Lush Heritage

Celebrating a conservation-leaning approach to living well and the DIY spirit.

How to Rejuvenate an Overgrown Flower Garden – Fall

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I am not an expert gardener and don’t pretend to be, but I do own two old homes that are graced with mature gardens that I’m in the midst of rejuvenating. Throughout her life, my mother always had flowers growing all around the house and until my late teens, my parents (and us kids) grew a large vegetable garden each year. While I learned about gardening back then, I’ve had to learn a lot more as I rejuvenate the overgrown flower gardens on my own property.

Here are some simple guidelines for anyone in a similar situation.

Basic Tips

  • Determine your landscaping aesthetic
  • Discover what’s present and what you want to keep
  • Be ruthless and thorough in removing/suppressing all unwanted growth (which doesn’t mean the automatic use of herbicides)
  • Learn the sunlight amount, wind exposure, and soil characteristics in the specific gardening area(s)
  • Apply soil amendments, if needed
  • Find your planting zone
  • Learn what will thrive naturally in your local conditions (there’s a lovely shrub/tree/flower for just about every environment)
  • Select the greenery you want to introduce (there are fall-planted and spring-planted specimens so if it’s too late to plant, it’s never too late to plan)
  • Work really hard
  • Don’t stress
  • Be eternally optimistic

The Reality

As I wrote last month, this year’s main landscaping goal is to rejuvenate the overgrown front flower garden at the main house. It measures 11-13’ W x 106’ L and is probably a bit longer due to the garden’s undulating border. I’ve run into headwinds, as any gardener can empathize:

  • The weeding seems endless.
  • I dread digging out yet more bamboo roots that are as thick as sweet potatoes.
  • I ran out of wood-chip mulch very early.
  • Weeds poked through it just weeks after I’d set out wet cardboard and what I thought was a sufficiently deep layer of mulch. Chopped leaves to the rescue!
  • But that entails a whole other time-consuming (and dusty) process of chopping leaves with the bigger mower, collecting them with the smaller mower with bag attachment, then depositing them.

So, how am I keeping myself motivated to rejuvenate this formerly glorious flower garden?

My Ideal Garden

I keep envisioning a lush, beautiful space, one with a limited palette. Hopefully, it will provide year-long visual interest and attract pollinators, too. A simple aesthetic always appeals to me most – repetitive stretches of form and different hues of a few colors create a calming environment. This works for me even if the colors are vibrant and saturated, like the iconic red tulip. Calming doesn’t mean boring! To achieve this, I selected three fall-planted flowers: daffodils, hyacinths, and peonies.

Then I ordered more than 300 heirloom bulbs, 358 to be precise. 

Why these flowers and why so many?

A Sea of Heirlooms

They’re beautiful, long-lived, hardy perennials that are deer resistant, and some are deliciously fragrant. The cultivars that I chose are cream, pink, or coral. I love these tones in a spring garden, especially coral which I don’t see very often.  Although peonies can take a year or two to settle into their new home, they’re so exquisite that they’re worth the wait.

I ordered 358 bulbs just in case burrowing critters try to spoil my grand plan and also to avoid the appearance of what I call “pimple planting,” the effect of too few plants studding a wide swath of mulch.

Here is what I selected:

  • 50 Romance daffodils (the cup opens peach to coral)
  • 100 Louise de Coligny daffodils (described as apricot, but I consider that to be in the coral family)
  • 200 Gypsy Queen hyacinths (apricot; I wanted to dot them with dark purple hyacinths, but they were sold out)
  • 3 Frances Willard peonies (cream/blush)
  • 5 Hermione peonies (apple-blossom pink)

First, though, I have to finish preparing the bed which is going to be a slog.  And keep reminding myself to be patient since this flower garden rejuvenation is a years-long project. After this week of rain and yesterday’s snowfall, I’ll be out of the garden for the next several days, but that’s okay. My goal is to complete my fall planting by the first week of December.  Fingers crossed that Mother Nature cooperates!

Overgrown Gardens – Honoring the Past, Designing the Future

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When I bought the little house and the main house, both had stunning flower gardens that were no longer at their best. An avid amateur gardener and professional landscape horticulturist/garden designer created them, respectively; their exceptional taste is still apparent amidst the weeds. I recall seeing these overgrown gardens in their full glory, such a great inspiration. They deserve to be reclaimed; it has never occurred to me to rip them out and grass them over though that would be the far easier course of action.

While I’m grateful for the prior gardeners’ expertise and efforts, I have to decide how much of their aesthetic to keep and still realize my own. Among homeowners who are living with someone else’s extensive landscaping, I suspect I’m not alone in this predicament.

I’ve selected the flower bed pictured below for my first, multi-year garden reclamation project. I’ll discuss the specific plantings in a future post.

The Garden Details

Location: The garden lies between a lawn and a long stone wall; hayfields stretch behind the wall. Since it’s toward the bottom of a gentle slope the ground is slightly moist and well-drained.

Dimensions:  11-13’ W x 106’ L (probably a bit longer due to the garden’s undulating border)

Sun exposure:  full sun

Level of difficulty: 4 out of 5 stars

The Plan

First, remove the debris and weeds on both sides of the stone wall. Then lay down mulch. Lastly, install 350+ bulbs (hyacinths, daffodils, and peonies) this fall; this phase will be detailed further in a future post.

My debris and weed removal has been inefficient.

In Summer 2017, my sister and I spent several weekends cutting and removing weeds and Phragmites that bordered the hayfield side of the stone wall. Without clearing this area, there is no sight line from the house through the lawn and garden into the hayfields which is one of my main goals. We should have used mulch after we cut everything.

Then, in Fall 2018, I hired the main house’s wonderful garden designer to remove a few years of dead growth and weeds and do a hard cut back of certain specimen trees. I didn’t quite know what was in the garden and didn’t want to remove anything by mistake. I had him use mulch on another garden, but not this one. Bad decision!

The following spring, a dense wall of weeds and Phragmites sprouted once again.  However, I was busy working on other outdoor projects last year so I didn’t tend to this garden.

Which brings me to this spring and summer – and the pandemic which has forced me to work from home since mid-March.  In April and May, I cut back the bamboo, grasses, and weeds. Then the heat and humidity of summer drove me out of the garden.  From June through August, the bamboo shot back to almost four feet and a sea of tough grasses returned.

This month, I returned to the garden, determined to stop endless weeding by using the one thing that I have an almost irrational dislike of: mulch.

Mulch

I generally dislike mulch because I think it’s too visible in most gardens or it’s an awful color. However, I’ve accepted that it’s an essential for me, and I can control its visibility and color in my application.  Given the number and size of the gardens at both houses, I just don’t want to spend a fortune every year to replenish it.

Luckily, I have access to a yearly supply of free mulch but didn’t realize it until this year.

Wood Chips

When I pruned and cleaned around a row of maple trees two years ago, my tree guy chipped all the branches then hauled away truckloads of wood chips. One pile was left on-site for my sister’s gardening needs, but she never used it.  The wood chip pile sat, a slight eyesore under a layer of fallen leaves, for two years.

You may have guessed correctly: that wood pile decomposed into dark brown mulch. I found compost in the center, presumably the hottest section.

It takes an hour to shovel it into a cart attached to my riding mower, ride it back to the garden then shovel it in the garden. But, it’s so worth it!  I love that the land is giving back to itself – and it’s at no additional cost to me.

I’ve just bought a wood chipper, which I’ll discuss in a future Lush Heritage product review.  I’m very excited to make my own mulch and compost annually and keep the property neater looking at the same time.

Fallen Leaves

Chopped leaves are another good (and free) mulch and will be my second choice here. One benefit to owning so many big deciduous trees is that I have easy access to a huge amount of autumn leaves.  I only need to chop and bag them with my riding lawn mower, or shred them with my DR Leaf and Lawn Vacuum. I think I’ve timed this project just right – leaves have already begun to turn and fall.

Perfect Mulch Partners

Mulch can be even more effective when used with other materials. Plain, brown cardboard boxes and black-and-white newspapers provide an inexpensive, opaque layer beneath mulch and an extra assurance that no sunlight will penetrate the mulch. Also, unlike plastic landscaping fabric, as they decompose they’ll add beneficial organic matter to the soil.

I remove all tape and sticky labels from the boxes, break them down flat, then soak them with water using my garden hose. When they’re good and soggy I lay them on the freshly cut weeds in the garden, overlapping as I go then cover them with my wood-chip mulch.

The garden is so big, that I’m sure I’ll run out of cardboard long before I’m done covering the weeds. 

When that happens, I’ll lay down 6-8 sheets of water-soaked newspaper (black-and-white only), then cover that with my mulch. I may resort to plain brown shopping bags for the base layer before I start mulching bare ground.

That’s it for now.  I’ll update this project over the next several months.

Good luck to all of you who are also doing fall preparation in your flower and vegetable gardens!

Alliums in August – A Note of Appreciation

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Updated September 23, 2021: I discovered early this spring that the plants I described below are actually globe thistles, not alliums. Regardless, the sentiment remains the same.

Mid-summer brought a lovely surprise last week: alliums!  I shouldn’t have been surprised to see these hardy perennials, but I really was.

That’s because a mild drought has parched the lawns and made them bare in spots. Brief downpours have rejuvenated these patches – with unwanted crabgrass.  As I walked around the main lawn last week, I focused again on these unsightly areas. Not the sights and sounds of a summer morning in the country. I wondered how and when I was going to repair this blight.

And that’s when I came upon a profusion of golf-balled-sized white alliums. I hadn’t even noticed their arrival this year; I must have raced right by them on the riding mower for weeks.

Seeing the alliums’ spiky domes and plump bees noisily flitting from one to another instantly lifted my mood. I forgot about the crabgrass. Weeds that were interspersed with the alliums seemed to fade from view.

It’s so wonderful to behold these snowy pom-poms, and I’m grateful to whomever planted them. Although I probably would have opted for a lush planting of the showier Globemaster alliums, their smaller, pale cousins will remain an important element as I restore order to their bed.

Days after my “discovery,” I realized that I’ve rarely been on any of the lawns or in the gardens unless I’m on a mission: picking up branches and sticks, snipping an outcropping of pricker bushes, noting tunneling or holes; yanking weeds. By not slowing down, I’ve missed the quiet signs of the gardens’ life cycles and the short-lived opportunity to best enjoy, understand, and support them.

I wish I had picture-perfect landscape photos to share, but the transformation of this property continues to be a long, slow journey. That doesn’t mean that the beauty here isn’t still evident to me when I take a moment. Sometimes that happens as I remove yet another heavy coil of bittersweet to reveal a peony that just couldn’t bloom beneath its dense shade.

Or, when I’ve cleared a jungle of weeds to see a lone stem of pink phlox that soon attracts a hummingbird.

Or, when I spot a spray of alliums standing tall among the weeds.

Happy Summer, everyone!

Healthy Lawn Report: Grass Re-Seeding Disaster

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I haven’t posted in several weeks for two reasons:  it suddenly became too hot for me to want to be in the blazing sun for hours so I haven’t made much progress on outdoor projects, and I’ve been under the weather recently. I’m feeling much better, but it’s only getting hotter and more humid.

Lush Isn’t Always Pretty

It feels dishonest to feature only picture-perfect photos when the property is (still) a mess or when a project goes awry, so I’d like to share a grass re-seeding disaster that occurred in late May/early June:

I have a secondary front lawn and sizeable flower bed across the road from the main house. In recent years my town has been using a more caustic road salt that has slowly killed a swath of grass that is at least 6 feet wide and several hundred feet long. Because the ground slopes, that salt has migrated in certain spots and created other dead areas of lawn where only a bit of crab grass and weeds grow.

It looks awful.

Why Is the Grass Dying On My Watch?

Last year, I’d applied gypsum to desalinate and de-compact the soil, with the intention of over-seeding in late summer/early fall, then top dressing with organic horse manure. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to do either so this spring I found myself looking at an ugly lawn that had once been lush and green. I don’t know how the previous owners kept the lawn in such good shape; some road salt must have always migrated onto the lawn – for decades. I know they used a mulching mower, but their lawn care activities are otherwise a mystery.

Fed up with how bad it looked, I had six cubic yards of screened loam delivered in late May.  It couldn’t be dumped exactly where I needed it because of the slope and the limitations of the truck used to deliver it. So I shoveled the dirt by hand into a cart, hauled it across the road, and spread it by hand onto the area to be re-seeded.  It took at least four hours to move less than half the pile. 

I figured it made more sense to have the seed sitting on the fresh loam instead of the almost-barren soil bed.  So, I lightly raked the loam then sowed fresh grass seed, sprinkled organic horse manure, covered it all with tacky straw, and watered it using a handheld sprayer and three five-gallon buckets of water.

The below photo shows about one-quarter of a long section of decimated lawn. I covered it quite heavily with the tacky straw, but the bottom of the photo shows a patch of how poor the area was. Notice how just a few blades of crabgrass are poking through soil that is covered with a sand and salt mixture.

High Hopes, Quickly Dashed

Anyone who has successfully seeded a lawn (as I have) probably knows that it all went downhill from there. Here’s what happened:

  1. The next morning, I went outside shortly after 7:00am to see that wild turkeys had been scratching at the straw and disturbing the seed – there were deep gouges in some places. Other birds were picking up bits of straw, presumably for nesting material, but I sensed that the turkeys were going to be the real spoilers.
  2. Upset but undeterred, I filled my buckets and sprayed the area by hand.  The battery on the sprayer died after 30 minutes but gave me just enough power to empty the buckets.  The soil appeared saturated but when I checked an hour or so later, it looked bone dry and when I dug my finger into the soil, it felt that way too.
  3. Still, I awoke earlier than normal each day for two weeks, took note of the continued turkey disturbances and straw theft then watered the soil for 30 minutes.  It always felt dry shortly after I finished watering it around 8:00am even though the temperature topped out in the mid-seventies (Fahrenheit) and the lows were in the fifties.
  4. It didn’t rain for at least ten days – not one drop.
  5. Nothing came up.
  6. The turkeys visited at all times of the day and evening, one time appearing less than a minute after I’d finished watering.  Other times, they’d stand several feet away, almost as if they were just waiting for me to leave.  Yes, I directed harsh language at them.
  7. After about ten days, we had a very light rain.
  8. I finally noticed a few green shoots close to the roadside – success!  My 7:30am waterings had been worth it.  Excited, I then sprinkled some year-old coated mini-clover seeds.  Within a few days, baby clover appeared!
  9. I watered for a few more days, bringing my project to about the two-week mark.
  10. My sister told me that much of what I’d thought were mini-clover were in fact baby weeds sprouting.  What?!
  11. Around Day 14, I went outside to water.  No mini-clover. The new grass seemed to be gone too, but all the weeds were present.  And bigger.  Weeds that I hadn’t seen anywhere on the property before – or at my parents’ house just up the road.  What had been in that loam?  More importantly, what had happened to the mini-clover?

I saw hoof marks at one end of the seeded area, but the deer didn’t appear to have been near where the mini-clover had sprouted. I doubted the turkeys had eaten it – they seemed much more interested in scratching at the straw to look for grubs.

I’m sure it was the rabbits. They’d been pretty sparse this year – I assumed due in part to the coyote that I’d seen a few times. Just when I’d noticed them, they must have noticed the tender green shoots and feasted on them. Strange, as they seem to have no interest in the sizeable amount of white clover that is spread throughout the other lawns.

The area is as ugly as before, now with a new variety of weeds as seen below.

So, I will pull all the weeds then re-seed/fertilize the area in mid-late September.

So Many Mistakes

For now, I’ve taken stock of everything I did wrong:

  1. Poor seed-to-soil contact. I should have raked the seeds into the loam instead of having them sit on top of it.
  2. Bad timing. Although the temperature stayed between 50-75 degrees Fahrenheit after I seeded the area, it gets full sun and the soil likely gets pretty hot after baking in the sun all day in mid-spring. I should have seeded the area in late March/early April even though we had one or two snowfalls during that period. The snow melted within 24 hours so I don’t think it would have killed the seeds. We also had frequent rain then and those extra weeks would have helped the seeds to germinate. 
  3. Insufficient water. I should have paid attention to the weather forecast and waited to re-seed until we had a good amount of rain coming.  The seeds needed sustained moisture more than anything for the first few weeks. How much better the outcome would have been.

Due to the lack of rain, I should have watered twice a day or better yet, I should have used my heavy-duty, tow-behind sprayer that needs to be hitched to my lawn tractor’s engine (PTO, I think) to spray a drenching mist – probably in the evening.  But, I needed to secure the sprayer to the one cart I have which would have meant that I couldn’t use it to haul brush. I just couldn’t spare it, and the hook up of the sprayer and cart is tricky (to me anyway) since my brother had taken care of it for me last year.  In hindsight, I should have tried to connect and de-connect them myself – like my sister suggested.

4. Attracted wild life.  I think using tacky straw is a good idea – it’s supposed to stick to the soil once wet to keep the seeds in place, retain moisture as the seeds germinate, then disintegrate.  For me, though, my first time using it just made the area too attractive to wild turkeys which disturbed the seeds every day, several times a day. I’ve successfully seeded areas without straw (and once, without watering the area at all). So, I doubt I’ll use it again.

Looking Ahead

I am not defeated or angry that I spent so much time on what turned out to be a disaster because I’ve learned from this experience. At the very least, it has reminded me that I have to be patient and persistent. This lawn will need to be majorly rehabilitated every year due to the horrible effects of road salt/sand and runoff.  That will take time, energy, and money, all of which could be spent elsewhere.  But the only alternative is to have a half-dead, weedy lawn in front of the house.

That’s unacceptable.

So, it’s onward and upward.  The wild turkeys don’t visit as much now, but I see many more rabbits all over the property. They look plump and healthy, but at least I know it’s not from gorging on fresh clover shoots – not mine, anyway!

Spring Cleanup: Revealing Hidden Flowers

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The Big Spring Cleanup continues! And it has revealed several “hidden” flowers. Underneath layers of matted dead plants, these long-dormant plants have been waiting patiently for the sun to warm them once again.

Here are some highlights that have kept me from despairing at the seemingly endless amount of work:

Poppies

My biggest moment of joy last week came when I learned that the dozen or so exotic-looking plants that seemingly sprouted overnight are actually poppies.  My sister had pointed them out to me the prior week, but neither of us knew what they were. Then we visited a fantastic nursery over the weekend that had spectacular bright orange poppies ablaze in their garden, and I immediately became obsessed with them.

Within the last 36 hours the first bud bloomed, then overnight another two bloomed as well. They’re stunning and look so elegant as they sway in the wind. I think they are Papaver atlanticum. If I’m right, they’ll bloom until August! None of them “popped” the last two years. I think they grew this year because I removed years of debris from their flower bed about six weeks ago.  What a great incentive to keep clearing dead foliage – so many other dormant flowers may return later this year or next.

Peonies

What can one say about the empress of flowers?  They’re drop-dead gorgeous, and you can never have too many. My mother grew them, and I always think of her whenever I see a peony anywhere.

This year’s spring cleanup uncovered several peonies growing on the west side of the house. What a lovely surprise! I’d never noticed them, hidden by a forest of ferns. Several weeks ago I removed years of dead ferns which is probably the only reason why I saw the peonies’ distinctive shoots.

They’re already being crowded by this year’s crop of ferns and they may not be getting enough sun, but I’m excited to see what kind they are if/when they bloom in the next few weeks.  I know they don’t like to be transplanted, but I’ll move them if they don’t thrive in their current location after I yank the nearby ferns. Notice how short the ferns are in the above photo; they’re now tall as the peonies.

Hostas

I just love these plants in all their variations. My mother grew them as well so they’re another wonderful reminder of her.  They’re reliable performers, and they look so much better when they’re not standing in inches of debris. 

I should mulch the area to suppress weeds, but I’m spending my time and money elsewhere this year and hoping the hosta beds won’t end up looking unkempt.

Below are just a few of the hostas here. The photos don’t do them justice.

Ferns a/k/a Free Landscaping

I’m almost done removing a carpet of dead ferns on the north side of the barn.  It never seems to smother the next year’s crop, it just looks unbearably messy.  The below photos were taken 25 days apart.

I like ferns, but not that much! While there are several varieties growing on the property, these basic woodland ferns are everywhere.  I may add some other shade-loving plants near this area, but I’ll gladly keep nature’s free landscaping.  At least it keeps this space relatively weed-free, and for that I am grateful.

Inspiration Everywhere

Spring cleanup is hard work around here, but I usually see something that’ll spur me on – even if I know I probably can’t focus on a specific area until next year – or the year after that.  The gracious crabapple tree shown below was loaded with blossoms a couple of weeks ago – just like the poppy blooms, they seemed to appear overnight.

The tree is surrounded by dead bamboo canes and weeds, but I imagine what a great focal point it will be once again when I clear around it (maybe this fall or winter).

Unexpected Projects

Then there have been the unexpected cleanup projects, such as when a massive pine tree limb broke off several weeks ago and landed on an area that I’d re-seeded (unsuccessfully, it turns out).

My sister and I spent six hours removing every last bit of debris.  Luckily, three kind men who work in the area passed by and cut the trunk into pieces and put them in my cart, otherwise it would have taken us much longer. 

However, there was a silver lining.  We’d already transported and dumped a few big chunks when my ever-resourceful sister said that we should keep them because our brother may be able to build something with them. Yes!  If you read my post about my reclaimed wood desk you’ve seen some of his handy work. So, we plucked the pieces out of the brush pile and hauled them back to the barn.

And the Dandelions

Back to these weeds:  I’ve given up trying to pluck them out the ground one-by-one. In fact, I gave up two hours after I started. Not because my new hand tool doesn’t work, but because there must be at least 10,000 dandelions on the lawns.  My new approach is to whack them with another hand tool that I bought two days ago. My parents had the perfect, lightweight hand tool for this task for decades, but now my siblings and I can’t find it – I hate when that happens.  This new tool is a bit heavier, but it works very well.

Now, when I mow the smaller lawns with my manual reel mower they won’t be marred by an army of bald dandelion stems.  An imperfect, temporary solution perhaps, but it quickly gets me the results that I want and that’s good enough for me right now.

Healthy Lawn Report: The First Mow of the Year

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Well, it happened. For the first time this year, the grass had grown so long that I had to mow it a few weeks ago.

Here’s a photo of the first mowed strip:

Can something be wonderful and awful at the same time?  I’d been watching the grass greening more every day for the past month or so, excited to see an undeniable sign of spring.  At the same time I was thinking: I am NOT ready to mow grass 5-6 hours a week. It really does take that long to mow the lawns at both houses.  The kicker is that I am reclaiming overgrown areas of lawn at both locations, which when completed will probably add another 20 minutes or so to my mowing time.

Really, though, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I’ve always loved big, lush lawns. There were times during the past couple of years when I would be at work, longing to jump on a riding mower.  I never thought I’d be one of those people!

The first mow of the main lawn in progress. So much dead grass…

At the same time, I’m not interested in having a lawn that is the envy of all passersby. That means: no chemical weed suppressants, no sprinkler system, and infrequent soil amendments and use of organic fertilizers. Maybe after I complete my big outdoor projects in the next year or two I’ll devote more energy to the lawns.

As the youngest of seven, I can count on one hand the number of times I cut grass as a kid. I knew next to nothing about lawn care though we basically always had a beautiful front and back lawn.

I’ve recently learned a few things about grass, perhaps specific to my green patch:

Length Matters

If I want lower turf, I can cut my grass to 2.75 inches only until early July.  Thereafter, it’s just too hot and the sun will scorch the grass, turning my lawn into a burnt, brown mess.  Then, dormant weeds will grow – fast. Luckily, I discovered last year that once I start mowing at 3.5 inches high again, the lawn will recover quickly.

Based on my brother’s suggestion, I had cut it 2.75 inches high last year so that if I couldn’t cut it for two weeks, it wouldn’t be too long and create thick windrows when mowed. I think he would keep all grass at two inches if he could, but I prefer the lusher look and feel of taller grass. And I really didn’t expect to see a singed sward by mid-July by cutting it lower.

That shouldn’t be a problem this growing season. Since I’ll be working from home as I wait for the city in which I work to re-open fully, I can mow at 3.25 – 3.5 inches before I start work on any given day or during much of my lunch break so I can stay on top of things.

(Note:  I just purchased a manual reel mower whose highest cutting height is 2.75 inches, and I really love to use it on the secondary lawns and in tighter areas such as around the base of trees.  So…I’m sure I’ll be tempted to cut smaller spaces at that lower height as long as I can each year, especially since using a manual mower is great exercise.) 

Thatch

If it isn’t too thick, thatch may not be as bad as I thought; it’s a great weed suppressor. I know – probably no knowledgeable person agrees with me on this point. As I recounted in a post last year, the main lawn had a large area that had reverted to meadow and the remainder had a dense layer of thatch resulting from many years of grass clippings. Although it appeared perfect from afar, up close, the sward had several, small dead-ish areas and a spongy feel underfoot.

What it didn’t have was dozens and dozens of dandelions, which is what it has this year.  The front lawn is ablaze with them too.

This invasion is probably due to two main factors:

Successful Application of Liquid Dethatcher

I didn’t want the hassle and expense of renting or buying a dethatching machine since they can cause so much damage and not solve the problem. So, after researching I decided upon a natural liquid dethatcher. The product I chose uses bacteria and enzymes.  In combination with soil organisms, they speed up the natural decomposition process and convert the thatch into nutrient-rich humus which benefits the soil.

I used it only twice last spring and summer, but my lawn’s surface looked better over the course of last year so I think the product actually worked as advertised. I probably would have had even better results if I’d used it monthly, fertilized, and over-seeded, but I just didn’t have the time.

Removal of Old Thatch, Dead Grass, and Recently Cut Grass

Due to so many rainy days last spring and summer, I couldn’t mow every weekend and the grass was growing so fast that mulching was not an option. Whenever I did mow, it resulted in thick windrows hundreds of feet long.

Essentially, I had a three-layer cake of problems: old thatch, newer dead grass, and newly cut grass. But I also had a solution for each: the biological dethatcher decomposed the old thatch, the John Deere x370 riding mower really lifted the “newer” dead grass into its deep Accel mower deck and whisked it away into the attached waste disposal bags (it worked best when the clippings were dry as the chute easily clogs with wet or damp materials), and my sister and I spent hours on many a weekend morning raking and removing new and old clippings before it became too hot.

I think this combination helped to remove the last bits of decomposing thatch and aerate the soil a bit – and expose areas of sparser growth to sunlight which led to the eventual emergence of this year’s dandelions.

Grass Removal

About the grass removal:  The x370 is too small and slow for the amount of lawn I need to mow in a limited timeframe, especially when the grass is long and wet. The John Deere x590 is bigger and faster, but I haven’t attached mulching blades or waste disposal bags to it; doing the latter means that I can’t hitch a cart to it which is essential for me to move debris and small lawn care equipment around the property.  So, after my sister and couldn’t handle one more increasingly humid Sunday morning of manual labor, I bought waste disposal bags for the x370 which my brother attached.

What a game changer. If I end up with grass-killing windrows, I let the clippings dry in a few hours or overnight (assuming no rain!) then simply ride the x370 over them. I empty both bags a few times and have a very clean lawn.

This Year’s Lawn Goals

The photo at the top of this post shows part of the main lawn after the third mow this year.  I think it looks great so far, and the stone wall on the north end is still a lovely sight. I wrote a post last year about clearing in front of it, and it remains one of the projects that gives me the most satisfaction.

However, I think the lawns can be healthier and look even better with limited effort. My lawn goals this year are to:

  • Top dress (using my neighbor’s organic horse manure) and seed the barer spots of the lawns this spring so that I can choke out any other dormant weeds
  • Repair a hundreds-foot long strip of road-salt destroyed lawn and the sparse patches where the salt and sand flowed (in progress).
  • Top dress and over-seed all of the lawns this fall
  • Mow weekly (or bi-weekly!) so that I can simply mulch and not spend time removing grass-killing clippings;
  • Get rid of the dandelions!  They aren’t visible in the featured photo, but they seem to be multiplying daily. I bought a simple hand tool two days ago to pull them, tap roots and all, out of the ground.  I’ll report back on how well it works for me.

Good luck to all my fellow lawn care warriors!