The calm before the storm

A barred owl hoots outside the window as I sit here trying to plan my day for tomorrow... Yes, I'm taking the day off tomorrow to plant some grass seed! I am pretty excited about it actually. I love plants and especially watching them grow - it's a pretty amazing thing when you think about it.

Here's what our lawn looks like today:

The RoundUp sure did it's job well. Bye, bye tall fescue! Now, I need to fix the collateral damage...

This weekend I found out that Home Depot rents both aerators and power overseeders. I went to check them out, mostly to see if I was going to be able to get them in my car. It looked like I would be able to pull it off and the gentleman helping me seemed pretty confident as well. The cost, however, was a little more than I was expecting, which got me thinking that perhaps it might be more cost effective to hire someone to do it. So I made some calls and got two estimates. They were polar opposites on many levels.

The first estimate I got was from a guy I later found out was doing this kind of work as a side job and as I talked with him he actually shared with me that he learned what he knew by hiring 5 companies to work on his lawn and watching what they do... His suggestions were a little out there. First, he said that I shouldn't have killed the existing grass and that with overseeding, it would take over the undesirable grass over time. While I really highly doubt that, I'm open to the possibility. However, it's too late for that since I already killed it all, so that is no longer an option (and I probably wouldn't have gone for it even if it was). Then as we talked he suggested that I wait until mid-September to seed... Obviously, he's not familiar with the Purdue turf grass program publications, but I appreciated his suggestion anyway. When I told him that I'd like to do it now, he suggested I aerate it very aggressively - finally, we're on the same page. And then, this when I about lost it... he suggested I purchase a 50 lb bag of seed to seed it with! I couldn't believe my ears. He was standing right in our front lawn looking out upon the 1600 sq ft. of lawn - 50 lbs?! That comes out to over 31 lbs/1000 sq ft! The recommended rate for Kentucky bluegrass is 1.5 - 2 lbs/1000 sq ft... In the end he offered to aerate it for a very reasonable price, actually very close to the cost of renting it, but I wasn't too impressed with his expertise.

The second estimate I got was the complete opposite. I didn't get the chance to discuss it with them, but along with their estimate they provided a color print of a Purdue turf program publication. That right there was enough to give them much more credibility. Unfortunately, their estimate was extremely high. I may call to see if there is a particular reason for it being so high, just out of curiosity.

Anyway, ultimately, I ended up deciding to do it myself, and since I want to get moving on it ASAP and I wasn't going to be available this weekend, I decided to take a day off of work. I did the same thing last year... however, this year I'm expecting that I'll actually be done and planted in a day instead of working on it every evening until the sun goes down for a week after.

Oh, and if you hadn't noticed, I'm not planning on doing any tilling after all. I'm just going to aerate and then overseed with a power overseeder. Tilling it would cause a setback due to the time it takes for the soil to settle, and I did a little research on compaction (primarily this article) and found that perhaps our soil isn't as compacted as I thought - at least that's what I'm hoping for, anyway.

In any case, I'm going to give it a whirl and see what happens - "experimentation" at it's best! If there is green grass in the dead areas by the end of fall, I'll be a happy man!

Planning

It's time to start planning - no, not for our landscaping project (although, those plans have also yet to be finalized), but for grass planting. The optimal seeding window for central Indiana of August 15 - September 15 is quickly approaching. According to the Establishing Lawn Areas From Seed publication by Purdue University and University of Illinois:

It is critical to seed as early as possible within these windows. Even when seeding within these windows, waiting one week to seed may mean the stand will take 2 to 4 additional weeks to mature.

I put that to the test last year, but not this year (I hope)!

The Lawn Improvement Programs publication (also by Purdue University and University of Illinois) states that August 15 - September 1 is the optimum time to plant cool-season grasses (hm... conflicting information?). In any case, I plan to hit the early side of the window. This publication is the one I will likely be following as the other one focuses more on new seedbeds (don't want to do that again), while this one focuses on existing lawns and includes directions for both overseeding and reseeding.

First off, I've got a little secret to tell. For the past few weeks I've been pulling up undesirable grass by hand... Yes, I'm going crazy again. Just every couple of days for an hour or two at a time - nothing too crazy... no, not crazy at all... nope. Yesterday, one our neighbors walked by as I was out pulling and started talking to me. I told them that I enjoyed working in the yard and that it's kind of a hobby, to which they replied (and I quote) "A hobby?? More like an obsession!" I guess people notice more than I think! They must think I'm crazy... Oh well, I think everyone's crazy, just in different ways. There, I feel better now.

Now, back to business. I think I've made some good progress. Here's a look:

This side is nearly 100% tall fescue free

My new yard work buddy!
I'm slowly making my way this way.

It's looking a lot more uniform as a whole now and aside from the patchiness, I'd say it looks much improved over earlier this year. The Certainty herbicide I applied seems to have greatly weakened the patches of tall fescue, making them much easier to pull (which is the main reason I've even tried), but what I have found is that if I don't get the whole plant root, it grows right back... I'm continually amazed at how resilient it is.

So, as far as seeding goes, I have two options: overseeding or reseeding. Overseeding means planting seeds over the existing grass, and reseeding (as I'll define it) is killing the grass and completely reseeding. I'm really torn between the two. On the one hand, reseeding would result in a nice fresh stand of pure tall fescue-free grass, similar to last years reseeding, with the downsides of 1) the lawn not looking good for the end of summer into early fall, 2) the risk of two different color tones of grass between the new and existing grass, and 3) the grass not growing well due to the soil being too compact because I absolutely will not till it like I did last year. On the other hand, overseeding won't make the lawn look bad and likely won't result in an obvious edge between different areas of the lawn, with the downsides of 1) it may not look great mixed with the existing grass (could look patchy if colors are different), 2) I'll have to continue fighting with the tall fescue, and 3) I haven't had much success overseeding.

My general thinking at this point is that I'll overseed the areas that are free of tall fescue and reseed the areas that are still in large part either mostly dead and patchy or still has high concentration of tall fescue.

For the areas that I'm going to kill first, I'll need to give an extra week or so for the grass to die. In addition, I need to make plans to 1) purchase seed, and 2) look into either renting a aerator or finding a company do it for me. All this to say, this project begins in less than a month!

Landscaping progress

This weekend I continued work on our little landscape redo. With the hydrangeas planted, I was thinking that I would rip out the overgrown bush in front of the window and possibly plant some blue holly bushes. I didn't quite get to the bush purchasing/planting, however, I did rip out the existing bushes, making for a very clean slate look to our landscape.

Old bushes removed

Here's a shot that shows what it looked like earlier this year:

Before: a view from May of this year

At the time I was considering removing these very bushes.

After that I teetered on going out to purchase the holly bushes as per the design, however, I decided to hold off for now as I'm just not sure about the holly bush idea. The biggest concern I have is the limited space in the area because Blue Holly bushes can grow to over 10 feet tall (if not pruned)! An about.com page on the bush states:

"While it's possible for Blue Princess and Blue Prince holly to top 12' in height at maturity, these shrubs, even with just minimal pruning, are easily kept at a fraction of that height."

So perhaps that fact isn't too big of a deal, but also while browsing at the store one day I noticed that it said to plant them at least 5 feet apart! There is no way I could do that - 3 feet at most, maybe. This random Q&A posting also confirms my fear:

"I planted a blue holly several years ago and now realize that it is too big for the location. I don't want to spend the rest of my days severely pruning this plant back, just to keep it inbounds."

I think I may ask the designer to see what he has to say about this.

So, I decided to move on to something else instead, but I wasn't sure what. The design isn't quite final in my mind, particularly for the front of the house, so I have been struggling with trying to get it to a more finalized state. I decided that it would be helpful for my very visual-aided brain to have the brick edging in place, so I went to work on that and ended up with this:

Brick edging in place

Unfortunately, I was so exhausted from doing this that I never went back to see if that actually helped me visualize anything. I'll have to save that for another day.

Landscape alteration

A few days ago our landscape was altered. We didn't have a choice in the matter. The creek in our backyard was eroding its banks and threatening to invade people's property so they hired a company to place large stones at select bends in the creek to help slow the erosion, and it so happens that one of those places was right next to hour house. I can't complain too much because I don't want the creek any closer to our home, but I could have done without the means of getting the stones back there, which involved cutting through the brush on the south side of our house.

I happened to have a photo that I took a few days before they did this, so I could do a before and after to show the extent of the change:

Before & After

Now, this side of the house I have more or less left alone since we moved in. The brush from the forest was overgrown and the bushes next to the house were as well, so I figured it was a good match and left it that way until I had the time and energy to take on that project. But now the project is semi-forced upon me, or at least I'm seeing it as an opportunity to take it on since it is now pretty much a clean slate over there.

Yesterday I dug up some of the landscaping bricks that were over there (most of them were completely buried and in some cases jammed between roots that had grown around them) and am planning on using the rest of the remaining mulch to just mulch that whole area. Then, I'll have another area to put some more plants - yay! Here's my plan:

That area gets a decent amount of morning sun, especially with much of the surrounding brush removed. Unfortunately, there's a stump and a whole bunch of roots there, too. I'm going to try to dig it up, but I might not be able to - we'll see.

So, this will be my new project and will allow me to finally get the mulch pile off of our driveway.

Lots of mulch.

Today we had a special delivery of 10 cubic yards of mulch in our driveway. I put down a 8x10 foot tarp and it is completely buried.

10 cubic yards of mulch.

 A big pile of work next to my new wheelbarrow.

I finished up for the night a bit ago at around 9 because I couldn't see much anymore and I was being swarmed by mosquitoes. I came home from work early at 4 so I could get to work on it. Today reached a high of 87 degrees and was very humid (70 degree dew point) - it was great.

I got the Calum Memorial Garden mulched first, then pretty much the whole front yard, and then part of the side. I still have some areas in the backyard that I plan to mulch, but I need to pull some stuff first. I think I might end up with some extra.

However, this seemed like a logical time to make some changes so I could mulch some more areas... I ended up pulled up the other 2 holly bushes (they were in the worst shape of them all), so now we have no more holly bushes. And I was very close to pulling up the overgrown bushes in front of the window, on the left in this picture:

Current front yard landscaping (you can see the new mulch on the left).

But I held off... for now. My wife and I discussed it and I think we're going to pull it up along with creeping juniper next to it (I'm not strongly opposed to it, but my wife doesn't care for it, and it is probably the area of the yard that gets the most sun, so it has potential to house some sun-loving plants). I don't have much planned other than removing them and mulching, though, and that's kind of a problem. Here's a visual of my current thinking:

The game plan.

Remove the two bushes and split the decorative grass into two and transplant them over to that area. The problem with the decorative grass where it is now is that it's too big and blocks the view of the rose bush behind it next to the garage. It also blocks a sprinkler head that is there. I know "twos" aren't typically a good design, but I feel like it would look better than keeping it as one. Perhaps I could break it into three, or plan a third type of grass with it. I don't know. Or maybe this is all just a bad idea. The upside is that it would give us some of the more sunny areas to plant other things.

I think I'm going to do it. And if worst comes to worst, we can always try again.

Here's a rough idea of what I'm thinking:

What the executed plan might look like.

If this is accurate (and it's probably not), then the grass may not be enough to block the view of the irrigation system back-flow valve that sticks up about a foot and a half or two. We may need something a bit taller.

Here is a blank canvas for pondering ideas:

What should fill that void?

I'd say that area gets part to full-ish sun. Anyway, I don't know what to do... time to sleep.

Rose bush in the mail!

Someone recently gifted us with a rose bush a few days ago which arrived in a box in the mail (it amazes me that plants can be sent in the mail). The instructions said to immediately let it soak in water for 12-24 hours. Coincidentally, I had plenty of options for doing this as I already had bins and buckets outside catching the water that overflows out of our faulty gutters!

Rose bush soaking in rain water.

I let it soak for what turned out to be 36 hours or so (directions said 12-24 hours) before I could call them and ask what to do after that, but before planting. They said to stop soaking it and just keep the roots wet and that we'd have up to 2 weeks to plant it. So, it is now sitting next to the bin with the roots wrapped in wet paper towels until we decide where to plant it.

And that is the big question, and the big struggle for me entering this growing season. I don't know in the slightest how to plan a garden. Part of the problem is that I don't know what areas of the yard get the most light. That would at least help to narrow the options for this bush, but in general, I don't have the knowledge or vision to plan a garden. In any case, I must make a decision soon.

I have a few ideas. The rose bush needs 4-6 hours of sun, so I can easily rule out the backyard and sides based on that. It also grows to 3'6" wide and 5'6" tall. That really narrows it to these two locations to the left or right of the front step:

Two placement options for the rose bush.

On the right is some sort of holly bush and on the left is what looks like it might be a creeping juniper or some type of low evergreen plant, so one of these would need to go. I wouldn't be opposed to removing either of them as neither of them look that great, but they aren't too bad either. We are leaning toward replacing the holly bush with it, though, as I think it will have a similar shape. However, the other side likely gets more sun, but perhaps not significantly much more.

Weather permitting, I'll be taking on this project this Sunday.