The Lawn

Ok Ok I finally got a little embarrassed - about the state of my lawn. After living in the house for 8 and ½ years I finally decided, or rather it may have been decided for me, that it was time to do something about the state of my lawn. Of course my house is now 104 years old and I bought it in a state of somewhat disrepair. So I always have a long list of to-dos on the house. Up until now I have focused mostly on the interior of the house; repairing cracked walls, restoring the wood work, restoring the wood floors, and basically fixing it up one room at a time. The yard was always on my list but pretty far down.

This year though it just looked miserable in the spring. I normally would through some fertilizer out and some fresh seed twice a year. I also mow and line-trim it a few times a month. Last year as I was out of the country I could do these things. Instead I ended up hiring a service just to keep I mowed. Partial to keep my neighbors happy and partial to make it look lived in to keep criminals from thinking it was vacant. Last year must have been pretty dry and I don’t think the service took into consideration the state of the grass, because along one side of my house I have steep hill along the side walk where 60% of the grass had been tore up. I believe this was probably an affect of the large mowers used by the lawn service paired with dry grass and the incline of the hill. At any rate it was an awful mess.

So we decided to see if we could green things up again. Of course I have to give most of the credit to my lovely wife. While I may have come up with the how to fix things she had to do most of the work. All summer long we have been seeding, watering, and fertilizing the grass. We have tried several different seeds and methods. But really the best thing seem to be to use a certain Minnesota grass seed mixture, put an 1/8 inch of dirt over it, and then water it 4-5 times a week (I should say that RG was the one doing all the watering and care taking as I typically am gone all week). In fact we paid easily 2.5 times as much for the water bill as the last few years. But it has been worth it. After about 5-6 weeks our lawn was easily the nicest on the block! Who knew it could happen so fast. Plus we put in a flower bed, two planters, replaced a huge ugly old bush, and replaced some other bushes with more seed. It looks great.

I’m certain glad I didn’t wait until everything in the house was finished to work on the lawn. It really does feel good to come back to a home with such a lush flower filled. Someday I actually hope to put in a retaining wall and I know next year RG is going to demand more flower space and planters. So of course I can feel the continuation of domestic life to impress itself on me someday soon I think I will become a stereo typical family man. Not that there is anything wrong with that.