The Gardening and Yard Maintainence Thread

[MrBug708]

Not sure what sort of advice I'm looking for, or what I want this thread to become, but I figured FOFC is a good place to start.

I bought a house about two months ago and after getting most of the inside taken care of, I'm starting to look/plan for the spring and what I want to do with the outside. The house was previously a rental, so the yard wasn't specifically taken care of as great as it should have been, but it's not terrible. So I wanted to get some advice and help on steps I need to take or what I should do.

The front yard has St. Augustine grass that has a crapload of weeds in certain parts. I'd say about 20% is infested with a variety of weeds, one of which are dandelions, of whom I've come to hate with a passion. Another 20% is places I've cleared out grass and am hoping to spur the St. Augustine to fill in, although early fall isn't the ideal time. I have about a dozen rose bushes on the side of the front yard, with a couple spaces missing rose bushes, which I'm likely going to fill in in the spring. There are two pretty ugly Camellia bushes that I'm leaning towards removing. I have about 40 feet worth of empty planters that need basic weeding/soil sifting, and just care. About 26 feet of it has a cinder-block wall that previously held Ivy, which might get a creeping vine, just not quite so aggressive and ugly. The other part of the front yard has about a 20 foot planter that runs along the porch that also needs some care but otherwise would really make the front of the house.

The backyard is a little more interesting. I have basically a Citrus Tree garden along the cinder-block wall. I have pretty great grapefruit tree, a sad looking lemon tree, and a high yield yellow lime tree that drops fruit like crazy and has some of the worst thorns I've encountered. There is a spot for a smaller tree between the lime and lemon tree as well as a spot for a bigger tree next to the lemon tree. The grapefruit and lemon tree were left to their own to the point where people were helping themselves to the fruit as the branches basically extended to the street. I've since curbed that habit. I have about a 30x15 covered patio and almost a t-shaped grass area between the garage and house. Sort of in the middle is this hideous, raised, quarter-circle planter with a tall, yet oddly shaped orange tree. I'm on the fence about taking it out because the planter is raised about 2 feet, it's not very nice looking, neither my wife nor I really care about oranges, and it kind of messes with the flow of the poorly flowing backyard. There is space on three sides of the garage, the furthest one from the house will have a shed built for storage as it's out of the way and behind that will store the trashcans. Two of the areas behind the garage are completely dead. The dirt is a harden clay that is nearly impossible to dig into without any sort of watering going on. Which gets me to the grass. It's pretty much 8 different varieties of grass/weeds. There is about a 3 square foot plot of St. Augustine grass near the garage that is nearly lost to the weeds anyways. I'll probably have to do the whole backyard, which is going to be a pain. About 60% of the backyard has sprinklers in it (about 90% of the front yard does) so some adjustment will need to be made eventually. I also moved a fence up closer to the street, giving myself about a 25 feet worth of backyard along the side of my house. It has a fruit tree of some sort that was hacked..er..pruned too much, so I'm not quite sure what it is yet. I'm guessing nectarine. I had removed two plum trees, one of which was completely dead and the other was about 75% dead, but more in the way than anything. Along this part of the yard, it's 1/3 dirt, 1/3 grass, and 1/3 empty planter. The dirt here is actually in pretty good shape as it's only in partial sun. I'm likely going to grow the St. Augustine grass into the dirt area and just plant some ground cover in the other planter.

Some info:
I live on the corner.
One of my two shared borders is with a park. Not just a small park, but a county park. Weeds will likely always come from the park sadly.
I don't have a lot of money.
LA is considered a desert so it has mild winters and hot summers. Drought tolerant plants are ideal, but not my preference.
My one thing I'm looking to get for sure is an Avocado tree, mostly likely a Haas. A small chance I get two to help pollination, but in my area, Avocado trees are fairly common.

I'm really not sure what sort of things I'm hoping for. Advice? It's my first house so I'm sorta just doing my thing, not quite sure what I'm doing. Perhaps tree/bush suggestions? Pictures of your yard for ideas? I'm noticing that I've enjoyed taking care of the roses thus far so I'd like to cultivate my enjoyment of the yard further.

[MrBug708]

I'll post some pictures tomorrow maybe, to give an idea of what I'm working with

[Dutch]

I have an annual schedule of what and when to put stuff on my St. Augustine grass...it was brutal but doable. I ended up hiring tru-green though because it would annoy the crap out of me when I would get dead spots...the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze in the end.

[Lathum]

No advice here as I am terrible at lawn care and pay a guy to take care of all of it for me.


Just wanted to say congrats on the home purchase!

[Blackadar]

Mr. Bug,

If you've never owned a house before, landscaping is tricky. It can be a black hole for money. So here's some advice:

In regards to the yard, I would probably hire someone like Tru Green Chemlawn or other chemical lawn service to help you fight the weeds and encourage the grass growth. It's an expense that's not fun to pay, but building a yard with a bunch of weeds already in it can be difficult and time consuming to maintain. To do it yourself, you're going to go need to buy stuff like Scott's Weed Killer, spread it and then physically remove weeds from your yard. It's easier to just have someone do that for the next few months. You can discontinue the service at any time. It's just to give your yard a strong boost if it looks really crappy. Once it looks better, you can take over maintenance yourself. Maintaining a decent yard is easier work than actively trying to fight a weed infestation.

Ok, so that takes care of the yard. Let's move to the landscaping. Again, plants are one of those things that you can spend a fortune on and end up wasting your money.

Remember that plants grow. So those little 2-3 gal plants that look so puny will grow quickly to large plants. The 5 gal may look much nicer now, but it's going to cost you 3x as much. Get the smaller ones with the possible exception of a couple bigger ones in key areas. Remember to know what you're planting, how big it gets and the conditions it likes to grow in. Too many people plant these little plants too closely together and then 5 years from now it's an overgrown mess. You will have to maintain and trim your plants. Depending on how much maintenance and watering you want to do will depend on what and how many plants you put in. If you put in a lot of evergreen shrubs, you won't have too hard of a time keeping them alive but you will have to trim them twice a year (minimum). If you put in a lot of annuals, you won't have to trim them but you'll be replacing them every year. If you want low maintenance beds, stuff like agave, certain types of cactus (depending on where you live) and, yes, ROCKS can look great but take absolutely no effort to maintain.

Go to your local landscaping store when you're ready to at least tackle some of your yard. Most of them will, for free or a nominal fee, come to your house and actually do a landscaping plan if you agree to use them to do the work. Not just a list of plants, but a drawing of your house with the entire plan on paper. Now they'll typically want you to do a substantial portion of the plan, so there will be a substantial cost behind it. By the way, they ALL want to use bigger plants than necessary. Again, have them knock down the smaller sizes to save yourself money. But you'll end up paying them labor. If you want to do that all yourself, some will still do that stuff so long as you agree to buy the plants from them. Alternatively, you can also hire someone to do a plan - an inexpensive one would run about $250. I really encourage one of these options. That way you'll have a plan for the future and you can do the work yourself piecemeal for financial convenience. It's nice to know what the end result will look like and long term you'll save money by getting the right plants the first time and not having to dig them up later.

I recently purchased a home - my 4th - and I'm doing the plan for it. I have enough experience that between my wife and I we'll have a fully drawn out plan before we buy the first plant (or in both of our cases, paying someone to move the sprinkler heads). But there was no way I could have done this on my first house. So good luck!

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Dutch

I ended up hiring tru-green

Hopefully they have some decent people working there. I worked for them for under two weeks and it was the worst job experience I have ever had.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Hopefully they have some decent people working there. I worked for them for under two weeks and it was the worst job experience I have ever had.

I had a rather poor experience with tru-green. They came out and said they did the entire yard, but only did the front (there were no pellets of stuff in the back). So I called them back out to do the back and they never showed up. Then they tried to invoice me for two "applications". Needless to say, that didn't go over well.

[PilotMan]

I wouldn't go with any of the lawn treatment companies. You can do it all yourself for a fraction of the cost.

When I moved into my house it had been neglected for almost 2 years. The previous owner and the bank would scalp the yard, never giving the lawn a good chance to get going.

I'd start by using a spray on weed killer from Lowes. Get a good brand and treat the entire yard. Once you get the weeds on the retreat look for some Scotts fertilizer that you can put on. I've tried the lesser brands and they don't do the same job at feeding and controlling weeds as well.

You'll want to let the grass get nice and long before you cut it. That will help the roots get healthy and be able to dig deep for the water. I'd fertilize about every 3 months. You may need to do another full lawn weed treatment, but otherwise you can just spot kill the weeds as needed.

[Marmel]

I would suggest not caring all that much about your lawn. Forget the fertilizers and weed killers. Live with a less than perfect lawn. Do you have kids or pets who play in your lawn? Even more of a reason to get rid of all these things. Do you live in a water starved area? Stop watering it all the time.

Here is one simple article among hundreds that talks about how bad all this stuff is: The Green American Dream - Forbes

All I do is mow my lawn weekly in the fastest growing months, and bi weekly otherwise, not bagging it. Let the trimmed grass fertilize itself. I'll pluck some weeds out by hand and throw down some seed where it needs it and give it a cursory watering. It is not a great lawn, but it is not bad either. Nobody has ever complained about it. The family likes it and I save a ton of time and money not to mention not poisoning my neighborhood.

Edited to add: I am not some green living person. I don't even like recycling. I might be the least green person in my town, but when it comes to this, I don't think about green or not, just how poisonous it all is and that it really ultimately doesn't even matter unless keeping up with the neighbors is that important to you.

[Blackadar]

One note about mowing - you want to mow at almost the highest setting your mower allows (assuming a push mower. Scalping a lawn is very, very bad for it.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Marmel

I would suggest not caring all that much about your lawn. Forget the fertilizers and weed killers. Live with a less than perfect lawn. Do you have kids or pets who play in your lawn? Even more of a reason to get rid of all these things. Do you live in a water starved area? Stop watering it all the time.

Here is one simple article among hundreds that talks about how bad all this stuff is: The Green American Dream - Forbes

All I do is mow my lawn weekly in the fastest growing months, and bi weekly otherwise, not bagging it. Let the trimmed grass fertilize itself. I'll pluck some weeds out by hand and throw down some seed where it needs it and give it a cursory watering. It is not a great lawn, but it is not bad either. Nobody has ever complained about it. The family likes it and I save a ton of time and money not to mention not poisoning my neighborhood.

That's pretty much what I do but can't wait to obliterate the flowers and plants that were there when I moved in and replace everything with stuff that can actually survive in this climate, even if that's only rocks.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Marmel

I would suggest not caring all that much about your lawn. Forget the fertilizers and weed killers. Live with a less than perfect lawn. Do you have kids or pets who play in your lawn? Even more of a reason to get rid of all these things. Do you live in a water starved area? Stop watering it all the time.

Here is one simple article among hundreds that talks about how bad all this stuff is: The Green American Dream - Forbes

All I do is mow my lawn weekly in the fastest growing months, and bi weekly otherwise, not bagging it. Let the trimmed grass fertilize itself. I'll pluck some weeds out by hand and throw down some seed where it needs it and give it a cursory watering. It is not a great lawn, but it is not bad either. Nobody has ever complained about it. The family likes it and I save a ton of time and money not to mention not poisoning my neighborhood.

Edited to add: I am not some green living person. I don't even like recycling. I might be the least green person in my town, but when it comes to this, I don't think about green or not, just how poisonous it all is and that it really ultimately doesn't even matter unless keeping up with the neighbors is that important to you.

My goal is "not dead" for my lawn. However, I do fertilize one time in the spring so the grass can outgrown the weeds. I pick it up from a local native plants nursery so hopefully it's not too toxic. Otherwise, yeah, I don't bag the grass and I do edge and trim like once a month because St. Augustine is a pain at sending out runners, But it's the only type of grass that grows and doesn't terribly burn in Houston. Then again, it also rains 45+ inches per year so the high level of water needed is not an issue.

SI

[cartman]

I'm with Marmel on this one. I live kinda out in the country on a couple of acres. Before they developed my neighborhood, it was a working cattle ranch. Outside of a few yuccas and spreading some bluebonnet seeds, I haven't done any kind of landscaping. I figured what was growing here before there were any houses would be the best thing to have. On top of that, we have a ton of deer, and they treat most landscaping like it is a Vegas buffet.

[flere-imsaho]

Add me to the list started by Marmel.

[Lathum]

I would be in Marmels camp also if I didn't pay a guy an insanely low $30 a week to mow, fertalize when needed, blow the leaves, and do some minor landscaping.

If I was doing it on my own I would mow when needed and thats it.

[tarcone]

I have moved into Marmels camp. I used to be all over my yard. Well, just the front. I worked like a dog and spent some good money.
I let my back yard go. no one sees it, the kids play there and the dog uses it as a toilet.
This year, I didn't put as much attention into it as usual. Mowed it when needed. Or let it grow a little more because that makes the roots stronger, which spreads the grass.
I will put winterizer on it.

The best time to lay grass seed is right before the last snow of the year. The snow has lots of nitrogen and the melting soaks it into the ground.

Another tip about grass seed. Put it in the fridge for a week before you put it down. The seed will take off when you plant it in warm weather.

[CU Tiger]

There are a lot of generilzations here that vary from meh to flat wrong without nailing down some factors.

Such as "best time to lay grass seed" - Depends on what you are growing (Fescue(at least 8 different variants with different needs) , Zoysia, Bermuda, St Augustine, Rye, et. al.)

Same for mow height. Depends greatly on species.

Same goes for when and where to fertilize. To be honest fertilizer should be site specific. Most states have a free service where you dig up a small amount of dirt (think like a palmful) and send it in to be analyzed and they will tell you what and how much fertilizer to add.

I've never found a place where TrueGreen or Scotts was even reasonably competitive with a local one owner. They suck like most franchise service businesses in my experience. The Scotts brand of chemicals especially suck.

My advice if you want to hire it out find a local wholesale landscape supply company. (I use Green Resource for anyone in NC) and walk in. They will be "wholesale to professionals only no retail" locations. If they have a showroom you are in the wrong place. Ask them for either a list of 3 or 4 "small guys" they will recommend and most will give you a list and a "Dont tell anyone I referred you it will be bad for other business"...if they wont offer up a recomendation give them a piece of paper with your name and contact info and ask them to pass it along to 3 or 4 gys who "seem trustworthy"...and I would specifically say "I want to work with small owner/op shops" that will get you the bst price and a great recomendation. If you are doing it yourself ask them about cash sales they will all do it. I just finished overseeding and fertilizing my lawn this week. For an example (and I have a larger lawn than most folks as I live way out in the sticks) for the same amount of seed and fertilizer at Lowe's it was going to be $1940, I walked out for just under $700. Yes, there is that much mark up in the product at the big boxes.

Now my seed and fert came in plain burlap bags with printed paper tags...no bright shiny plastic with pretty pictures on it...but the product inside is the same or better.



If

[stevew]

Obviously all this input is correct and fantastic but we're totally overlooking the WAF and so I'd just follow the course of action that Mrs. bug wants.

[stevew]

Dola, if your lawn has areas that need to be hit with a weed eater, you obviously need to rethink those areas. Weed eating is the worst.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by stevew

Dola, if your lawn has areas that need to be hit with a weed eater, you obviously need to rethink those areas. Weed eating is the worst.

I have a high wheeled trimmer. Never going back to a standard weed eater.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by cartman

I have a high wheeled trimmer. Never going back to a standard weed eater.

I just broke out the roundup. Suck it Monsanto haters

[DanGarion]

rant/

There is a major issue with shit grass like St. Augustine being used in CA. It's a weed like grass with the way it grows and it is water hungry. I HATE ST. AUGUSTINE grass. That is what we have in our yard and it is shit grass.

/rant

[sterlingice]

I think it's just fine in coastal Texas or Florida where it's the only thing that survives a hot and wet summer. I think California and their water situation would be a silly place to put it

SI

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Hopefully they have some decent people working there. I worked for them for under two weeks and it was the worst job experience I have ever had.

Originally Posted by Blackadar

I had a rather poor experience with tru-green. They came out and said they did the entire yard, but only did the front (there were no pellets of stuff in the back). So I called them back out to do the back and they never showed up. Then they tried to invoice me for two "applications". Needless to say, that didn't go over well.

I had Scott's Lawn Care before them and they were my awful experience, no problems with Tru-Green at all. I suspect it depends more on the individuals than the company.

[MrBug708]

Some pictures:
From the front of the house. You can see the empty planters and the grass missing in different parts


This is along the other street. The planter used to be overgrown with Ivy until I was able to remove it all. There was also a bird of paradise that was overgrown. Some of the roots are there, which is a project for the future.


This from the other angle. The planter runs the whole way to the front of the house. Mostly empty.


The middle of the backyard between the house and the garage. The planter is pretty hideous with an unattractive orange tree. Debating on removing it


You can see where the old fence used to be below. Half of it has a planter with nothing in it, the other half has grass in part and half empty dirt where two fruit trees used to be.


The last two show different walls of the garage and the lack of anything behind around it. The shed will go against one of the walls.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

rant/

There is a major issue with shit grass like St. Augustine being used in CA. It's a weed like grass with the way it grows and it is water hungry. I HATE ST. AUGUSTINE grass. That is what we have in our yard and it is shit grass.

/rant

I understand this thought process. It's just one of the nicer looking lawns IMO. The last two months hasn't been good for the drought at my house.

Originally Posted by stevew

Obviously all this input is correct and fantastic but we're totally overlooking the WAF and so I'd just follow the course of action that Mrs. bug wants.

She doesn't care really.

Originally Posted by Blackadar

One note about mowing - you want to mow at almost the highest setting your mower allows (assuming a push mower. Scalping a lawn is very, very bad for it.

I cut it pretty low this past Saturday, but it was more in the interest in leveling it out.

Originally Posted by Blackadar

Mr. Bug,

If you've never owned a house before, landscaping is tricky. It can be a black hole for money. So here's some advice:

In regards to the yard, I would probably hire someone like Tru Green Chemlawn or other chemical lawn service to help you fight the weeds and encourage the grass growth. It's an expense that's not fun to pay, but building a yard with a bunch of weeds already in it can be difficult and time consuming to maintain. To do it yourself, you're going to go need to buy stuff like Scott's Weed Killer, spread it and then physically remove weeds from your yard. It's easier to just have someone do that for the next few months. You can discontinue the service at any time. It's just to give your yard a strong boost if it looks really crappy. Once it looks better, you can take over maintenance yourself. Maintaining a decent yard is easier work than actively trying to fight a weed infestation.

Ok, so that takes care of the yard. Let's move to the landscaping. Again, plants are one of those things that you can spend a fortune on and end up wasting your money.

Remember that plants grow. So those little 2-3 gal plants that look so puny will grow quickly to large plants. The 5 gal may look much nicer now, but it's going to cost you 3x as much. Get the smaller ones with the possible exception of a couple bigger ones in key areas. Remember to know what you're planting, how big it gets and the conditions it likes to grow in. Too many people plant these little plants too closely together and then 5 years from now it's an overgrown mess. You will have to maintain and trim your plants. Depending on how much maintenance and watering you want to do will depend on what and how many plants you put in. If you put in a lot of evergreen shrubs, you won't have too hard of a time keeping them alive but you will have to trim them twice a year (minimum). If you put in a lot of annuals, you won't have to trim them but you'll be replacing them every year. If you want low maintenance beds, stuff like agave, certain types of cactus (depending on where you live) and, yes, ROCKS can look great but take absolutely no effort to maintain.

Go to your local landscaping store when you're ready to at least tackle some of your yard. Most of them will, for free or a nominal fee, come to your house and actually do a landscaping plan if you agree to use them to do the work. Not just a list of plants, but a drawing of your house with the entire plan on paper. Now they'll typically want you to do a substantial portion of the plan, so there will be a substantial cost behind it. By the way, they ALL want to use bigger plants than necessary. Again, have them knock down the smaller sizes to save yourself money. But you'll end up paying them labor. If you want to do that all yourself, some will still do that stuff so long as you agree to buy the plants from them. Alternatively, you can also hire someone to do a plan - an inexpensive one would run about $250. I really encourage one of these options. That way you'll have a plan for the future and you can do the work yourself piecemeal for financial convenience. It's nice to know what the end result will look like and long term you'll save money by getting the right plants the first time and not having to dig them up later.

I recently purchased a home - my 4th - and I'm doing the plan for it. I have enough experience that between my wife and I we'll have a fully drawn out plan before we buy the first plant (or in both of our cases, paying someone to move the sprinkler heads). But there was no way I could have done this on my first house. So good luck!

Thanks for the insight. Not just from you, but from everyone. Not much of a chance at keeping it minimal landscaping, I want to add some things

[chesapeake]

Asking questions is good. At my first house, I spent a bunch of money before figuring our how I wanted to use the space. In no particular order, these are some of the questions I would recommend you think about.
1) How much do you want to have to work to maintain your yard?
2) How much do you want to invest?
3) Do you care about environmental impacts?
4) Do you want to attract birds, beneficial insects or other wildlife (other than the vermin that citrus trees bring)?
5) Do you want/need a usable outdoor space for kids, socializing, etc.?

[CU Tiger]

That retaining wall in the 2nd picture is going to be a problem in the future. I'd wager a dollar against a donut from one photo that it isnt installed properly.

[MrBug708]

What makes you say that?

[CU Tiger]

The moisture pattern and white "leeching" around the mortar seams.

Actually looking at it again Cant tell if its a true retainer wall or just a divider wall. If its retaining, it should be backfilled with gravel and have a drain pipe at the bottom as it cant hold back water. Often these are installed improperly without the drainage and back fill and they will stack water behind in any rain event. Eventually water will push them over.

If its just a divider wall...then its likely not filled and capped properly and my be filling with water.

[stevew]

Isn't that a tree shadow? If that's a moisture vpattern, yikes indeed.

[MrBug708]

The sprinklers had been on less than half and hour before the picture was taken. Not sure if that qualifies as a moisture pattern

[MrBug708]

Worked on the garden a bit this weekend. Cleared out most of the weeds from the planters. Also picked up a sedum called John Creech (picture below) that I'm going to test out on the side of the house as a ground cover and possibly extend to around the Rose bushes.

[MrBug708]

I also picked up a small lavender shaded rose from home depot for $8.99, was given a nice smaller white rose bush that I need to plant, and I ordered a bare root rose that should come in mid winter in a bare root form. The Rose is called a Neil Diamond Rose, which has a nice candy stripe-esque shading to it.