I firmly believe I have THE WORST “grass” out of anyone here
zoestoesies – posted 27 March 2010 19:59
Our backyard has no desirable grass. We have a brick border that separates my flowers from the “grass” area but even that is now being infiltrated!!!
I know we have: dandelion, clover, Quackgrass, Cutleaf geranium, California burclover, Buttercup oxalis <- my favorite “grass”, thistle, crab grass… etc
and possibly: Fluvellins, Petty spurge among many others
The question: Is there ANY hope to ever having backyard with desirable grass? My daughter is starting to crawl and it would be lovely for her to discover grass, but our yard is just masses of weeds I am afraid with all the stolons, rhisomes, seeds and so forths it is impossible to choke out everything with new grass.
Does anybody have a guess as to probability of new sod taking over? A lot of these have been complaints about Bermuda grass, but I am more than happy to have such a grass! I don’t want to spend tons on pulling up the weeds and replanting if the weeds are going to choke out our desirable grass again.
Thank you for any help/ advice!
ken4255 – posted 26 April 2010 09:16
http://www.walterreeves.com/lawns/article.phtml?cat=6&id=353
ken4255 – posted 26 April 2010 09:26
I suggest you spray the weeds with a weed killer.
d.k – posted 27 April 2010 15:46
Maybe, maybe not…. I can’t say what others might answer but I can tell you this much about my own….
I started out with no grass whatsoever, just fallow white Florida sand and a few spiny, stickery things that could easily have passed for miniature tumbleweeds when they dried out.
Had no money either, so for the past, oh, 5 years, I have cultivated the “best” most grass-like of the weeds available. Even had a hard time getting that to work for some time. Found out that my sandy lots were soalkaline that I couldn’t hope for much more.
So, I battled the alkalinity, and battled the weeds simultaneously… ones I liked, I encouraged, ones that I definitely didn’t like, I fought. Plucked the heads off the sandspurs, pulled up the puncture vines, and even brought in a few other weeds that other people would consider undesireable because I had pet chickens that had certain preferences of their own….
Neighbors suggested I just cover the whole thing with dumptruck loads of white gravel (Gads!!! Seriously??) or throw down sod andreplace it every couple years when it dried out, starved and died — but I wanted to “grow my own” even if it WASN’T ‘real’ grass, as long as it was nice and green and LOOKED passable from the street and I could walk on it barefoot without pain.
So, for a long time, I took it in stride when I heard, “Hi there — Out here watering your weeds again?”
“Yep, Out herewatering my weeds again….”At the moment, I have a fully-covered and very passable green pseudo-“lawn” in the front yard, and am working hard on filling in one for the even larger side yard…..
And I have started actually started toworking on putting some “real” grass now, after 5 years, however after lovingly cultivating all the nutsedges andcrabgrasses for years, I am not sure how successful I may be when it comes to culturing honest to gosh “desirable” grasses. But, I’m in no rush either…. I just decide what I want for it this week, and work from there, whatever that means after I’ve eyeballed it for a few minutes and made up my mind what to do…
[This message has been edited by d.k (edited 27 April 2010).]
ken4255 – posted 28 April 2010 11:18
Yes, you’re right. It’s not fair to discriminate against all of those other fine plant organisms you mention. I think they should change the name of this website.
d.k – posted 03 May 2010 13:35
Haha, I’m imagining that was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reponse. At least, I hope.
I got a kick out the suggestion, too, but I don’t think TG need go that far.
Just saying that not all of us really NEED the latest and finest cultivar available…. or should maybe, at least, not to start with at the very beginning.
What you’ve got is the only place you can start anyway, and IMO, MIGHT BE as good to start with your own “weeds”, rather than go right out and start by spending– and for all intents and purposes, blowing away, a small fortune; and having a bunch of good seed, good sod, plugs or whatever pretty much go to waste while you’re on the learning curve of total novice green thumb!
And, very fortunately, for me, I just happen to live in an area where because of the conditions to start with, I CAN indulge myself in the learning process. After all, I could have just left the entire property just bare sand. Well, probably could have.Instead, I got to read a lot, and play around a lot, try things and find out a little bit about how and why things grow to start with, and to learn how to encourage growing certain things, and how to discourage growning certain things and the kind of work I was looking at.
Course, I can see that, maybe to some, a bare sand lot might have been preferable– rather than fill it in with a bunch of “undesirables”– but, I wanted the sand covered, I was very insecure about “gardening” of any sort, and just needed to LEARN. Now that I feel like I have a handle on a few important things, Ican move on to the next phase. So, I’m here at TG. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but, hey, it’s a great site.
At the last, the climate in the area has changed quite a bit in the years that I have lived here, and resulted in me eventually completely changing my mind on my choice of seed when I was actually ready to start using the real thing anyway…
My intent in replying the first time wasn’t to encourage anybody to follow in MY footsteps; hardly!!
Just thought I could encourage somebody who thought they had the “worst” out there. I probably have the worst, and what’s more, I have it on purpose!
Alex_in_FL – posted 15 May 2010 02:39
To recommend a grass, we need to know where you are, soil type, and hours of sunlight (sunny, shady, or full shade).
Depending upon where you are, some bermuda, or zoysia or bahia migth work. Depending upon the size of your yard you can buy some sod and make plugs cheaply and get a yard in a year or so that is mostly / all grass. You may also be able to buy seeds (which are fairly cheap).
I almost forgot Do Not over water. Floratan /Seville all strains of St. Augustine are suseptible to fungus from over…
I am from the north and it has taken me five yrs to learn and undertand seville lawns. No 1…
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