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Hateyou

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I'm still not getting it.

Sounds like more green, soft, fine looking non-grass

Why is that bad?
The non grass stuff will spread and kill the grass. You’ll end up with bare dirt patches. So weed and feed now to get that stuff dying, probably another in late summer, then do an aerate and seed in the fall which is the best time to do it anyway.

Weed and feed is something you do 4x a year, but can get away with 2x usually. You don’t want to do it right before or after the aerate and seed because you want those seedlings to take hold. If you weed and feed a second time like maybe a month or so before the aerate and seed you’ll be ok.

Just make sure the weed and feed happens right before rain comes or plan on watering it yourself, some can burn your lawn.
 

Deathwing

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Haven't done any weed removal at my place since moving in 8 years ago, haven't noticed any bare dirt patches. I have ~2 acres though, fuck maintaining that so it's grass only.
 

Lanx

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The non grass stuff will spread and kill the grass. You’ll end up with bare dirt patches. So weed and feed now to get that stuff dying, probably another in late summer, then do an aerate and seed in the fall which is the best time to do it anyway.

Weed and feed is something you do 4x a year, but can get away with 2x usually. You don’t want to do it right before or after the aerate and seed because you want those seedlings to take hold. If you weed and feed a second time like maybe a month or so before the aerate and seed you’ll be ok.

Just make sure the weed and feed happens right before rain comes or plan on watering it yourself, some can burn your lawn.
i only had to pull like 20ish weeds this year, as i started 4 years ago, the place was infested, i did all the weeding and feeding like Hateyou Hateyou recommended, then as seasons came on, i didn't even weed and feed anymore since everything was all nice grass

i'll miss the lawn the most when i move
 

Hateyou

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Haven't done any weed removal at my place since moving in 8 years ago, haven't noticed any bare dirt patches. I have ~2 acres though, fuck maintaining that so it's grass only.
Yeah I’d only do the area directly around my house if it was that big. No point in maintaining a field to that level.

There is a huge difference though. My grass is so damn thick your feet don’t even make it to the dirt, it’s like you’re walking on a pillow top it’s so thick. When it was first coming up you could feel every rock and bump you were walking on. The kids all run around barefoot back there. When my kid was ~3-4 years old he would tell people to watch out cause our yard was “really pokey” lol
 

Loser Araysar

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The non grass stuff will spread and kill the grass. You’ll end up with bare dirt patches.

Haven't done any weed removal at my place since moving in 8 years ago, haven't noticed any bare dirt patches.

1621261525982.png
 

Deathwing

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Yeah I’d only do the area directly around my house if it was that big. No point in maintaining a field to that level.

There is a huge difference though. My grass is so damn thick your feet don’t even make it to the dirt, it’s like you’re walking on a pillow top it’s so thick. When it was first coming up you could feel every rock and bump you were walking on. The kids all run around barefoot back there. When my kid was ~3-4 years old he would tell people to watch out cause our yard was “really pokey” lol
I'm probably in the minority in this thread, but I actively look for ways to reduce the amount of yardwork I have to do since it's basically up to me alone. Why would someone like me buy a place with a giant yard(we own 2 more acres too that I rarely ever do anything with)? Nature and yardwork is still better than neighbors.

So, yeah, a well maintained lawn is indeed nice. My dad's lawn is that way, so I know how much work he puts into maintaining it. If it's green, non-threatening, and I can mow it, I leave it.
 
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Hateyou

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Hah. You can get away with either way.

Not doing it, it’ll just be patchier, and that first picture you sent reflects that. My yard is fully grass year round. The weeds you have will completely die off in winter leaving those dirt patches. If you do the weed and feed, aerate and seed it won’t look like that anymore in the off season. It’ll be less dirt/rocks and just be full grass year round. If you don’t care about that, just let it be natural.

I will say it’s way better fully grass if you have a dog or kid running around back there. They won’t come inside covered in mud in the winter.
 

Loser Araysar

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i do like the more natural look (weeds and all) over the perfectly, manicured lawn look.

looks more natural, less fake/artificial.

Lanx Lanx i dont have a HOA
 

Loser Araysar

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Hah. You can get away with either way.

Not doing it, it’ll just be patchier, and that first picture you sent reflects that. My yard is fully grass year round. The weeds you have will completely die off in winter leaving those dirt patches. If you do the weed and feed, aerate and seed it won’t look like that anymore in the off season. It’ll be less dirt/rocks and just be full grass year round. If you don’t care about that, just let it be natural.

I will say it’s way better fully grass if you have a dog or kid running around back there. They won’t come inside covered in mud in the winter.

oh i dont give a shit what it looks like in the winter.

its too cold to be fucking around in the yard anyways in winter
 
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Hateyou

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I'm probably in the minority in this thread, but I actively look for ways to reduce the amount of yardwork I have to do since it's basically up to me alone. Why would someone like me buy a place with a giant yard(we own 2 more acres too that I rarely ever do anything with)? Nature and yardwork is still better than neighbors.

So, yeah, a well maintained lawn is indeed nice. My dad's lawn is that way, so I know how much work he puts into maintaining it. If it's green, non-threatening, and I can mow it, I leave it.
I definitely feel you on less yard work. I wouldn’t put as much time into it if it was huge or I was out in the country. Living in the suburbs though the few houses that don’t maintain their lawn in my neighborhood look like shit compared to the ones who do. Mines one of the nicest and it’s fun giving my neighbor shit every time I mow.

858AEAC5-CAA0-4300-802E-C40D0085EAAA.jpeg
 
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BrutulTM

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Lawns are a cult. One of the biggest wastes of time and water in modern society, not to mention all the chemicals.
 
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Dandai

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Araysar Araysar It depends on the type of weed, but for the most part, weeds are an aesthetic consideration. They can shade out your desired turf if you don’t mow frequently enough. The bare patches will only happen when the perennial weeds die off and your turf is dormant or doesn’t spread on its own (grasses like Kentucky blue grass, centipede, Bermuda, will spread while turf type tall fescue and rye must be seeded).

I’ve never sprayed for weeds. The weeds fill a specific niche and often indicate a specific deficiency in the soil. When you address the deficiencies, the turf eventually takes over and the weeds go away on their own.

edit: Off the top of my head, dandelions indicate soil compaction, clover means low nitrogen, and moss indicates deep shade and/or bad water drainage.
 
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BrutulTM

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The weeds fill a specific niche and often indicate a specific deficiency in the soil.

This is true. Wherever you find weeds, there's a reason they are there and it's not because you haven't sprayed enough 2, 4-D on the spot.
 
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Hateyou

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Araysar Araysar It depends on the type of weed, but for the most part, weeds are an aesthetic consideration. They can shade out your desired turf if you don’t mow frequently enough. The bare patches will only happen when the perennial weeds die off and your turf is dormant or doesn’t spread on its own (grasses like Kentucky blue grass, centipede, Bermuda, will spread while turf type tall fescue and rye must be seeded).

I’ve never sprayed for weeds. The weeds fill a specific niche and often indicate a specific deficiency in the soil. When you address the deficiencies, the turf eventually takes over and the weeds go away on their own.

edit: Off the top of my head, dandelions indicate soil compaction, clover means low nitrogen, and moss indicates deep shade and/or bad water drainage.
Mine is definitely compacted. The first thing the housing companies do when they buy a field to build houses on it is remove all the topsoil to sell to companies to repackage and sell back to you. Half of the trees we plant die. Growing shit in clay doesn’t work well, even the trees native to your area struggle when a foot of soil from hundreds of years of nature and farming gets removed.
 

Fogel

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No HoA here - They aren't that common in smaller towns. However when I was also looking in St Augustine pretty much everything was HoA
 

Denamian

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Hell, I hadn't even heard of HOAs until maybe 10 years ago . The vast majority of housing around here are just towns that have been around forever and I've never heard of any neighborhoods organizing a HOA. The only places I know of that have HOAs are developments that have been built in the last 20 years and plenty of those don't have HOAs.

So I had figured with going with a mix of sand and topsoil then seed it to fill in the ruts in my parents' yard and my Mom was all on board with that. However, my dad wants to buy a shitton of topsoil and till the entire yard since the grass is patchy in a lot of places. I'm trying to get him to at least wait until the ground is soft next year before we consider tilling anything.

The thing is that he does none of the labor. The last time he did anything himself was over 5 years ago when I took over mowing since he was having issues using even a riding mower. He didn't do a very good job anyway so it made sense for me to take over. He was the one against getting rid of any trees for a long time despite it keeping most of their .95 acres in the shade. Fall is 6-8 weeks of clearing leaves from the lawn multiple times a week.
 

Hateyou

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Hell, I hadn't even heard of HOAs until maybe 10 years ago . The vast majority of housing around here are just towns that have been around forever and I've never heard of any neighborhoods organizing a HOA. The only places I know of that have HOAs are developments that have been built in the last 20 years and plenty of those don't have HOAs.

So I had figured with going with a mix of sand and topsoil then seed it to fill in the ruts in my parents' yard and my Mom was all on board with that. However, my dad wants to buy a shitton of topsoil and till the entire yard since the grass is patchy in a lot of places. I'm trying to get him to at least wait until the ground is soft next year before we consider tilling anything.

The thing is that he does none of the labor. The last time he did anything himself was over 5 years ago when I took over mowing since he was having issues using even a riding mower. He didn't do a very good job anyway so it made sense for me to take over. He was the one against getting rid of any trees for a long time despite it keeping most of their .95 acres in the shade. Fall is 6-8 weeks of clearing leaves from the lawn multiple times a week.
HOAs have been around since the 60s and usually people don’t organize one if they’re already in a community without one. It generally goes in when it’s built so older places tend to not have them. Me personally I’d rather live a few miles out of town and have little to no neighbors.

There’s good and bad that goes with HOA. They keep people from doing stupid shit to their house or yard that would tank your property value. One of my buddies for example lives in a non HOA community and his neighbor has been “remodeling” their house for four or five years. It hasn’t had siding for years, just foam board. He also has two boats in his driveway, one is so big the only place I think he’d be able to take it around Indiana is the Great Lakes. It’s old and trashy and fucking massive, and my buddy gets to look at that dumpster fire of a house every time he comes home. I told his wife she should get on the boat and post social media pics like she’s on her own private yacht all the time.

Anyways, I get the point of an HOA when you’re in a high density housing neighborhood. Outside of that, they’re dumb.