Lawn Care

[MommyD]

Hello all,

I have been receiving the annual spring phone calls from lawn care companies wanting to take care of our yard. It has really got me thinking. What do you all do to your yards for the growing season? Do you have a separate play area (I do) and do you treat it differently?

I was looking at Naturalawn of America's do-it-yourself products. Anyone have experience with these?

Also, around your fences, how do you keep the grass down? I don't want to use RoundUp for the obvious poison reason. We tried the "weed wacker" last year, but the string just breaks so quickly when it hits the chain link fence.

Any ideas/suggestions/input welcome.
I have Spring Fever and there is still snow on the ground!!

[DCMomOf3]

We hire to treat the yard the same all around. A spring treatment, some summer, and a fall/aeration. Also weed whack to the fence, around the garden and around the swing set. I'd rather go through cord than kill the grass in those areas.

[MommyD]

I am going to bump this up again.

Anyone else have anything to add?

DCMomof3, you are not worried about the little ones playing in herbicides and fertilizers? I have infants that play in the grass. Do you have older kids, or infants too?

[Pammie]

We don't use any chemical weed killers but dh does fertilize the lawn a couple of times each year. We just divide the yard in 1/2 with safety cones/rope. He'll fertilize 1/2 - we keep the kids off of it for a week (the instrux say 24 hours - but I wait a week just to be safe) and then switch. I haven't had any issues with reactions doing it this way.

We still use the weed wacker along the fence line. Yes, it does go through a lot of the line/string, but it's a better option for me than chemicals:-) We are working to put daylilies, gladiolas, and some flower beds around the inside perimeter of the fence - only about 40% done so far. Eventually I won't have to worry about weed wacking right up to the fence - but that's going to take a couple more years

[kidkair]

I use a weed killer on the whole yard early spring before the weeds flower. I've only had the yard two summers so I'm catching up on it being neglected for years. I spray it on a Friday evening or Sat morning when it's going to be able to dry all weekend. We use the weed wacker along the fence when it starts looking really bad because breaking the string is really annoying to go through every time we mow. We keep the grass a bit longer than most people in the neighborhood because we have clay soil and the extra length adds some cushion. To keep the grass down by the fence I let the children use the grass by the fence in their 'cooking' while we're outside. I'll direct them to the longest stuff if they start ignoring a spot. Last year they purposely didn't pick from one corner of the yard so as to grow a jungle in the yard. I cut their 'jungle' down every so often when it started to bug me. I've started digging under the fence so that I can put in climbing flowers and peas along the fence in place of the grass but I only got about 2 feet before winter so I don't know how long that's going to take me.