Lawn Care for Dummies

Lawn care at my childhood home on a farm in Oklahoma consisted of spreading granules to kill ticks and mowing once a week. By August it would be so hot that the grass was brown and crunchy..........yea, no more mowing!!....Yep, that was lawn care. Troy's childhood experience in Texas was much the same. We moved to California and lived in apartments and a condominium where other people took care of the lawn.

Then we bought a house in Colorado!

We moved into the formally foreclosed house with the much neglected lawn in April 2006. Luckily, our neighbor was a former landscape artist who graciously took the time to help Troy learn about the sprinkler system and about that miracle product called Revive. We watered the lawn like crazy and it payed off. After one application of fertilizer the lawn was beautiful!

The next summer was a little harder. Admittedly, we were concentrating on the back yard with a new deck and patio. But the lawn just didn't seem as lush as before. We muddled through and promised to take better care of it next year.

Now here we are in May 2008. We went to the local nursery and found out that Dallis grass (a weed) and spider mites had taken over our lawn! We bought everything they presented to us.....I know, I know, we had sucker written all over our faces. Sharon, the nice lady at the nursery, told us to aerate the lawn first. (For those Non-Coloradoans who are reading this, soil aeration is needed at the high altitude to help air get into the soil. A soil aerator pulls plugs out of the ground to help the soil be less compact.)

The aeration people worked their magic on Saturday. Our lawn has little soil plugs all over it that look amazingly like dog potty. (I keep having to remind myself that it's just dirt.) Yesterday, Troy and I walked into the garage and stood amidst our bounty of lawn care products and couldn't remember what we were supposed to do next. Spray the weed killer on just the weed or the whole lawn? Spray the weed killer, then plan the seed? Wait a week before planting seed? Mow first? Water last? Don't water? ARGH!!??!! We had written instructions from Sharon, but apparently Troy and I were in need of the remedial lawn care class. I made a desperate call to the nursery and the calm voice on the other end assured me that it would all be okay and that we could use all these products at the same time, they were idiot proof. Hmm....I guess she calls them like she sees them.