Thursday, May 7th, 2009
This is just another one of my documentation posts. I thought it would be nice to show the status of flowers budding as well as the grass and how far the leaves on the trees have come.
One thing to note is that we primarily have Oak trees on this road. I have been doing a lot of driving around and have noticed that everywhere else seemingly has more leaves on their trees. It looks pretty much like Summer there. Then, I get back here and it looks like early Spring. Oak trees bloom late, that’s all there is to it.
The grass is coming along nicely. It’s very green and the bald patches are filling in. I already mowed it twice. There is one thing I would like to mention…I have been using the rear bagger when I mow the lawn. I have read all over the place that it’s good to spray the grass clippings back onto the lawn. It probably is, but with my experience, and especially when the existing grass (and crabgrass) is seeding, it’s better to catch the clippings. I don’t want to spread crabgrass seeds back on the lawn. That would pretty much defeat the purpose of what I am trying to do here. I told a friend the other day, “Just take a look at what the good lawn services do and copy that.” Seems logical enough.
Here are some photos from a cloudy, muggy Spring day.
-
-
Pink / purple Lilac budding up close
-
-
Bloomed Red Dicentra – Bleeding Heart
-
-
Bloomed Crab Apple flowers
-
-
Blooming white Lilac
-
-
Status of Oak tree leaves in early May
-
-
Green grass in early May – Front lawn
-
-
Green grass in early May – Side lawn – Weeping Cherry in background
Yesterday, I received my notification call from Scotts Lawn service out of Hartford. They said they will be here within two business days. I gave a quick call back just to see what they will be doing. They told me that they will be spraying the lawn for weeds and putting down fertilizer / crabgrass pre-emergent. Sounds like just what we need.
Related posts
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
I have been beating myself up over this one for a few days.
I have gone back and forth, looking on the internet, trying to determine if I need to have the lawn dethatched. I know, I know…as my father would say, “Just mow the lawn and get on with your life.” Well, unfortunately, I am someone who has been sucked into the art of lawn care and really seem to enjoy it.
Some websites that I browsed said that dethatching really isn’t necessary because the thatch layer should naturally break down if the lawn is in good health. Another website said that dethatching is good, but only in the autumn because you don’t want to disturb the newly sprouting grass. The last website said that you should dethatch in the spring, autumn and everything in between. Go you.
I had a few things to do today, one of them being to start tackling the “after winter” lawn. There are ugly patches all over the place from chopped up leaves and dead crabgrass. There are also twigs like you wouldn’t believe.
This morning, I grabbed a rake from the garage and walked out to the front lawn and started raking. I did an area about fifty feet long by ten feet wide and raked up a good amount of dead grass. Then, I ran my hand through my hair, sniffled a little bit and took a look around at the rest of the lawn. I quickly said, “H*ll no. I ain’t doing all that.” Please pardon me. That’s the street talk in me. I decided that getting an inexpensive dethatcher is the way to go. After all, I do have a nice new John Deere ride-on mower with a rear bagger. I should really use it.
A dethatcher is really only a big rake. I mean, you could dethatch your whole lawn with a hand rake if you wanted to. That’s actually what people used to do in the old days, like ten years ago. Remember when you were a kid and one of your parents yelled at you to get outside and rake the lawn? Yeah, they meant with a rake, not a 40 inch tow behind dethatcher. After a few years of some kid raking the yard by hand, he or she got the bright idea of inventing a better tool.
I picked up a “Brinly 40 Inch Tow-Behind Dethatcher” from Home Depot in Glastonbury this afternoon. It was the cheapest one that had. I would have preferred buying the John Deere front mounted dethatcher because I could d-thatch and bag at the same time, but that unit and mount cost about $400. This old man isn’t paying $400 to rake the lawn. I’ll get the $79 jobber.
I put the dethatcher together when we got back. It took about 45 minutes to finish it up…just enough time to give it a dry run around the front lawn. For this little trial, I didn’t put a weight on the unit; I simply towed it around to see how it worked.
I have to say, it did a pretty good job. The dethatcher scraped along the ground and loosened up all the layered thatch (of which there is more than you realize). While towing it around, I was able to easily see the areas I already covered. When I was finished dethatching, I re-installed the rear bagger and sucked up all the dead grass clippings, dead crab grass and twigs and dumped all that waste into the woods. I got almost four full bags. Not bad for one simple dry run around the front lawn.
Here, take a look at the photos.
PS – If you want to see what a lawn looks like before dethatching, click here.
Related posts
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
I must say, this John Deere ride-on mower has been a real treat to work with. What once took half a day to do, now takes a mere 45 minutes. I cut at 3.5 inches and everything is working out smoothly. Also, I now longer sweat like a pig while mowing the lawn. Well, the hillside in the front still needs to be mowed with the push-mower, so there is a whole heck of a lot of sweating and swearing at that one.
These days, the issue isn’t so much mowing the lawn, but picking up the leaves. Back in the day, I would just mow over the leaves and hope for the best. I actually liked doing it. I love the sound of the leaves getting all crunched up and shooting out of the side of the mower. Well, with joy, sometimes comes pain. All Winter and once Spring rolls around, all those piles of shredded up leaves are still on the lawn. The create a bunch of dead spots.
The grass clippings from the previous (and current) season create what is called “lawn thatch.” If you care about the health of your lawn and care about what it looks like, thatch is something you are going to want to deal with.
With all this in mind, I ran down to the local John Deere dealer this afternoon to pick up a shiny new 7-bushel rear bagger for the ride-on mower. I have wanted this for a while, but with the onslaught of leaves falling from the trees, a little mini-fire was lit under my butt.
The rear bagger came unassembled and took about a half hour to put together on the back of the mower. I decided to take photos for all my loyal readers to enjoy. Heck you never know…someone might actually “Google” how to put together a 7-bushel rear bagger for a John Deere X300 and my site may pop up. I’m such a genius.
Here are the pics with some short captions…
Rear of x300. This is why I got the x300 - heavier frame for attachments.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper.
Installing hopper.
Installing hopper.
See, wasn’t that exciting? Ok, I will admit that after posting these photos, I understand that not all of you may be as excited as I am. Well, maybe this will do the trick. After setting everything up and mowing the whole lawn, the place is now leaf free. The lawn looks great. I can’t even believe how easy it was. I dumped about 12 bags worth of grass clippings and leaves and that made me feel good.
Oh yeah, one more reason to catch your grass clippings is because the weeds on your lawn keep coming back because of their seeds. If you catch your clippings, you reduce (theoretically) the amount of weeds on your lawn. I made that one up myself, but I think it makes sense.
Related posts
