Life On Birch Mountain
It's 7:51 PM here, as I begin this, and I've just come in from a hard evening's work. Since it is September, and it's the first time I've had to do this, I have been working on re-seeding some annoying bare spots in the yard. Everyone knows that a fall seeding gives new grass two cool seasons to grow before being tested by the heat of the following summer.
So ... I hit one of the bare spots last night, which was the shape of a rear end of a Siemens Controls van. Coincidentally, that's who the previous owner worked for.
Tonight, however, I hit the "big one" ... the one that has pissed me off ever since we bought the house. It's just off the left side of the stairs as you come off the deck. At first, I thought it was where the prior owners let their lazy smelly dog out to take a whiz or a poo in the winter. However, tonight, I might have found an insight to a combination of factors that make the bigger picture.
While the "whiz and poo" theory is still a valid hypothesis, during the arduous process of "scarifying" the soil (as any good turf manager would do) I began to uncover rocks.
Many of them were small, garden-variety, 2" or 3" diameter rocks. However ... I have now begun a little rock garden with the five or six 20-pounders that I dug up.
So ... while I had the pick-axe out, I decided to take care of a few others that have sprung up in the back yard over the summer. These, however, were what we call "iceberg rocks" in Connecticut. 10% of the rock shows above ground, just high enough to present an obstacle to a rotating lawn-mower blade. The other 90% resides well underground, and in two cases tonight, enshrouded in small tree roots. They, too, make a lovely addition to the new rock garden. These required the use of the wheelbarrow that the prior owners left us. We are fortunate that we are on a ... ahem ... "mountain". I used a spade to dig up some of that "mountain" to fill in the holes left from these quasi-boulders. A couple of them had to top 100 pounds and were a foot or more in diameter.
I now firmly believe that the abundance of rock walls from the 16-and-1700's here in Middle-State Connecticut are not because the landowners wanted to follow the "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" rule, but rather because they just didn't know what the heck to do with them all.
All told, the objective was accomplished (albeit with the aid of our backyard floodlights) and the reseeding was completed.
You know ... I just hope we have some grass there by the time the siblings arrive. :-)
And also ... I think a Jacuzzi soak is now in order.
So ... I hit one of the bare spots last night, which was the shape of a rear end of a Siemens Controls van. Coincidentally, that's who the previous owner worked for.
Tonight, however, I hit the "big one" ... the one that has pissed me off ever since we bought the house. It's just off the left side of the stairs as you come off the deck. At first, I thought it was where the prior owners let their lazy smelly dog out to take a whiz or a poo in the winter. However, tonight, I might have found an insight to a combination of factors that make the bigger picture.
While the "whiz and poo" theory is still a valid hypothesis, during the arduous process of "scarifying" the soil (as any good turf manager would do) I began to uncover rocks.
Many of them were small, garden-variety, 2" or 3" diameter rocks. However ... I have now begun a little rock garden with the five or six 20-pounders that I dug up.
So ... while I had the pick-axe out, I decided to take care of a few others that have sprung up in the back yard over the summer. These, however, were what we call "iceberg rocks" in Connecticut. 10% of the rock shows above ground, just high enough to present an obstacle to a rotating lawn-mower blade. The other 90% resides well underground, and in two cases tonight, enshrouded in small tree roots. They, too, make a lovely addition to the new rock garden. These required the use of the wheelbarrow that the prior owners left us. We are fortunate that we are on a ... ahem ... "mountain". I used a spade to dig up some of that "mountain" to fill in the holes left from these quasi-boulders. A couple of them had to top 100 pounds and were a foot or more in diameter.
I now firmly believe that the abundance of rock walls from the 16-and-1700's here in Middle-State Connecticut are not because the landowners wanted to follow the "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" rule, but rather because they just didn't know what the heck to do with them all.
All told, the objective was accomplished (albeit with the aid of our backyard floodlights) and the reseeding was completed.
You know ... I just hope we have some grass there by the time the siblings arrive. :-)
And also ... I think a Jacuzzi soak is now in order.
posted by Lee at
9/13/2006 07:55:00 PM
1 Comments:
I believe ours (in the front yard) are more from the majority of the grass being fine fescue. Fine fescue is notoriously bad in hot weather, and our neighborhood also seemed to have a rash of dollar-spot this summer. Dollar-spot is a type of fungus easily identified by hour-glass-shaped brown spots halfway up the grass blades.
I noticed this, but never got around to buying a sprayer and the fungicide necessary to take care of it. Also, fine fescue is not necessarily something I want in the front yard (I'd rather have more of a Kentucky bluegrass mix), so I'll overseed with something a little more hardy.
I do have a few spots I'd like to aerate and lime (there's a strip along the back tree line where moss is trying to intrude). However, I'm not quite ready to give in and hire Chem Lawn.
Maybe it's time to visit one of our local John Deere dealerships and invest in a pull-behind aerator for the "Deere". < grin >
As for the seeding, if it doesn't get all washed away, I think we'll have some major new grass coming in.
By
Lee, at 9/15/2006 7:28 PM
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