Grass Seed 101

Most yards in our neighborhood have ugly grass.  It's a combination of lazy homeowners and poor soil conditions.  Those that have put some effort into their yards, however, have made us quite motivated (and a little bit lot jealous) to work on bettering our pathetic excuse for a lawn.

To illustrate:


Back yard

From the front



From the back looking front





Side yard



The weather here in good ol' northern Virginia has been a little persnickety lately, so our original plan to seed the yard right after we did the beds got delayed by several weekends.  But we were finally able to get a few nice days in a row last week, which just so happened to coincide with exam day for me (boo) and a half day for Stephan, so we decided to knock out the seeding on Friday.

As an aside, I've been mowing lawns fairly regularly since I was 10 and finally able to drive the ride-on mower at my parent's house.  I have NEVER had an issue with grass allergies.  Everything else?  Not so much.  But for some reason on Friday while I was about half way finished mowing the oh, 8 strips of grass we have in our yard, I had a massive allergic reaction.  Swollen face, hives, respiratory issues, sneezing, watery eyes - the works.  It got so bad I had to take an additional hit off my inhaler and a Bendryl (in addition to my daily allergy pill) to catch my breath and get the swelling down.  Fun times, fun times.



Anyway, Stephan did an awesome job laying the smack down on the ugly grass.  We used area-specific grass seed and fertilizer and then covered it all with a half inch of specialized soil from Merrifield Garden Center.  (They rock.)  We also installed about 20 feet of sod between our driveway and the neighbors.  We agonized over what to put in that strip for several weeks.  Flowers?  Bulbs?  Creeping phlox?  We actually went ahead and purchased some small shrubs and irises but after we brought it home we realized it was just too tall for the space, and we'd probably scalp most of the plants opening the car doors.  So we decided it was either A:  grass or B: decorative stone.  I vetoed the stone idea immediately.  Ugly and prime real estate for weeds.  So 5.5 pieces of sod later, and it looks great!

And the after (until the grass starts to grow!)



Stephan watering is fresh grass seed



The full monty



 



8 bags of dirt later...



Grow seeds, grow!

Since we don't have a sprinkler system, watering the yard will be a hassle, but we are hoping that all our hard work will pay off and we'll have a yard that makes other people jealous!

The YARD.

Although we have a laundry list (see it here) of things we'd like to change about our house, we decided it was probably best to start with the outside first.  Because we allllll know that outside appearances are most important in everything, right?!  As long as you look cool, calm, clean and collected -- then no one can really know the disaster happening inside.



(Before)

We had first tackled the flower beds two years ago, and discovered just how horrible the builder was in our neighborhood.  First of all, they decided it would be a good idea to build a neighborhood on an old rock quarry.  Yes.  A rock quarry.  So you can't dig two inches down into the soil without hitting rocks - lots and lots and lots of rocks - in all shapes, sizes and types. 

We also found a variety of fun things the builder decided to use as filler in the flower beds.  A broken hammer.  A caulking tube.  Lots and lots of screws and metal scraps.  A beer bottle, two soda cans and several feet of orange plastic construction fencing.  We filled three truck beds full of debris and hauled it away to the dump before we could even THINK about planting.  So naively we figured this time around we'd only need to do a little transplanting and mulching and call it a weekend.

Haha.  Oh, this blog is going to be fun!

We were fortunate in that it had rained several times last week, so the ground was nice and moist on Saturday morning.  This allowed for easy removal of the straggly bushes and relatively easy digging for the new flowers and plants.  Relatively.  We still ended up with three wheelbarrows full of rocks and a truck bed full of excess grass and soil, however.  We were so tired by the end of the day on Saturday that we decided to wait and do the mulching and planting on Sunday.

(During)

The red bud tree we purchased in 2009 was still in great shape.  The mop cypress beneath it had struggled a bit, and we had to replace two of them last summer, which still failed to thrive.  We really liked the color combination of the tree and the mop cypress, so we decided to make due with the ones that lived but spaced them differently in hopes that they'd stick around.  Fingers crossed. 

We pulled out two small bushes that we had saved from the first go around, hoping that with lots of pruning and coaxing, they'd eventually fill out.  They had their chance but failed to produce, so it was time to go.  We selected two barberry bushes in royal burgandy, and one in golden dwarf to replace them, which I think really ties in the colors of the mop cypress.  These are a lot heartier than some other evergreen bushes, and I think they look kinda spunky with their thorny branches. 

For the front of the beds along the sidewalk, we decided to go with four FLower Carpet Red Ground Cover roses.  Rationale?  To keep dogs from pooping in the beds.  It's a pretty bad problem in our ghetto-fabulous neighborhood, so hopefully one thorn to the hiney and dogs will be looking to use the restroom elsewhere.

Ultimately our plan is to fence in the back and side of the yard, but we're still awaiting our HOA design approval before we can do that.  The beds that currently run along the side of the house are chock full of bulbs that seem to proliferate like rabbits.  We've pulled at least 300 bulbs out of the beds over the course of the last three seasons, and they still pop up at the first sign of warmth.  So rather than tilling everything up again, we decided to go the nuclear route and smother them to death with black garden tarp.  If they work their way through this stuff, then they win.  If we were the betting type, we'd put our money on the bulbs.

Since we're unsure as to whether or not the fence is a go, we decided to hold off on planting anything along the side of the house.  We wanted to make everything look decent in the interim, which is why we decided to go ahead and mulch the beds.  We'll figure out the long term plans later.

And the beautiful blue flowers along the front walk are creeping phlox we purchased two years ago and love love LOVE.  We are contemplating putting a whole bunch of them between our driveway and the next door neighbors, although I'm not so sure about the pricetag on that, considering they're about $16 a pop.

We used one and a half yards of shredded oak mulch, which was still more than we needed. 

(After)

Up next for the yard:  grass seed 101.

Total cost:  $344.90

Total time:  15 hours

Final assessment:  We still hate our house.  But a little less from the outside.

The LIST

Project list, in no particular order:

1. Paint!
1. Living room
2. Basement
3. Stairway/Entryway
4. Upstairs stairs/kitchen wall
5. Upstairs hallway
6. Master bathroom
2. Kitchen cabinet trim
3. Crown molding in downstairs bathroom
4. Hardwood living room
5. Basement flooring (TBD)
6. Kitchen flooring (TBD)
7. Office built-ins
8. Master bath renovation
9. Remove drop ceiling in living room
10. Wall decor in wine room
11. Chairs for wine room
12. Plants for wine room
13. Wall art in living room
14. Basement entertainment center
15. Blinds
1. Bedroom
2. Office
3. Living room
4. Basement
5. Jeramy's rooms
16. Curtains
1. Bedroom
2. Office
3. Living room
4. Basement
17. Master bedroom bedding
18. Remove living room chandelier
19. Repaint/install chandelier in master bathroom
20. Repaint porch lighting
21. Chairs for the deck
22. Hang wind chimes on deck
23. Hang and pot hanging flower baskets on deck
24. Art over stove
25. Hang organizer in foyer
26. Window boxes for front windows
27. Gnome for front yard
28. Fence
29. Brick pavers for backyard
30. Move plants along back bed
31. Finish downstairs bathroom

Why We Hate Our House

While we are thankful that we have a home, we really do hate our house.  A lot.  For a variety of reasons that we will address ad nauseam in this blog.  But since we are like most homeowners in the United States right now -- underwater in our mortgage and wishing we lived somewhere else -- we're doing our best to make due with what we've got.  And since what we've got is pretty much boring, beige and poorly constructed, we've decided to tackle all three stories of it one blog entry at a time.  Partly to keep us on track with projects, and partly to vent our frustration as we struggle to learn the ins and outs of DIY renovation and improvement projects.

So here it is.  We hope you enjoy.