Thursday, September 2, 2010 True Value Challange: The Front Yard Needed a Facelift
Ready, Set, Grow!
We were a little surprised when John, our local True Value Shop Owner, told us we weren't out of luck when it came to saving our lawn. We figured we were late in the game being it's nearing the end of Summer, and those pesky brown spots on our lawn didn't self rectify. John told us that the end of august/beginning of September was the best time to work on our lawn - right then and there our weekend priority list changed.
We immediately checked out the large selection of seeds available to bring life to the blotchy-brown-grossness taking over our lawn and wond up selecting something guaranteed to do the trick - then we moved along to find other things to help our not-so-manicured lawn get a little boost of confidence.
We wound up adopting:
Two new hoses
Two new non-permanent pulsating sprinklers
Two bins of grass seed (Scott's e-z seed)
One bow rake
Expect to spend: 30-45 min on this project
Project cost: $75-$100
SOS, the lawn needs help!:
It's been rather annoying not knowing what quite to do with the lawn. We understand how important curb appeal is - and we know we have as many outdoor projects ahead of us as we do indoor ones. We have a lawn service come one a week to trim and mow - but we are still debating the landscape architecture, and cohesive theme of the indoor outdoor transition. We figured we would start with what was actually wrong, then move on to things that needed adjustments. The number one thing wrong? Our lawn. It looks like it has age spots. As per the instructions on the e-z seed, we raked up the dead grass and tilled the soil. We simply did a little shakey-shake of the seed mixtures onto the grass,then watered until the rich shade of brown appeared. Each box of e-z seed covers around 80 square feet of land. After buying two bins for ourselves, we realized we would need about six more bins to rectify our complete lawn.
Weather is a fickle friend of ours:
It's nearing the end of August, and we have experienced the strangest weather. We go from low 70's to high 90's in the blink of an eye. In July we hit low 100's and that's where no noticed our lawn receiving the most damage. It kinda rectified itself with us manually watering it a little extra. Our 1930 English Tudor did not come equip with built in sprinklers, which we kinda have no opinion on. Let us explain. Yes it would be more convenient to flip a switch and have the lawn on a timer - but paranoia would over take me. Are we wasting water, what if it didn't turn off and now we are drowning our lawn, what happens in the Winter? You get the point. We found a large selection of happy medium at True Value, and kinda kicked it old school in our selection.
A for effort:
We expect to see some green results in a week or two, and we will surely report progress, 'cause hey, things like this excite us! Do you have any tips or ticks to get your yard in tip top shape? We would love to know!
PS: Want to see Joey explain set up? Check out the video below!
Lets get legal: We were one of the 10 bloggers True Value has chosen to work on The Blog Squad , and we are way excited to take on the challenge of showing you exciting DIY projects. They have compensated us for our time and writing, and provided materials for the projects we have worked on. However, our opinions are entirely our own and we have not been paid to publish positive comments. Did we mention we are excited to show you our DIY Blog Squad Projects?
Reader Comments (4)
Yikes! Your lawn looks just as bad as ours did :( We bought the same brand of grass seed - it grew (a little) but then started to die again. Maybe you guys will have better luck. Good luck.
@ray thanks for the tip! if e-z seed didn't work, what wound up being the winner?! thanks!
Love the video!!!
Definitely gotta get some of those sprinklers...our yard is beyond sad.
Or should I say, "our weed patch" is beyond sad.
:-)
Layla
@Layla We love them and would totally suggest them!