Reading through the Blue House Blog has given me comfort — I, too, have landscaping and lawn woes. However, unlike Tristan, I want to cultivate grass, not destroy it.
Last spring, my partner and I hired a contractor from the List to install a new sidewalk leading from the back door of our house. The goal was to get a walk that sloped away from, not toward, our house. To that end, we got what we wanted and were pleased with the result.
However, we were not pleased with this contractor’s liberal use of his Bobcat. While “grading” the ground around the walk, he seemed to have held some sort of Bobcat Demolition Derby in our yard. That result: A dirty gray-brown lawn devoid of any grass.
I take most of the responsibility when it comes to the unpleasant result of this contractor’s work. I’d never hired a contractor before and didn’t double-check that what was written on the work order was EXACTLY what I wanted (get some tips on how to avoid my mistake by visiting Angie’s List Tips). Also, I thought I’d get a deal by having a concrete guy also “just grade the yard” while he was tearing up the back walk. My bad. Now I know — oh, how I know — that it’s very important to let the specialists focus on just their specialty.
Last summer, we installed a very simple paver patio and did our best at manually re-grading and planting new grass — in July. It’s hard to get grass to stick around in July. Did you know that? I didn’t. But, again: Oh, how I know now. That poor grass seed was doomed from the start.
Today our back lawn is a bit less pitiful — there are patchy spurts of green and even some big blocks of grass breaking up the dirty gray-brown. Over the last six weeks, I’ve worked diligently at planting grass seed a section at a time — I’m half-way done. At least it’s spring and I’ve given the grass a fighting chance.
I didn’t know grass wouldn’t grow from seed in July. Not that it matters, as my dogs would destroy it even if it did grow then. Maybe you should just get some big dogs for your backyard — that way, you’d have an excellent excuse for the grass’s patchiness!
Seriously, though: at least you’re doing the seeding in a methodical way. I attacked my front yard through carpet-shrub bombing all at once (well, over a week), and I’m realizing that a slow, deliberate plan would have possibly been better…
Surprisingly, it did grow from seed in July. I just had to skirt by the citywide water shortage notice and voilah! Plus, we used this quick-grow stuff that is stellar — not real resilient and a very almost-unnatural neon green, but grows like crazy. This years, it’s Kentucky bluegrass, baby. Oh yeah.