The BCM Lawn Thread

[95 TA - The Beast]

One other thing I forgot to mention is that one of the best things you can do is hand sharpen your mower blades... I did both of mine and from the factory they are dull compared to a decent edge... I noticed that my blades are "mulching blades" in that they have a rise and dip to chop up the cut grass into mulch and I can say that feature works amazingly well once the blades are sharpened. With a factory edge it didn't seem to mulch much... Night and day difference with a sharp mower blade.

[SSDude]

Well, I can happily report that just over 2 weeks later the front lawn is looking great. A bunch of weeds flourished along with the new grass, but there is a ton of new grass growth and all the existing long-term grass is thick and lush. I do think a bunch of the seed I put down at the beginning of May also came in thick as well...

I mowed it on Sunday at the highest height my mower goes to (it is pretty high, damn mower looked like it was in 4x4 mode) and it cut down a ton of seeded grass. I figure I will mow it this coming weekend one notch down from that.

In regards to the weeds I found a herbicide that you can use while seeding that is also supposed to attack one of ugliest issues in a yard, that being quackgrass. It is supposed to affect the weeds ability to do photosynthesis so you want to fertilize with heavy nitrogen for a bit before and during treatment to keep as much of the weed in the blades. I used a 29-0-4 fertilizer when I seeded two and a half weeks ago and then did another application late last week in preparation of doing the herbicide. If it works out well I will let everyone know what I used. As it stands I have a 3ft across area in the middle of the front lawn that had the worst burn-out from last year that became overgrown with quackgrass. I did seed heavily in that are and the new turf seems to be coming in thick there, so hopefully this herbicide and some further growth of the turf and it will choke out the quackgrass effectively. Most people end up using roudup where quackgrass is and starting from scratch. I am hoping to avoid that.

Next thing for me is to get a solid plan on dealing with the backyard and sideyard with the parking slip figured out in regards to filling it in and putting in some decent topsoil and then relaying the parking slip bricks by hand once it is all back to where it needs to be. I would love to do the sideyard/rest o fthe front yard across the driveway, but I am concerned that whole area will take a beating getting the backyard back in shape.

Patiently waiting for the update on the quackgrass herbicide. I have a bit of an infestation to deal with and hoping to avoid the roundup treatment

[jbiscuit]

Thanks for the heads up on Menards. I'll be stopping there today to buy another 12 bags.

[95 TA - The Beast]

Menards = all kinds of deals awesomeness. Probably me and the wifes favorite store...

[jbiscuit]

I like Menards I just don't shop there for lawn n garden supplies. But I am a Milorganite preacher so to find a sale mid season is rare so I will be buying some today for sure.

I'm at the Steins by my house 1-2 times per week. They have great selection and all of the plants they sell are locally grown from Union Grove/Burlington area. I buy all my seed direct from my landscape contractor also. His price is about the same as a Lowes/Home Depot and its 10x better seed. I won't buy seed from a big chain store as its the wrong blend for our climate and usually contains a TON of weeds in it.

[95 TA - The Beast]

So, hook the rest of us up, who is the contractor and how do we contact him for seed?

I would prefer to support locals in just about everything. The big problem I have is when so many contractors are scam-artists where they will either not do what you brought them in for, or do it and create other problems to build further business for themselves. I also hate those that try to tell you that you have issues that require $xxxx to fix when they could just as well redo what you have for a fraction of the new sale. Hell, my dual water heater setup is a perfect example. Most contractors I called didn't want to redo the tank I have (which was internally in perfect condition and externally only cosmetically affected due to the previous owner putting hardline copper directly to the tank) with new anode/dip-tube/T&P valve/elements as well as add-in another higher capacity heater in series both physically and electrically, they all wanted to put in parallel new water heaters with an electrical service upgrade. Quotes were in the $4k-5k range. A single 120gal would have been viable, but for the extra cost I like the redundency of having two water heaters in case one goes out we are not without hot water, just have a lower capacity. On top of that I had a top-of-the-line glass-lined Bradford-White 65gal already in here, so I wasn't prepared to piss-away a $1600 water heater that just needed a paintjob and new mechanicals/electricals.

I ended up finding a 3 year old Bradford-White 80gal water heater someone was replacing with a 50gal heat-pump new unit (complete waste of money as it is a loss over the long term with no ROI, since those units are far from optimized/long-term models with a ton more failure points). I picked that one up for $80, it was perfect internally as well (it was a $1700+ unit new), so on both units I replaced the heaters (put in 5500w heaters into the 80gal and 4500w heaters into the 65gal), new diptubes, new anodes, new T&P valves, and even new tempering valves on both. I cleaned up the existing 65gal and painted it with the paint directly from Bradford-White. I put them in side-by-side using flex stainless hookups and doing them in series with the 80gal feeding the house and the 65gal feeding the 80gal. I put in new thermostats, setting the temp to 140degrees on all thermostats (I could and might just drop the 65gal to 120degrees) and custom wired the thermostats to feed the 65gal water heater once the 80gal in done heating (ie, 80gal top to 80gal bottom to 65gal top to 65 gal bottom), so I was able to use the existing 30amp service and even fixed the existing timer that was in place but bypassed (bad contactors) so that it stops heating water at 9pm and starts heating at 5:30am. I may eventually back those off to 7pm and 7am since there is plenty of capacity in the system.

Total cost of the water heater redo = $780. That includes wiring, conduit, all the heater parts, plenty of CLR to clean the tanks, etc. Took me about 4 horus total to clean the tanks, another hour doing cleanup and paint and maybe another hour doing the teardown and install total. Key is I know now to change the anodes every two years and to flush the tank bottoms for 10 minutes every 6 months. I was prepared to pay someone $1500-2000 to do the job I did for less than half that, but it seems contractors are more interested in the quick buck of all new products and install. On some things I can see it, but on a set of electric water heaters, especially glass-lined quality units, there is no need. I fully expect to get 20-30 years out of the pair I have as long as the anode is changed and the bottom flushed regularly. The big issue with doing parallel units is that there is no way to be sure that it is pulling from the water heater with most hot water, ie, with dual 65gal units you could theoretically only get 65gals of hot water out before you get cold water. Way different than expecting 130gals of hot water. Where a dual-parallel setup comes in is in redundency, as if one goes down you shut the valves off and then use the other (yeah I know there are tempering valves to pull from one heater or the other to get the 130gal capacity but now you have all that extra expense and another failure point, an expensive failure point at that). The way I have them in series I have to disconnect one and pipe to the other. For the extra cost of the valving and piping to be able to bypass one I just got the flexible stainless lines I can move over if I need to.

My big issue is being able to trust contractors. If you know they won't cut corners and are there to help you get done what you want done then it is a great relationship. Kinda like automotive repair places, most just flat out suck.

[stealthy1ss]

The best place to buy grass seed is Reinders. They are located in Bristol off HWY 50, in Waukesha across from the airport right next to the Fabco Rents, and their headquarters in Sussex. You don't have to be a contractor to buy from them. Also the optimal angle to sharpen your mower blades is 30%.

[jbiscuit]

If you are serious about wanting seed, send me a pm and I will forward you his contact info. He's not in the business of selling seed so don't want to tell 30 people to call him to buy his supply. Especially peak season.

[badass88gt]

Scott's and Milorganite. Havent even hooked up the sprinklers yet...

[jbiscuit]

Looks great!!!!

[PureSound15]

So far so good - my grass is definitely the greenest on the block considering the heat and I haven't used my sprinklers -

New cub cadet mower certainly helps too -



I do need some help though. I sold a riding mower and when the guy "tested" it he dropped the mower deck down to the ground and scalped my yard BAD.

Most has grown back but for one section - milorganite and some water helped the rest but do I have to re-seed this area?

[jbiscuit]

Yep reseed. It would eventually come back but rake it up to roughend the area, sprinkle a little topsoil on it, rake in some seed (a good amount) and water it daily in the morning before work. Not a problem

[95 TA - The Beast]

Well, a followup to this last summer is in order I guess...

So, I ran the gamut of issues... I overseeded in June, watered like a fiend, looked great in July... end of July did the weedkiller... killed off a bunch of the grass... reseeded... only came in good in 1/3-1/2 of the areas I did... they all got the same treatment of topsoil, then seed, then topsoil over, then plenty of scheduled watering... no idea wtf... Then had fucking rabbits digging in a few spots because my grass was long... fuckers... reseeded those areas and a spot near the front door where I sprayed the red brick with Roundup to kill the weeds between the bricks... yeah, it ran off and killed the grass... so reseeded there... reseeded a few of those other bare spots... the weeds died off and I can tell how much damn quackgrass I have... ffffuuuucccckkkk... Just keep cutting it to make it look nice... then I notice a ton of red ants 1/3 the way up the driveway against the grass... they go away after a few days... now I have brown spots right ajacent to where they were... fffuuuuccckkkkkk!!!!

I am considering just scalping the piss out of the lawn this fall, using a dethatcher set as deep as it will go to just remove as much thatch and chop up the top soil a bit... I will then roundup ALL the quackgrass daily for a week to kill it ALL... then I will go through and fill in as many blank voids with topsoil to even it out as much as possible... then seed the hell out of it all and add more topsoil... add in some starter fertilizer... then run a 350-450lb roller over the whole lawn until I am happy with how level it is and leave it all alone until spring...

Then in spring I would do all of the proper regiments, the spring crabgrass preventer/fertilizer stuff, the insecticides, the rest of the lawn care treatments and such... and hope I have a nice looking lawn???

I mean overall the lawn, when freshly cut and for a few days after, looks pretty nice... I just know how bad it is underneath...

Worst part is I still haven't done anything with the back because I needed to wait until some decent rain to determine how stable the area the old pool is... I can say that after two months of a pool being set 1/3 on the old deck area, 2/3 over the old "deep end" it is not bad... it has settled about an inch or so on the deep end, but that was only after a decent rain... but it did not majorly shift so I feel pretty good that I can spend a decent amount on doing a stamped concrete patio where the pool was and it will be solid... As long as they bring in one of those asphalt rollers and roll it first...

I just did new garage doors and the kids just went back to school, so we have to see where the budget is on things before fall is in full swing... hmmm, maybe a HELOC isn't just a bad idea???