Weeds Be Gone...Pleeeeeeease!!!

It's going to take awhile.  That's what I keep telling myself.  But, my, oh, my, how decrepit my yard looks.  If you remember, when I first purchased the house, the lawn was...well, frankly, there wasn't much of a lawn.  I had desert-like dirt patches that reminded me of dry skin.  Grass was few and far between.

The yard as I acquired it.

But after a little drought in July, the rains came, and the weeds flourished!  So when I finally closed on the house, I then had a yard taken over by weeds.  And they have continued for the last couple of months.

The yard is an eye-sore!

80% weeds, 20% grass.  I have my hands full.

I'm a novice when it comes to cleaning up a lawn, but I knew it needed two things:  for the weeds to be killed, and for the new grass to be planted.  I already treated the lawn for weeds a week and a half ago (spot spray), so it was time to plant new seed.

And I wanted to take advantage of a pretty special toy that I had on-hand.  My brother informed me that his co-worker had a lawn aerator that we could use IF I got it running for him.  It seemed like a decent trade.  Well, that was until I realized that the unit was missing parts and NOT just needing a carb cleaning as I had been told.  But as a good brother, I went ahead and fixed the unit and this morning installed the final remaining piece.  All in all, I had to replace four or five items and wait three weeks for parts!  But the little engine now runs perfect.  And the lawn aerator works perfect, too!  This is about a $3000 unit, so it's no small joke.  It literally walks YOU around the yard.

The aerator and my dying lawn!

The aerator has been here!!!

But it does a fine job.  So I decided to aerate first, then overseed next.  Again, I don't know what I'm doing, but it sure made sense in my head!  Get some holes in the dirt, let the seed mix in with the dirt on top and the holes below, and voila!



The aerator removes plugs from the yard, thus leaving holes, and then drops the dirt plugs behind.

I guess I will see how well I did in a couple of weeks.

But I'm excited to tackle this project.  I mean, this yard is ROUGH.  Weeds, weeds, everywhere!

The weeds are starting to die, leaving behind very small patches of grass.

 

I contemplated just tilling up the entire yard and starting anew!

The weeds are literally TAKING OVER.

There is juuuuuuust enough hope for grass that I left it as-is and over-seeded.  Time will tell!

But the $40 bag of grass seed is spread all over the yard!  And I went over several areas more than once!  I just hope the seeds take!  I tried to water, but let's be honest, it's virtually impossible to water this entire massive yard...and I knew it would be dry by tomorrow.  So I'm just hoping for the seeds to stick and for rain to fall!

I told you I was a novice.  :)