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jack webb

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just.... all mulch?

How big is your front yard?
We're mostly landscaped with low-maintenance trees and shrubs, but there were a few small sections of grass whose chief talent seemed to be growing crabgrass and dandelions. No more. To your point, I've seen modestly-sized front yards done up nicely with rocks, gravel, & such. Some future generation will look back aghast at our once having dumped potable water on lawns.
 

Numbernine

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I have a small patch of lawn in my backyard about 60x20 ft that I water 100% with grey water. Everything else is mulch, hardscape, shrubs and trees that I don't water at all. A lot of salvias, succulents and some bamboo that we manage to co-exist with in a love/hate symbiosis.
 

brokencycle

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We're mostly landscaped with low-maintenance trees and shrubs, but there were a few small sections of grass whose chief talent seemed to be growing crabgrass and dandelions. No more. To your point, I've seen modestly-sized front yards done up nicely with rocks, gravel, & such. Some future generation will look back aghast at our once having dumped potable water on lawns.

We have zero grass. Well have too many point trees that provide shade and acidity to the soil that grass didn't like. We are all shrubs and trees with drive ground cover like creeping Jenny. Everything is pine straw or mulch, and we never need to add more pine straw because we get cubic yards of the stuff falling every year.
 

double00

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where i live happens to be the grass seed capital of the world lol , lawn is very easy to keep here ( the biggest issue is having to mow it every other day in mid spring it becomes incredibly verdant ) and is really one of the best local options for cover ,

still we reduced the front lawn and banked ferns in the old half under the japanese maple to get a bit more depth in the landscape ... but we'll keep lawn in both yards
 

Gibonius

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From a landscaping point of view, I like having some grass. It's like blank canvas on a painting, gives you some texture and contrast for the other plants to play off. Similar effect to the sand in Japanese gardens, just alive.

Also it's pretty useful with the dogs.
 

otc

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My neighbor's lawn adjacent to us is basically all clover at this point.

Honestly, it looks great when mowed and not covered in dandelions and she doesn't run the sprinklers at all. For a low traffic lawn, it seems like a pretty solid option.

We have sprinklers that the landlord makes us run (although I haven't really pushed them on it)...so I've been trying to make a bit of an effort to bring it back into shape. Why pay to water a patchy thin lawn that looks like crap? Overseeded it a few weeks ago and pulled a ton of dandelions and clover. I'm mostly pretty loathe to use chemicals, but I might do a little weed control once this seed is more established.

I will agree with Piob though...a sprinkler system with a computer controller is pretty handy when it comes to keeping fresh seed wet. No ******* way would my lazy ass have been able to keep up with a watering schedule through seed germination if it meant moving sprinklers around and manually operating things.

We also got a ton of rain...been a very wet June here which meant I didn't have to water nearly as much as I would have otherwise.
 

otc

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Gonna have to do some experimentation on what kind of watering schedule makes the most sense now that the new seed is starting to grow and temps are starting to warm.

Want to do the bare minimum, but obviously don't want to harm the fresh grass and cause all of that initial effort/water to go to waste. The sprinkler controller has all kinds of ability to vary output based on weather conditions, but I just have no idea what a baseline is as I am new to this whole "lawn care" thing.
 

ValidusLA

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So if anyone wants to look into one, the app-based, weather based controller I use is the Rachio.
Uses local weather stations to gauge wind, rain, temp etc.
You program your zones - what type of plants are there, grade of soil, type of soil, amount of daily sun exposure. Then the app does the rest.
Auto skips when rain is incoming. Autoskips when heavy wind is incoming. Bases watering on temp and soil moisture given inputs.
Can control it w/ an app - so I can skip or change stuff even when not in the same city.

Other great thing about it is you can essentially create as many schedules as you want - so if you have one finicky zone you can have it doing a different thing.

Also allows you to set water to variable times such as "before sunrise", so it moves the watering time throughout the year so you aren't watering and getting direct evaporation.

CA (and maybe other states) also give a rebate for this thing. I basically got it free.
 

venividivicibj

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a small patch of lawn

about 60x20 ft

1656352406326.png
 

Gibonius

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His "small patch" is half the size of my back lawn lol.
 

brokencycle

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where i live happens to be the grass seed capital of the world lol , lawn is very easy to keep here ( the biggest issue is having to mow it every other day in mid spring it becomes incredibly verdant ) and is really one of the best local options for cover ,

still we reduced the front lawn and banked ferns in the old half under the japanese maple to get a bit more depth in the landscape ... but we'll keep lawn in both yards

I don't recall where you live, but I thought it was upper Midwest. When we lived in MN we had a large yard that was predominately grass, and once I nuked it and reseeded the whole thing, it was really low maintenance. I never watered after the first year, and other than the quarterly fertilizer treatment, I didn't do anything to it. Before that it was a nightmare though.
 

Lizard23

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So if anyone wants to look into one, the app-based, weather based controller I use is the Rachio.
Uses local weather stations to gauge wind, rain, temp etc.
You program your zones - what type of plants are there, grade of soil, type of soil, amount of daily sun exposure. Then the app does the rest.
Auto skips when rain is incoming. Autoskips when heavy wind is incoming. Bases watering on temp and soil moisture given inputs.
Can control it w/ an app - so I can skip or change stuff even when not in the same city.

Other great thing about it is you can essentially create as many schedules as you want - so if you have one finicky zone you can have it doing a different thing.

Also allows you to set water to variable times such as "before sunrise", so it moves the watering time throughout the year so you aren't watering and getting direct evaporation.

CA (and maybe other states) also give a rebate for this thing. I basically got it free.

i use the hunter hydrawise…similar idea. Its great.
 

Lizard23

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Gonna have to do some experimentation on what kind of watering schedule makes the most sense now that the new seed is starting to grow and temps are starting to warm.

Want to do the bare minimum, but obviously don't want to harm the fresh grass and cause all of that initial effort/water to go to waste. The sprinkler controller has all kinds of ability to vary output based on weather conditions, but I just have no idea what a baseline is as I am new to this whole "lawn care" thing.

short answer is that this is why its best to overseed at the very end of summer/very early fall depending on when your first frost usually hits.
 

Gibonius

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So if anyone wants to look into one, the app-based, weather based controller I use is the Rachio.
Uses local weather stations to gauge wind, rain, temp etc.
You program your zones - what type of plants are there, grade of soil, type of soil, amount of daily sun exposure. Then the app does the rest.
Auto skips when rain is incoming. Autoskips when heavy wind is incoming. Bases watering on temp and soil moisture given inputs.
Can control it w/ an app - so I can skip or change stuff even when not in the same city.

Other great thing about it is you can essentially create as many schedules as you want - so if you have one finicky zone you can have it doing a different thing.

Also allows you to set water to variable times such as "before sunrise", so it moves the watering time throughout the year so you aren't watering and getting direct evaporation.

CA (and maybe other states) also give a rebate for this thing. I basically got it free.

On sale for $150 on Costco, fwiw.
 

ValidusLA

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On sale for $150 on Costco, fwiw.

For anyone looking be aware that's (probably) the 8 zone one. 16 zone is like $100 more usually. Consult w/ your irrigation guy w/ what you need. I'm a big fan of as specific zones as possible - currently running 14 in my yard. Better water pressure, can be more efficient w/ what types of plants you are watering etc.
 

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