mindsquirt

In an attempt to make my lawn as plush and full of life as my neighbor's yards, I fertilized my yard.

I mean, I over-fertilized my yard. Not knowing that there was such thing as “over-fertilizing”, I used up what I had left of a bottle. It turns out that I used about 2 times the amount I should have, during the first drought of the year. (around march) My grass died within two days.

Now my yard is a vile, lifeless hodge-podge of matted dead grass, dirt, and anthills. The ants are in control now.

Please see the pictures below:

As you look at the house, here is the front:















here is the left side:(she was hit the hardest)



here is the right side:


and here are some highlights from the back:







This might not look that bad, but it is. It is a serious eye sore. To show some contrast, here is what my neighbor’s yard looks like:




I wanted our lawn to look somewhat comparable to his. So yesterday, I undertook “the great awaking”. I wanted to revitalize the yard! YEAH!

My enthusiasm quickly turned to sadness.

I rented a power thatcher and pushed that damn thing around until a couple vertebra popped out into the yard. I then scooted around on my butt, and pulled the thatcher behind me with my teeth. If you have never used one, it is great fun. If you can imagine, it requires enough force that you have to bend over and push with all your might, and since I decided to do it when the ground was wet, it would get stuck every 10 feet or so.

After 2 or 3 hours of that hell-on-earth, I raked up all the thatch and live grass that it pulled up, spread about a half-ton of new dirt, sowed seed, spread starter fertilizer, spread straw, and I set up a elaborate sprinkler system to minimize moving. This took me all day.

Total just for repairing the grass debaucle= $300, plus pain & suffering.

While I did that, my father-in-law did some landscaping and redid our flower beds. They look really good. it is a very stark contrast to the lawn, which is mostly moist straw. I found some bardyard animals bedding down for the night yesterday, and I run em' off while saying "GIT!"

As the grass grows back I will take some more pictures so you can see the improvement.