Guitar Gear Forum

Front yard has always been fine. I spray the weed spots, pick some of the weeds, treat it with seed in the early spring, lime throughout the summer as well as plant nutrient and all of that shit. Back yard was hopeless, couldn't get anything to grow back there because of the soil being constantly wet. Closed half of the yard off, mulched it, put a nice stone outdoor set and some bushes in. Kept the grass where it grew healthily, the rest got turned into mulch pathway and flower/herb garden. Looks a little elaborate, but bougie is better than shitty.

chickens attract a lot of rodents from what i have heard, eventually your house looks like a more attractive option too

sleewell wrote:chickens attract a lot of rodents from what i have heard, eventually your house looks like a more attractive option too

We have 3 cats. They occasionally beat a poor mouse senseless. But that's something I'd take into consideration.

I haven't done any real research on it, more just a "hey, that looks kinda cool" sort of thing.

I lived in a really rural part of WI for a few years as a kid.

Had my own hobby farm. I had like 50 chickens, couple ducks, a goat, rabbits, quail, pot belly pig and dogs for a few years.
Didn't notice any uptick in rodents, but that's probably different than having chickens in the city.

Only thing I noticed was that I couldn't eat eggs for a few years after. lol

ovid9 wrote:
I seriously have considered getting one of those portable chicken coops and a couple of chickens to move around my back yard to work on the bugs.

I don't know what my local ordinances are on them though.

Got these too... They work on bugs/ticks. But also scratch up & chow down on my freshly seeded lawn

sleewell wrote:chickens attract a lot of rodents from what i have heard, eventually your house looks like a more attractive option too

yea.. feed in general does. mostly in outbuildings, but occasionally rodents will come in the house. a good mouser helps.

I was a lawn jockey throughout high school. Lawn care up through basic landscaping (retaining walls, steps cut into hillsides, etc). It has sold me on condos. I will have a lawn only when I can afford to pay someone else to take care of it in it's entirety. Or if the significant other does it all, exclusively; understanding that I will get behind a mower only to commit crimes against humanity.

We bought our house a little over a year ago on a short sale, the previous owners just left and nothing got watered for months, so the front was neglected. It's a summer grass, I've tried re-seeding and it's looking better. We had a lot of rain this spring, so the weeds were real bad. the ones in the rocks, I just used bleach and let them dry up and die. The ones in the grass, I pulled the big ones and just mowed the rest. So my lawn doesn't look great. I plan to change up the front and put down sod instead, it will look tons better.
My backyard is just random rock, dirt, pool and weeds. My lot is 1/3 acre and because of the rain we got in the spring, I had a lot of weeds in the back. Again, I just sprayed bleach on everything until it died. Hopefully grass and plants will grow back there when i get around to landscaping.

It's bad.

Our front is patchy. The back is nice except for about 100 square feet the skunks and raccoons tore up last fall to get at the grubs.

I've got four yards of topsoil being delivered Monday so I can top dress and seed.

Gas_King, gravel is your best bet.

GAS KING wrote:It's bad.

Reminds me of my girlfriend's crotch. Patchy n' snatchy.

dethatcher needed. lol.

i've got areas in my lawn (under tree cover) that were like that too.

My back yard looks this good. My front is getting really close to matching the back!! And all I do is mow it!! I use some weed killer concoction a friend mixed up to kill the dandelions, clover, and such.

extollo wrote:dethatcher needed. lol.

i've got areas in my lawn (under tree cover) that were like that too.

It's worse than I thought.

A lot of the green is weeds.

phillbis wrote:Pay someone to treat it. Tru Green or one of those places will also seed it for you. Totally worth it if you don't want to mess with it. People always comment on how nice my yard looks. I only cut it. Tru Green did everything else.

this. i just quit my job working for a private lawn guy. make sure you have a soil test done, without the right ph levels and all that nothing will ever grow right and you will always have weeds.

Well, spent some time thatching racking today.

Mostly dirt.

Probably just going to kill it, rototill it, and replant from scratch.


Thought about just planting, but the weeds will probably still be a problem.

The only place there's a patch of grass, there's an ant pile.

I got ants like crazy in my yard. I hate them.

They need to die or go away or something.

Just rototill that shithole. Rent a ditch witch and cut trenches for irrigation lines. Get a controller and run a sprinkler system.

Fill the trenches with water and then back fill with dirt. That'll reduce the "sinking" dirt over the pipes.

Then rototill again and roll it flat. Plant tall fescue and water the shit out of it for 3 days, then only water at night.

If its hot where you live right now, put off planting til fall. You're gonna fight mildew and disease in the summer if its hot.

Fertilize fertilize fertilize. Try a triple 15.

You might want to toss in some shade grass with the regular mix.

If it were me, I'd sod that shit. About .30 a sq ft.

What do you have there? About 200sq ft? $60 done and done pinche panocha.

I'm thinking that would be a lot less work too.
Still have to rototill to level it out.

It isn't very much lawn.
There's a small patch on the other side of the driveway.
Can't rototill it, I don't think .........there are wires and shit underground there.

Not hot here yet. 50s-60s.

A rototiller should only be disturbing earth to a 6" depth. If someone ran wires that shallow, then they should be redone to a normal depth anyways.

Not sure I'd like to find out myself.