The OTHER Front Yard Project

While the now mulched-over Front Yard Garden project has gone pretty well (new pictures coming soon), the other half of the front yard that actually still has grass on it is, well, not so good.

The problems started last summer when, in keeping with his "if I screw this up enough, she'll stop asking me to do it" philosophy, my darling husband ran over one of the sprinkler heads with the lawn mower. Subsequently, we had a really hard time finding a similar replacement head. I tried two different ones, but certain areas of the lawn were getting missed during watering. Full sun for most of the day on that corner of the yard didn't help.

Well, you can guess what happened. The previously lush St. Augustine turned to straw. In big brown patches.

Speaking of brown patches, we learned about Brown Patch and Take-All Root Rot in my Master Gardener class, but to be honest, I must have some kind of blind eye for diagnosing grass problems. I just stare at those brown blotches in my lawn, pull up a few stolons to examine them and then go "WTF?"

Well, we had a company called Organic Systems Lawn Care out a couple of weeks ago to look at it, and he said it was brown patch. I still tend to disagree, but scheduled an aeration, which they performed yesterday. We'll see if it greens up. But since we're entering the dregs of summer, I doubt much will happen. It's much easier for me to believe that it's drought rather than a fungus.

Which is why I'm planning on digging up a big six-foot kidney-shaped blob in the worst area and making an island bed out of it. I already have threes cannas (sorry Amy...I know you hate them), a hesperaloe, a pink lavender and some sedum poised to go. It's all about having more plants, you know?