I've been fighting a losing battle with my yard for several years now. Actually I'd just flat out given up the last 2 or 3 years. We've lived in our house for 12 years and had a fairly nice lush lawn for the first four or five years. The previous owner had taken good care of the yard and the next door neighbor took care of his as well. When we bought the house my wife and I agreed that she would take care of the flower beds, azaleas, etc. and I'd take care of the lawn. I love having lush green grass, but despise taking care of shrubs and flowers. Well, the wife became ill and just couldn't get out and keep up with the flowers like she wanted but wouldn't let me scale back the beds to a more manageable size, and our neighbor fell on hard times physically and financially and couldn't keep up with his yard any longer, so his yard became overgrown and full of weeds. The weeds of course, spread to my lawn and we ended up with two yards with overgrown shrubs/flower beds and weed filled lawns that were slowly dying off. In addition to that, we've been in a drought here in the south for the last few years which restricted the amount of watering we could do to our yards, so between the drought and the weeds, there's not much grass left in our yard. Every spring I spray weed killer on our yard and on our neighbor's in an attempt to at least slow down the weed growth. This year however, I decided to give another try at saving what's left of our lawn. In early March I decided to over seed our yard and so aerated, limed, fertilized and seeded instead of spraying for weeds.. I had to do something or we'd have nothing but a mud hole for a yard pretty soon. We've had a fairly cool spring this year so far and the new fescue is doing well, so I'm going to spray for weeds soon and hope the new grass is now strong enough to tolerate hte weed killer and strong enough to withstand the harsh summer I'm sure we'll have again this year. I'm planning to have a landscaper out in late summer to design some new smaller flower beds around the house that will be easier to manage and probably renovate the entire yard with new sod. I can fight the weeds and overseed for the next 5 years to hopefully allow our lawn to recover, but since I've finally talked my wife into letting me do what I want to the yard and flower beds I've just decided to have a professional come in and do what I want and get it all done at once. Anyway, that's my life in a nutshell, sorry for the long intro.
Howdy all. New here, thought I'd introduce myself.
- Thread starter Oddball
- Start date
Briana
Lawn Addict
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- Jul 23, 2010
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Hey Oddball! Welcome to LawnMowerForum!! :biggrin: Sounds like you could use some help with that lawn of yours! :confused2:
Make sure you post a lot of questions in the Lawn Care & Landscaping Forum whenever you need help. There are some knowledgeable people there who can help you get back on track again.
Best wishes of health to your wife!
Make sure you post a lot of questions in the Lawn Care & Landscaping Forum whenever you need help. There are some knowledgeable people there who can help you get back on track again.
Best wishes of health to your wife!
Thanks Muhammad and Briana. My wife is better now, but has moved on to other hobbies and couldn't care less about the flower beds and shrubbery any more. That's why she finally agreed to let me do what I want, which is take the big bed in the middle of the front yard completely out and replace with grass, and cut the remaiining ones down to about half their current size. Just as a rough estimate, we've got 25 azaleas in our front yard besides all the other flowers and several hydrangeas. I've got a pretty good idea how I want it all to look, but I'm more of an idea man than an actual get it done guy, hence hiring a professional to polish the rough edges on my idea and actually do the work. I can handle the upkeep from there. I just don't have the time or in some cases the knowledge to do all of it myself.
Briana
Lawn Addict
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2010
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Oh great! Good to know... Well make sure you post pictures and let us know how things are turning out as it's coming along. Do you have a picture of your mower or equipment to share?
If you do, you should post them on this thread:
http://www.lawnmowerforum.com/general-mower-discussion/69-ok-lets-see-your-mower.html
Many other LMF members have shared pictures on this thread so you'll be well connected!
See you around!
If you do, you should post them on this thread:
http://www.lawnmowerforum.com/general-mower-discussion/69-ok-lets-see-your-mower.html
Many other LMF members have shared pictures on this thread so you'll be well connected!
See you around!