawn.

 

lowes sells mole repellant

 

I use a repellant called mole max. It seems to work for a while. My neighbor across the street is super vigilant. So they seeken refuge at my place. Little pricks. My GSP thinks digging for them is quite a god time, until I find the holes.