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Did you get any pipe with holes drilled in it? I think the EZ Flo stuff is designed to drain out the pipe on the way to the dry well so the well only fills up in heavier rains. I had a contractor do this job (but for gutter discharge) before my wife realized contractor != expert. They charged a lot and did a poo poo job and didn't put that overflow cap on the dry wells, just buried them. No issues so far?? Also they didn't use any pipe with holes, for some other runs that just daylight onto the side of a hill, so those drain onto the street in heavy rain, which is not allowed. I think I will redo it later this summer, keeping the first 10-20' from the house without holes and the remainder to where it daylights into the yard with that EZ Flo stuff. Hopefully this will keep drainage on my property. Also, I am having a lot of problems with dirt splashing back up onto my house when it rains. My house has a lot of flat roof that doesn't drain into gutters, just falls over the edge. I solved the worst area by having the contractor dig a trench and filling it with gravel. When the water hits that it just drains down and doesn't splash itself (and dirt) back onto the house. I am going to do some more places this summer, will post here about it. Finally, any lawn experts? Last fall we had the same contractors dig up a ton of garbage vegetation and landscaping and put down "screened" topsoil and plant grass seed. It grew in great and looked amazing and was weed free until early this summer. Now we have random hostas and crap from the old landscaping and a ton of weeds in the yard. Is there a way for me to 1) get rid of the weeds and 2) take better care of the lawn so they don't come back? Caveat is my wife has banned the use of Roundup.
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Jul 23, 2019 03:17
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What are people's thoughts on starter fertilizer for planting grass? I just had my property totally regraded and irrigation went in today. Seed is going down either tomorrow or Monday depending on rain. I know I'm really cutting it close with the end of grass planting season in New England so I'm wondering if some sort of starter fertilizer would be a good (or bad) idea. I had a fertilizer service likely overtreating the crap out of my lawn this season, so there might be still be something in the soil. But some parts of the lawn had the grade taken down by a foot and there is 2" of fresh loam on top everywhere, so maybe not.
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Oct 17, 2020 01:26
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Motronic posted:Starter fertilizer is a thing sold to people who haven't had soil samples taken so that they know exactly what inputs they actually need. Ok, I will send in a soil sample, but I doubt I'll get the results back fast enough to do much about it. But given I don't have all the hard data is it better put down something, or nothing?
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Oct 17, 2020 15:17
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Motronic posted:That would depend on a lot of things we couldn't know about. Like what was growing there before, was material added (if so what exactly), how did things grow there before, etc. If you don't care about the cost and potential runoff throw down whatever. There aren't too many things in that type of fertilizer that you can really put down enough of that it will harm new grass. It was grass before, typical northeast blend. We had generally good luck with the lawn, with exceptions for pretty significant crabgrass and clover spread. Pre-emergent pesticide that came with the fertilizer service this season helped some but not completely with the crabgrass. Clover and other weeds were easy to manage with mowing when the grass was growing, but not when we had a lot of dormancy and some die off this summer. I do want to put some effort into maintaining correct nutrients next year, but for now I just want to give the grass the best chance of success with a) limited information as you said and b) really pushing it by planting in the tail end of the season. The lawn area isn't big enough for cost to be a huge issue, so if there isn't a chance of real damage maybe I'll just pick up a bag of something generic at the hardware store and put it down.
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Oct 17, 2020 18:47
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Bioshuffle posted:Good friend of mine runs a landscaping business and he's warned me several times that I will regret it if I get an electric mower instead of a gas one. Then again, I don't think he's looked into the issue in a while, and my understanding is electric mowers have come a long way. His main complaint was that if you have to wait too long, the longer grass will bog down the battery life or stall the motor, and I would have to pay more to get new batteries down the line, costing me more in the long run. I really like the electric leaf blower, edger, hedge trimmer, and string trimmer I have that use the same batteries. I don't use any of them for long enough to run into battery issues, and its nice not to have to deal with all those gas engines. But for a mower, if you have a decent amount of grass and "love the feel of gas" maybe stick with that until battery tech gets a little better.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:40
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OSU_Matthew posted:I just bought into the Kobalt mower ecosystem a few months ago when I snapped one up the end of season clearance. 250 for the push mower (the kit one is self propelled), and recently 115 for the blower and 2AH battery. I’ve already got a Makita trimmer otherwise I woulda bought one as well. Looks like the push mower is on screaming sale too, with battery for $199. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-80-volt-Max-Brushless-Lithium-Ion-Push-21-in-Cordless-Electric-Lawn-Mower/1000698036 Per conversation earlier in this thread I am tempted to jump on this to replace my Ryobi 40v. EDIT: No store pickup and shipping is $65. Still tempted. Whenever my 40v battery fails I am out $150 anyway and will need to mow whether or not the Kobalt is on sale. mcgreenvegtables fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Nov 1, 2020 |
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Nov 1, 2020 21:35
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Just came in here to ask about pre-emergent for turf as well. Mostly looking for something to put down to prevent crabgrass, which gets pretty out of hand. I also get a bunch of clover in a couple of spots. I am in Zone 6b. Would something like this work: https://www.domyown.com/048-barricade-on-dg-pro-sgn150-50-lb-p-21470.html?sub_id=22883 Am I better off spraying or is something spreadable okay? I'd rather spread if I can get away with it.
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Mar 14, 2021 17:51
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I am filling out the soil sample paperwork now, definitely excited to see what they recommend. Spread seems easier for me because I have a pretty small lawn and an appropriately sized spreader, but just a tiny hand sprayer I use to spraying my foundation for carpenter ants. If it was a serious advantage to spraying I might go buy something better, but I'd rather not be walking around my ~2500sqft or turf waving a tiny little wand with a 6" pattern. I paid someone last year. It was super cheap and convenient, but they came and blasted my lawn with who knows what nonsense mix of fertilizer and weed killer on a monthly basis. If I could find a company to actually base my program on soil tests and not come every month (seems excessive), I'd sign up for sure. Funny about the nitrogen though, I imagine that is what the fertilizer service was dumping way too much of on my lawn monthly. Curious to see what the results come back with.
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Mar 14, 2021 18:15
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That looks great, nice job! This reminds me though, does anyone have experience with installing metal edging to define beds? I am having trouble keeping a rock bed and mulch bed neatly defined in a location I have zero ability to build up the grade. Are there particular systems that work well? I want it to be thick enough that it will hold up for a long time, but it also needs to be able to take a decent curve. 
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Apr 19, 2021 00:16
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Wallet posted:The stuff you get in strips doesn't seem to stand up very well (whether it's metal or plastic). I'd just go with actual concrete edging; not the stupid kind that's poured to look like rocks or weird conjoined brick patterns and just sits on top of the soil, the kind that has an A and a B that interlock. The ones that are trapezoidal make it easy to put in whatever kinds of curves you want (you may have to look at their websites/documentation to find out what the minimum radius of a given type is to make sure it will fit if you have really tight curves) and they generally go deep enough to stay in place even with freeze/thaw cycles. Fabricated materials like that aren't going to work for my taste (or the taste of the historic commission that gets to tell me what I can do with my property), unfortunately. I am not opposed to doing something silly like tying edge banding into some footings if that is what it takes to do it right. But this definitely pushes the project lower on my priority list, was hoping this could be an easy fix.
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Apr 19, 2021 02:06
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surf rock posted:For the past few years, I've been lucky enough to live next door to friends. We've had an arrangement where I weedwhacked both properties and they mowed both properties. Unfortunately, they're moving in the next month, so I need to get my own mower. Here's the thing: I think electric mowers are great for small lawns. I have a 40V Ryobi and it kind of sucks, but I still wouldn't go back to gas. The Ego is supposed to be good, and there is a poster here who is very happy with their Kobalt 80V mower. Keep in mind batteries are expensive and don't last forever, but it's a whole lot easier to replace them than deal with carbs, ethanol-free gas, oil changes, etc.
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Apr 19, 2021 02:11
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Jerk McJerkface posted:
What's wrong with just doing this step? You are going to kill the grass anyway, so the other steps seem like a lot of extra work for no return?
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Apr 21, 2021 22:50
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Fitzy Fitz posted:People just love to cut down trees. I think there's a tendency to overemphasize their downsides and underappreciate their benefits. I am your neighbor, except in my case the trees are garbage maples and one of them is dying and dropping branches onto my car big enough to leave giant dents and break windshields. Ask me how I know. My neighbor gets all weird when I float the idea of cutting some of them down. She had an arborist out who said to just let the branch dropper "die a peaceful death."
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May 3, 2021 02:23
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AmbassadorofSodomy posted:Is this your tree or hers? We both think it's my tree since it's on my side of a fence (but who knows what a formal survey would say). It's more I don't want to be a jerk and just cut down all the trees providing shade and privacy. This one definitely needs to go, the rest of the nuisance ones are healthy but it would be much cheaper to get them out while I'm getting the dying one.
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May 3, 2021 16:01
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