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It has been cold and rainy lately. We had a covering of 2’’ of snow this morning; about half of it was gone by late afternoon. I usually apply my lawn weed-and-feed in mid-April (I only do one application per year), so I decided not to let the snow stop me today. In fact, the tracks left in the snow by my drop-spreader made keeping track of the job easier. I like putting the weed-and-feed out in the early spring when the weather is going to give it a good soaking; it dissolves and spreads evenly because my lawn is thick and prevents runoff. In a couple of weeks, I will look the lawn over and reapply to areas that I might have missed today. This is the first year that I have used the “phosphorus free” fertilizer; I am curious to see if the lawn greens as nicely as it has in the past. I don’t bag my clippings for disposal, I just let it mulch into the lawn…I doubt that the lack of phosphorus in the fertilizer will be a problem. Some of my neighbors use professionals to care for their lawns… and their lawns look bad for some reason…I am not sure that the annual core-aeration and dethatching is a good thing... and the four applications of that expensive liquid weed-and-feed every year does not seem to do as good a job as my one application of the dry stuff.
I moved the six flowerpots from the front of the house to the backyard patio in anticipation of the homeowner’s association getting cranky (the pots actually did not look good the way I had them set). My tulips (some in the pots, some in the gardens) seem to be growing okay but I doubt that I will have any serious blooms until May. My daffodils were a big bust this spring; only a few of the ones I planted last fall sprouted and the few blooms that I do have look pretty weak. I need to do some studying to find out what I did wrong. I was hoping for an explosion of daffodil blooms to complement the forsythias; maybe next year will be better.
Much work still to do on the flowerbeds…I hope we get a string of fair-weather days soon.
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Three Monsters
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Beware of these three monsters:
1. *Perfectionism*. It lures you in with its attractive features and
then paralyzes you with fear of failure.
2...
3 minutes ago
I'm lucky enough to have a lawn that greens without the intervention of chemicals. Mostly thanks to a very wet location and a septic system. No dethatching or airating or the like. We do roll it as soon as the ground starts to soften, mostly to keep the frost heaves from being an issue, and then start the mowing routine....which means every day we can someone's on the mower for an hour! If the mysquito's weren't such an issue I'd let the back half go back to nature!
ReplyDeleteI'd rather not use any chemicals, but our homeowners association has stricter standards than the city's weed ordinance. Legally, the HOA can do what they want... and we are stuck with trying to comply with their ever changing snob-standards. I never would have bought this place had I known how high the taxes would be and how out of control the HOA would become.
ReplyDeleteDont blame you!
ReplyDeleteTwo inches of snow on the ground. I didn't realize this was a horror story!
ReplyDeleteHeh! Nah, our weather is more like a comedy ;)
ReplyDelete