Not one to resist hyperbole, especially when I deserve it, I say last weekend I transformed my yard. Specifically the south side yard and the back yard. Now it looks good enough that I wouldn't feel too embarassed showing it to a sprinkler contractor who mainly works in gaited communities--which is what I plan to do this Thursday.
Too bad I can't show before and after photos. I always forget to take the before photos. Now for the first time this year, actually the first time since about May 2011, my back yard is completely mowed. Earlier this year when I string trimmed the 8 foot weeds and mowed the back and bragged about it, I had not actually mowed the difficult part right next to the house because it was filled with junk. Now that is cleared and mowed also. As well as the northwest region of the back yard, and the narrow strips to the south and west of Lyndhurst.
The back yard work was primarily done on Sunday. But it had been Saturday that I started out with the hope of whacking all the 6 foot weeds on the west side of Lyndhurst. I got out my GH1000 string trimmer and the string I purchased a couple of weeks before (after I had discovered on some previous weekend last month that I had no more string). I had a very hard time getting the new spool of string into the machine. Just as I would have it nearly in place, all the string would loosen up and shoot outside the spool. Finally I got the spool on. But no sooner had I tried to use it and the string shot out again and jammed the head. I had to struggle, ultimately using a small metal tool to pry out the spool. When I had removed the spool, I tested the trimmer. The motor would run, but the spool and the spindle inside it would not. Dead Weedwacker. At least this one worked well on the small number of occasions when I actually got to use it. I bought it less than a year ago, and I have a 2 year replacement contract. Now the problem is I can't find the receipt or the replacement contract. Paperwork is in complete disarray in my house right now. I might have to search through a dozen bags filled with papers to find it. On Saturday night I searched drawers in the bedroom, in the kitchen, and on the living room table without success.
But not wanting to waste any time, I set to work instead on the south side yard. It had rained the previous Sunday, but the south side yard probably needs to be watered twice a week in summer. If the grass dies out, the ground gets hard brittle and filled with cracks, and ultimately my foundation settles a tiny bit opening a 1/8 crack in the corner of the bedroom ceiling (which I call my "drought gauge"). That crack seems to be harmless, but also usefully indicates when the soil is too dry. I wouldn't want it to get larger than it usually does.
But now that south side lawn now needed mowing badly. So I mowed it, but what may have been more important was cleaning up the three old trash cans (I moved them to the back yard near the gate) and an old recycling bin. Then I moved the city trash and recycling cans back so they no longer stand in front of the little tree at the front of this side yard. Instead they are further back, right next to my neighbor's cans but on my side. Even if I removed my cans from the front yard entirely, her cans would still be there, so the visual effect would be identical. So now it's a lot neater and cleaner looking, as well as mowed and consistently green (thanks to late spring and early summer rains and strategic watering).
After the mowing, I watered the south side yard, then on into the grass near the west side front of the house. Watering that area is good for the appearance of the house as well as the foundation.
Then I put a bag of Miracle Grow soil for trees and shrubs around the smaller Crepe Myrtle near the backyard gate. The soil originally put around the root ball had compacted and run off, so the root ball from the original pot was standing 3 inches above the rest of the soil. Using a bag of new soil I was able to fill in that gap. I may need to use some edging here to keep the soil for the tree elevated. Remember the original planting technique was to merely place the plant on the stripped ground and then pile dirt around it.
Then before getting this all wet, I wrapped a flat soaker hose (the kind made of cloth) around the tree trunks. The soaker hose was a bit longer than I would have liked. This was harder to do than I thought, I tried several ways to do it, finally I stretched out the hose back into the yard and reeled it in as I wrapped it around the trunks. When it was all done, I loosened it up a bit, but not enought that I had a hard time centering the hose without touching any tree trunks. I plan to loosen it up some more some time in the future, perhaps next weekend.
But for now, it works great. Last week I was finding that I had to move the hose opening about 5 times to get all the dirt around the tree wet. That was taking up to an hour of patient waiting per day, just for that one tree, waiting to move the hose from one position to the next. Now I could just turn on the hose and let it run. I am currently adjusting the flow rate by ear, since I have some idea what 0.2gal/minute sounds like. I ran the soaker for about an hour on Saturday night, since all the new soil was dry, then soaked it with a hand nozzle for another 5 minutes. On Sunday, and in the future, I merely had to run the hose for about 30 minutes, the soaker doing the work of spreading the water around.
I have this new Tree2 soaker hose connected with a set of small heavy duty hoses that now runs in the crack between patio and house. I seriously wanted to connect my 4 outlet mainfold to the outdoor faucet, then I could run the water to my other tree (Tree1) simultaneously. But I looked long and hard and could not find the other manifold. I might have thrown it away if it had gotten damaged or dirty. So on Monday evening I bought a new 4 outlet manifold, a second hose timer, and some more soaker hoses. The plan is to have both trees on dedicated timers. I can set the flow rate for each one with the controls on the manifold. Then I will have an additional outlet for the hose, and another outlet for something else TBD.
On Sunday afternoon I was thinking of driving out to Home Depot to replace the string edger, but I couldn't find the receipt and warranty card. Finally, I just decided to do what I could using only the mower. I started at about 2pm and worked about 20 minutes at a time in the 100 degree heat. Then I'd take a break for 40 minutes. Finally I did indeed get everything mowed. If I had gone to Home Depot, I probably would not have had the energy to mow everything when I got back.
I also had bought two new bags of cheap topsoil for crack filling on Saturday afternoon when I was at Home Depot looking (unsuccessfully) for a plastic reclining chase lounge (they seem to be sold out now in all stores and I may have to wait until next spring, they can't even be found online). I used those bags of soil to fill in cracks on the south side of my house, and the west side. On Monday afternoon I filled in gaps in the west side of Lyndhurst with a 3rd bag of topsoil that had been sitting in my garage for a year. I also cleared a large number of medium and smallish rocks from the west, south, and east sides of Lyndhurst on both Sunday and Monday. These were remnants of construction and other work in the back yard. Now it's possible to mow without worry about rocks.
On Monday afternoon the tree guy came out to estimate the tree trimming of the neighbor's tree on the south which is currently blocking some of the light for my new tree to the south of Lyndhurst (Tree1) and also nearing the house to my roof. While I was waiting, I pulled out the lawnmower and mowed the first 7 feet of lawn in my front yard. Another thing I had done on Saturday night was reorganize the junk in the garage so I could pull out the mower more easily. Now I was able to mow a significant amount of grass and get the mower back into the garage in less time, 20 minutes, than it used to take just to get the mower out of the garage.
The tree guy gave me his minimum charge estimate for trimming the neighbors tree, as usual. I showed him my two new trees, and he said they were doing fine and did not need to be changed. I told him there was some evidence of aphids, but he said his company did not do any kind of spraying. He said if I was interested, I could possibly use Lemon Oil for bugs pretty much everywhere in the yard and house.
Nothing significant was done inside Lyndhurst itself. I moved the auxiliary fan around a few times and checked the smell level, which seems to track humidity more than anything still.
Too bad I can't show before and after photos. I always forget to take the before photos. Now for the first time this year, actually the first time since about May 2011, my back yard is completely mowed. Earlier this year when I string trimmed the 8 foot weeds and mowed the back and bragged about it, I had not actually mowed the difficult part right next to the house because it was filled with junk. Now that is cleared and mowed also. As well as the northwest region of the back yard, and the narrow strips to the south and west of Lyndhurst.
The back yard work was primarily done on Sunday. But it had been Saturday that I started out with the hope of whacking all the 6 foot weeds on the west side of Lyndhurst. I got out my GH1000 string trimmer and the string I purchased a couple of weeks before (after I had discovered on some previous weekend last month that I had no more string). I had a very hard time getting the new spool of string into the machine. Just as I would have it nearly in place, all the string would loosen up and shoot outside the spool. Finally I got the spool on. But no sooner had I tried to use it and the string shot out again and jammed the head. I had to struggle, ultimately using a small metal tool to pry out the spool. When I had removed the spool, I tested the trimmer. The motor would run, but the spool and the spindle inside it would not. Dead Weedwacker. At least this one worked well on the small number of occasions when I actually got to use it. I bought it less than a year ago, and I have a 2 year replacement contract. Now the problem is I can't find the receipt or the replacement contract. Paperwork is in complete disarray in my house right now. I might have to search through a dozen bags filled with papers to find it. On Saturday night I searched drawers in the bedroom, in the kitchen, and on the living room table without success.
But not wanting to waste any time, I set to work instead on the south side yard. It had rained the previous Sunday, but the south side yard probably needs to be watered twice a week in summer. If the grass dies out, the ground gets hard brittle and filled with cracks, and ultimately my foundation settles a tiny bit opening a 1/8 crack in the corner of the bedroom ceiling (which I call my "drought gauge"). That crack seems to be harmless, but also usefully indicates when the soil is too dry. I wouldn't want it to get larger than it usually does.
But now that south side lawn now needed mowing badly. So I mowed it, but what may have been more important was cleaning up the three old trash cans (I moved them to the back yard near the gate) and an old recycling bin. Then I moved the city trash and recycling cans back so they no longer stand in front of the little tree at the front of this side yard. Instead they are further back, right next to my neighbor's cans but on my side. Even if I removed my cans from the front yard entirely, her cans would still be there, so the visual effect would be identical. So now it's a lot neater and cleaner looking, as well as mowed and consistently green (thanks to late spring and early summer rains and strategic watering).
After the mowing, I watered the south side yard, then on into the grass near the west side front of the house. Watering that area is good for the appearance of the house as well as the foundation.
Then I put a bag of Miracle Grow soil for trees and shrubs around the smaller Crepe Myrtle near the backyard gate. The soil originally put around the root ball had compacted and run off, so the root ball from the original pot was standing 3 inches above the rest of the soil. Using a bag of new soil I was able to fill in that gap. I may need to use some edging here to keep the soil for the tree elevated. Remember the original planting technique was to merely place the plant on the stripped ground and then pile dirt around it.
Then before getting this all wet, I wrapped a flat soaker hose (the kind made of cloth) around the tree trunks. The soaker hose was a bit longer than I would have liked. This was harder to do than I thought, I tried several ways to do it, finally I stretched out the hose back into the yard and reeled it in as I wrapped it around the trunks. When it was all done, I loosened it up a bit, but not enought that I had a hard time centering the hose without touching any tree trunks. I plan to loosen it up some more some time in the future, perhaps next weekend.
But for now, it works great. Last week I was finding that I had to move the hose opening about 5 times to get all the dirt around the tree wet. That was taking up to an hour of patient waiting per day, just for that one tree, waiting to move the hose from one position to the next. Now I could just turn on the hose and let it run. I am currently adjusting the flow rate by ear, since I have some idea what 0.2gal/minute sounds like. I ran the soaker for about an hour on Saturday night, since all the new soil was dry, then soaked it with a hand nozzle for another 5 minutes. On Sunday, and in the future, I merely had to run the hose for about 30 minutes, the soaker doing the work of spreading the water around.
I have this new Tree2 soaker hose connected with a set of small heavy duty hoses that now runs in the crack between patio and house. I seriously wanted to connect my 4 outlet mainfold to the outdoor faucet, then I could run the water to my other tree (Tree1) simultaneously. But I looked long and hard and could not find the other manifold. I might have thrown it away if it had gotten damaged or dirty. So on Monday evening I bought a new 4 outlet manifold, a second hose timer, and some more soaker hoses. The plan is to have both trees on dedicated timers. I can set the flow rate for each one with the controls on the manifold. Then I will have an additional outlet for the hose, and another outlet for something else TBD.
On Sunday afternoon I was thinking of driving out to Home Depot to replace the string edger, but I couldn't find the receipt and warranty card. Finally, I just decided to do what I could using only the mower. I started at about 2pm and worked about 20 minutes at a time in the 100 degree heat. Then I'd take a break for 40 minutes. Finally I did indeed get everything mowed. If I had gone to Home Depot, I probably would not have had the energy to mow everything when I got back.
I also had bought two new bags of cheap topsoil for crack filling on Saturday afternoon when I was at Home Depot looking (unsuccessfully) for a plastic reclining chase lounge (they seem to be sold out now in all stores and I may have to wait until next spring, they can't even be found online). I used those bags of soil to fill in cracks on the south side of my house, and the west side. On Monday afternoon I filled in gaps in the west side of Lyndhurst with a 3rd bag of topsoil that had been sitting in my garage for a year. I also cleared a large number of medium and smallish rocks from the west, south, and east sides of Lyndhurst on both Sunday and Monday. These were remnants of construction and other work in the back yard. Now it's possible to mow without worry about rocks.
On Monday afternoon the tree guy came out to estimate the tree trimming of the neighbor's tree on the south which is currently blocking some of the light for my new tree to the south of Lyndhurst (Tree1) and also nearing the house to my roof. While I was waiting, I pulled out the lawnmower and mowed the first 7 feet of lawn in my front yard. Another thing I had done on Saturday night was reorganize the junk in the garage so I could pull out the mower more easily. Now I was able to mow a significant amount of grass and get the mower back into the garage in less time, 20 minutes, than it used to take just to get the mower out of the garage.
The tree guy gave me his minimum charge estimate for trimming the neighbors tree, as usual. I showed him my two new trees, and he said they were doing fine and did not need to be changed. I told him there was some evidence of aphids, but he said his company did not do any kind of spraying. He said if I was interested, I could possibly use Lemon Oil for bugs pretty much everywhere in the yard and house.
Nothing significant was done inside Lyndhurst itself. I moved the auxiliary fan around a few times and checked the smell level, which seems to track humidity more than anything still.
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