Question for homeowners

Since the reusable bags, water & fuel economy discussions were so helpful to so many I thought I'd ask-
How do you care for your yard?
Do you cut your grass yourself? Do you bag or mulch?
Do you fertilize & use weed killers? If so what kinds?



I'll go first.
We mow our own lawn, we mulch not bag. We are getting a pushmower this year so we don't have to use the gas mower.
We do not use any commercial weed killers or ferilizers of any kind on our flowers, trees, vegetables or lawn.
We compost & we raise chickens & a rabbit & use their manure to fertilize.
we also use 100% organic pesticides.

ETS-we have only been doing this for 4 years. Before we moved here I was all about chemicals. I loved miracle grow & we lived in a townhouse that had a landscaping service that sprayed the grass several times a year with stuff you weren't supposed to walk on for 3 days!

Message edited 1/12/2008 7:58:22 AM.

Re: Question for homeowners

We don't use any chemicals on the lawn - even when we had landscapers. Between the seepage and the dog, and now the baby - I'd rather have weeds.

We don't really do anything else - but I am trying to get DH to mulch the clippings instead of bagging them.

Re: Question for homeowners

We mow and mulch. We even mulched the leaves in the fall, we didn't bag anything.
I want to start composting, DH is going to build something in the spring for it.
I refuse to use any chemicals on the lawn. Last year we actually didn't do anything, and this year I am going to get all natural.
We also don't water very frequently. If it rains a good amount during the week, we don't water at all. If there is little or no rain, we water once that week. I think this past summer I watered the lawn maybe three times.

Re: Question for homeowners

good point sweet tooth, we don't water everyday either. We have automatic sprinklers but each zone is set for 10 minutes & override it according to rain & tempetures. This past summer had plenty of night time rainfall, it was great.

Re: Question for homeowners

Re: Question for homeowners

Re: Question for homeowners

We mow our own lawn & do mulch but sometimes bag. It all depends on the amount. I do use fertlizers on my lawn but only when a fungus arises. We don't have IGS, so I water with an old fashion sprinkler and MUST water every other day. Our house has full sun (not one ounce of shade), so nothing survives unless it is watered.

Re: Question for homeowners

We mow & mulch. We don't use any fertilizers or any chemicals on our lawn.
I grew up upstate - 3.5 acres - we didn't even water our lawn. I find it funny how "lawn obsessed" people are down here. The home we bought has sprinklers. We had them run for 10 mins everyday last year at around 4am. I found it was WAY too much water for our yard. I'm hoping to only have it watered maybe 2-3 times a wk.

The only thing different we will be hoping to do this year is remove a few trees so we actually have grass in a few areas. We have about 2-3 dozen fully grown trees that forbid any sun in our yard - it's great for the temp, but that's about it. We have loads of moss growing on three parts of our roof, no grass - just dirt &/or moss in some parts of the yard, not to mention some limbs hang dangerously low near our roof.
PLUS, with the very limited amts of sun in our yard - the thought of a good veggie garden was very tiny, plus, we just took up a dozen of my Grammie's rose bushes in her yard - I need to give them light.

Re: Question for homeowners

I mow and mulch, and don't water or fertilize. Partly because of laziness. The more work you put into getting the grass to grow just means that much more work keeping it short!

Re: Question for homeowners

We haven't lived here long enough to deploy anything but I have plans forming in my landscaping notebook:

Lawn mower - electric/battery, not gas. We researched the best one on Consumer Reports and decided on this model which was rated the best for our size lawn (1/4 acre):

Black and Decker 19" 24 volt cordless mulching mower

The good news is, our grass is very thick and healthy. Bad news is a lot of the thickness is due to thatch that we need to work on.

We plan to cut the grass high - 3" - to keep it healthier and promote grass growth instead of weed growth.

For edging, we're still on electric and CR rated this one the best too:

Troy Bilt 15 inch 4.5 amp string trimmer

We were looking at rain barrels and composters from Gardeners.com but found out that Terracycle has them from recycled wine barrels:

Rotary composter

Rain barrel

I currently use Dawn soap plus Neem Oil for controlling pests but after Colleen telling me that Proctor and Gamble, the makers of Dawn, is heavy into animal testing, I'm on the lookout for a better soap. Method or Seventh Generation is my next purchase to test them out.

Unfortunately, we don't have inground sprinklers. But I'd like to hook up a controlled watering timer on the hose and install drip irrigation for my beds. That's where Gardeners.com comes in. They have watering options here that look great.

We are also planning our plantings to welcome beneficial insects like ladybugs, praying mantis, bees etc. to our yard. And we feed birds to encourage them to EAT the bad bugs.

Lets see, what else. We sadly have to take down a fully mature oak tree for a lot of reasons. A decision I did not come to lightly. They just cut so many of huge roots putting in my new cesspool too and I'm very worried about how that will affect an already old tree. It's only 5 feet from my house.

So I want to plant at least one other tree but will research on Arborday.org which are the best ones for my plot/environment.

Last but certainly not least, I will always investigate plants before I introduce them to my yard to make sure they're not invasive. I keep seeing bamboo on people's lawns and just shake my head. That's the kind of thing that once it's there, it will eventually take over and there's not much you can do to eradicate it completely.

Good idea Kelly. I enjoyed writing this post.

Re: Question for homeowners

We mulch & have a compost heap. We just looked into rain barrels, and we do not water unless necessary. I think we watered once this year. We don't use any chemicals on the lawn, and use organic soil for the flower beds. If I get weeds, I pull them.