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
