home + garden
Greengirls Helen Yarmoska, Nicole Hvidsten, Martha Buns, Connie Nelson, Kim Palmer and Mary Jane Smetanka are dishin' the dirt from the back-yard garden and beyond. Whether you're a greenthumb or greenhorn, they're eager to learn from your mishaps, mistakes - and most importantly, your sweet successes - all growing season long.
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Posts about Lawn care
What this lawn needs is a comb over!
Posted by: Helen Yarmoska Updated: May 22, 2013 - 8:36 AM
After visiting with him, I went to fill my car up with gas. The person in line in front of me had two gas tanks and a lawn mower in back. Hmm, maybe my advice to Mike wasn’t that good. With gas at $4.39 a gallon maybe he should forget about his lawn.
If you just don’t use the lawnmower does grass work like a bald man’s
This high-priced gas is supposed to last until June, by then dandelions and quack grass will move in and no one will notice. (Is that like a wig for a patchy lawn?)
So, Mike, let the Great Dane romp in the back yard. Forget about filling in those patchy spots and forget about mowing twice a week. What do you guys think? Live and let live? Go bald or go home?
It's watering time!
Posted by: Helen Yarmoska Updated: September 13, 2012 - 8:28 AM
If you were one of those folks who let their lawns go dormant over the heat of summer, it’s time to pull out the hoses. If you don’t provide your lawn with proper moisture now, there may be no turf grass to come back in the Spring.
Sam Bauer, Extension Turfgrass Educator for the University of MN Extension, wrote that usual Fall lawn maintenance on drought affected turfgrass may actually do more harm than good.
For example, the usual maintenance right now is to lower your mowing height to prevent snow mold. However, Sam says to keep the height up right now and mow less to help encourage grass recovery.
And fertilizer, don’t think about it. The University of MN has already informed us that the October feeding is no longer recommended. And in drought conditions, any quick release nitrogen flows right into the ecosystem because lawns aren’t growing as quickly and robustly as a ‘usual’ Fall in Minnesota.
So pull out those hoses right now. Give your trees a drink and give you lawn chance to turn green before it turns white! Will you do it?
That dreaded chore
Posted by: Mary Jane Smetanka Updated: June 26, 2012 - 10:10 AM
I worked in the yard almost all weekend. I spent hours digging up a garden that had grass in it, trying to untangle the threads of grass roots from among the perennials. I moved heavy rocks. I dug up dozens of plants of that garden Satan, creeping bellflower.
All the while, The Most Dreaded Job lurked: trimming the grass.
It’s silly, I know. I will happily mow the lawn and weed the garden for hours, but the mindless job of pulling out the weed whip stymies me.
I don’t know why I hate it so much. It’s not like when I was a kid and had to kneel on the grass with a hand clipper. The new trimmers don’t even need their cutting lines “bumped,” like my old one did. This machine simply churns away, efficiently slicing the grass away and sending the clippings flying.
So after I mowed, I pulled out the weed whip. For half an hour it sliced and diced. My legs were covered with bits of grass and dirt but I have to admit: the yard looked much better.
I don’t care. I still don’t like it.
Do you have a dreaded chore in the garden?
Weeds: Offense or defense?
Posted by: Kim Palmer Updated: June 25, 2012 - 11:00 AM
Weeding isn't the WORST garden chore in the world. It's satisfying to grab a fistul of weed and feel the roots give way -- plus you get the instant gratification of seeing a cleaner, tidier garden.
Grab and pull, grab and pull. Once you get into the rhythm, it's oddly therapeutic.
But after two hours of grabbing and pulling under the hot sun yesterday afternoon, I've had quite enough weed therapy, thank you very much.
The patches I weeded look pretty good, but there are others I never made it to. And the patches I weeded two weeks ago need weeding again, thanks to all our recent rain.
I've been playing defense against weeds. It's time for a stronger offense, I decided. Not chemicals. My garden needs to become naturally less weed-friendly.
So here's my action plan:
Step 1: More perennials, planted more densely. Landscape designer Jamie Durie, who was in town earlier this month, is a fan of this method. "I don't endorse bald spots," he said. "I plant abundantly. I don't even give weeds room to pop up." (http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/157260875.html)
I need more big, hardy perennials like bee balm and ligularia and cardinal flower, that come up reliably and take up a lot of garden space.
Step 2: Mulch. This one will be a little more tricky to execute, at least in my yard. My biggest weed headache is the area covered with river rock in the front. Whoever installed my landscape, about 20 years ago, apparently laid plastic, then put dirt and the rocks on top. It looked good when we moved in 16 years ago, but every year, more weeds sprout between the rocks. This year, there was more green than gray.
I'd love to replace the rocks with a thick layer of wood mulch. But removing all those rocks will be such a nightmare that I'm tempted to just put the mulch on top. Anyone out there ever tried that? Or should I resign myself to a weekend of rock removal?
Dogs vs. grass
Posted by: Mary Jane Smetanka Updated: June 5, 2012 - 11:50 AM
I am not obsessed with grass. I tolerate clover, dandelions and other weeds, pulling what I can. But I draw the line at having a dust bowl in the backyard.
That may be a dream if you have dogs, especially big dogs. My first Airedale terrier, 85-pound Teddy, would run straight to a tree in pursuit of squirrels and then make a beeline for the fence, where he would race up and down to see what was coming down the alley.
Thus the dirt track in the shape of a big “T” in my back yard.
When I whined about this, my mother had a tart reality check that has stayed with me: “You can have a perfect lawn, or you can have dogs.”
Well okay then.
Teddy is now chasing squirrels in the sky. His successor, Toby, wasn’t as hard on the grass as Teddy had been. And my fox terriers are so light on their feet and spend so much time in the air that they hardly mar the lawn. With regular aeration and fertilization — I like to keep it organic where the dogs are and use corn gluten meal — the lawn was in pretty decent shape for years.
Then Toby passed and a new Airedale, Henry, joined the household. He’s not as big as his predecessors, but he takes the cake for sheer athleticism. He springs like Superman from deck to yard, landing with a THUNK on the grass and running in an circle from deck to yard, over and over again. He teases his wire fox terrier sister until she joins in the fun. The grass flies, the dust rises, and if Henry is feeling really silly he’ll rip some sod up with his teeth and toss it in the air for good measure.
And I hear my Mom whispering in my ear: “You can have a perfect lawn, or you can have dogs.”
Last fall, I seeded the bare areas and fenced it off until winter came. It looked gorgeous. Then came the coup de grace, a snowless winter. When spring came, a dirt racetrack had been carved through the backyard.
If I had any sense, I’d rip the grass out and put wood chips everywhere. But I don’t want that. I had some spare flagstones, so I began filling part of the Henry’s landing spot near the deck with stepping stones. It looked like this:
He didn’t like landing on limestone, and shifted his path to land on some very battered grass.
Two weeks ago, I sodded widest part of Henry’s track. Seeded lawn would never survive the dog traffic, I thought, and if the sod dies, I will be no worse off than when I started.
Henry loves the sod. He lays on it. He makes a point to pee on it. And he runs on it, over and over again.
I have my fingers crossed. But I haven’t forgotten the odds are against me. When it comes to choosing between grass and dogs, I opt for the canines.
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recent posts
- What this lawn needs is a comb over!
- Fast-starters and stragglers
- Swapping knowledge (and plants)
- Yes, we have tents
- Plant field trips
- With Spring comes...
- Weirdest spring ever
- Putting the "green" in Greengirls
- Overwintering vegetables?
- Reclaiming the back-yard garden
- Start Saving Seeds!
- Patience with perennials
- Little bulbs lead the charge into spring
- Slow, snowy spring spurs gardener's lament
- Spring always brings promise
- See you next Spring
- Lessons learned from the garden
- The bloom is off the rose
- Late bloomers
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