I'm new here and looking for advice with my lawn. Last year I had a contractor put in my lawn. It's about 3/4 of an acre and all sun through the day. The original soil was 90% rock mixed with a little dirt. I live on a hill, by the way. I had wanted orchard grass in the back of the lawn with wildflowers and a regular lawn in the front. Well, the back got its wildflowers, but either the contractor or his helper got the other part mixed up. They put the lawn in the back with the wildflowers and the orchard grass in front. I really didn't want the tall grass in the front because we have ground wasps and ticks here, and I didn't want to have to walk through it. The contractor (who also only put 2" of topsoil over the entire yard) refuses to take responsibility for the mistake. He says the bags must have been mislabeled or stuff to that effect. Where's the rolling eye emoji here? In addition, his helper maybe made one pass over my yard with the seed and although from a distance it looked good growing in, if you walked out to look at it, there were big empty patches where no grass was growing. So this year I bit the bullet and decided not to water, hoping to kill everything. Everything is now brown and dry, except the weeds that have come up in the bare patches. I honestly think everything has gone dormant and I'm afraid once the winter rains start, everything will grow again. So here are my questions: should I have the old grass and orchard grass rototilled and new seed planted and if so, should I do this in the fall or wait for next spring? I already have 240lbs of grass seed ready to go. And yes, I'd love to take this contractor to court for all this, but unfortunately, he's in charge of our well and water system up here. I'm afraid I'd just be lining myself up for continual fights about water usage and being charged extra for water. It doesn't help that I'm living only on Social Security and that I'm disabled to the point that anything that would have to be done, I'd have to hire someone to do. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I'd be very grateful. I'm still hoping to make a sort of meadow in the back, so suggestions for that would also be welcome. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and yes, this summer is without rain is awesome.
I have no idea. The last thing I care about is my grass. If it's green, it gets mowed short. No problem for me. Moles, if you have them, they don't care about what kind of grass it is either. My suggestion is to make life easy on yourself and just keep it mowed.
Quite the dilemma! I think I would have it tilled after rainy season starts and the ground is tillable. Right now I imagine it must be as hard as a rock, and very difficult to till and get a good seed bed. I don't know if you can till 90% rock mixed with a little dirt. That doesn't seem possible to me. Once it's raining regularly again, the rains should also help your grass seed grow. Most likely there will be a lot of weeds too, but that's how it is unless you use a lot of herbicides intended for lawns. Meadows look easy and are environmental and pollinating insect friendly, but in my experience are a lot of hard work. Weeds take over, especially those gigantic shasta daisies, tansy ragwort, himalayan blackberry, and johnson grass. We finally gave up and just keep it mowed now. Tilling wasn't an option because it's on the septic tank drainage field.
I am sorry I have no advice, but I do have a ton of sympathy for your situation. Hang in there and remember...its only grass. Be thankful for the good blessing in your life
Daniel, the ground is always as hard as rock, although it's not quite as bad as the clay soil was when I lived in San Jose. There, you had to actually wait till it was raining before you could go plant something, or you'd break your arm or your shovel or something trying to dig holes. Anyway, up here now, I think the ground is tillable if it's done very shallowy - is that a word? It does have that 2" of top soil on it. I really don't have anyone to mow the lawn right now. My neighbors have been doing that for me when they mow theirs, but they'll be moving. Honestly, I was thinking that rather than put in some more meadow grass, I'd just put in the grass seed and wildflower seed I already have and just not mow at all. I mean, how tall can the grass get, anyway? OK, maybe don't answer that question. I'm planning on putting in raised beds in the front part of the lawn if or when I ever get a fence up so that will take up about half the yard anyway. The back part, that I wanted to be a meadow kind of lawn, would have just been there to look at. We already have those scourges of the PNW, Scotch broom and blackberry vines, trying to take over up here. I just paid someone this spring to go around the perimeter of my yard and pull out all the Scotch broom they could find and there was a lot. I may have to do that again next year to make sure it's all out. After that, it's just a case of watching it very closely. So yeah, I don't want any more tenacious weeds or even problem wildflowers getting a foothold. I haven't seen any moles, thank everything that moves! I already have a cat who thinks he's a super hunter and it's bad enough waking up in the morning with mice or rats or a bird on the floor. I surely do not want to see moles added to that! Unfortunately, Birdbreath is a stray who adopted me and he's apparently been an outdoor cat his entire life. I live in a dinky 200sqft trailer so trying to keep him in would be absolutely futile. Now if only he'd chase the &*(^% deer away. But from what people have been saying lately, we may already have a larger species of cat in the neighborhood that will do that! By the way, Birdbreath's official name is Shadow because I think he goes through walls.
One thing to be careful about is wildfire risk. I think the recommendation is to keep grass under 4 inches tall. That is what pops out of my memory, anyway. Glad you have Shadow to keep you company!
@rodentraiser I'm already liking you a whole lot !! I hope you stick around. Your post are really fun to read !!
Well, grass is the least thing on our wildfire list right now. If I had a lawn, I'd be keeping it pretty green no matter how tall it was. And if there were wildflowers out there, they'd probably be taller than that. But we already have umpteen million pine trees all around. In fact, because I have one of the very few level acres on a hill, I've had it cleared to the tree line on all four sides except for one corner. The houses around me have had their lots cleared to put houses on them. And I can still only see one of my neighbors - barely. We have that many pine trees up here. I'm probably in a safer position when it comes to fire than a lot of my neighbors who have trees practically touching their houses, but in the event of a fire, a crowning fire where it leaps from tree top to tree top isn't going to be stopped by my lot anyway. Given how much fuel is up here and how dry it is, I have to assume any fire is just going to take everything if one gets going. I don't think people up here take fire all that seriously. I'm from California originally and I still vividly remember the Oakland fire from more than 30 years ago. In a fire, our whole peninsula would be in the same fix - hundreds of people trying to leave by one road. So when I smell smoke, I'm already planning to evacuate. Right now we have a 3,000 acre fire (plus a few more) that's only 3% contained burning across the Hood Canal just 17 miles from where I live. I've been on edge ever since it started. Shadow is hysterical. You all know how trailers have lots of cabinets for storage. Well, show Shadow a cabinet once and he will sit in front of it and meow to have it opened to explore again. I was feeding him through a snowy winter and then in the spring, he just showed up, sleeping on my outside bench. Then he moved in, bag and baggage. I spent three years - kid you not - trying to find out who he belonged to. Then we found a chip in his neck. He belonged to my nearest neighbors on the other side of me across the road. In fact, they have property across the road like I do and it adjoins mine. Three years. I take a walk most mornings with you know who following me. We've walked by his old house a thousand times and Shadow never even acted like he lived there. The owners gave me permission to change their info on his chip to mine. So now I have a cat. Thank you. I'm like Ringo but instead of me face, it's me sarcasm.
@rodentraiser Your shadow seems like such a great guy to have around. We have done similar cat adoptions over the years. Always a delight to add a pet. I'm not a lawn person. I'm a plant person. I have not ever seen the sense in lawns. Keeping them up is hard on the eco system. That said, my dh loves a nice European looking lawn. So we try a little bit to keep it up. I wonder if the commercial vinegar would kill off the meadow grass? We've been using it for the first time this year and our gravel driveway is free of weeds for the first time. It seems to have really killed the grasses and dandys I've been fighting for decades. My thought is that if you killed it responsibly, you could replant seed in fall for lawn. You may need to prepare the ground by adding a layer of top soil, but it might work. Let the autumn rains work for you. I'm new here too. I'm also in the PNW.
You know, I've heard that vinegar will kill plants. I have a section out by my driveway I just haven't been able to get to this year, so I put vinegar in a spray bottle and I've been meaning to get out and hit the weeds with that. I've just been putting it off because of all the other things I'm doing right now. If I ever get to that, I'll let you know how it goes. But as for doing the lawn - it's 3/4 of an acre. I'd have to have someone come out and look at it first. I already called someone who said they needed my address and they'd be out on Monday. I sent my address and never heard anything back and no one ever showed up. So onto landscaping company number 2. I originally started out wanting a meadow and of course, that got screwed up. So now since I already have the grass seed, I may as well plant that. I figured if I didn't mow it and it didn't get too high, I could add wildflowers to it. That will be the back part. The front part will mostly be raised veggie boxes, so not too much lawn there. I'm all for easy gardening. If my lawn can't grow with just being watered, it can dry up and I'll try something else next year. I'm not about to start putting in all kinds of fertilizers and junk like that. In fact, I may even try planting oat grass so the deer have something to eat. Besides my plants, that is.
