Lawn Update

Yesterday, for the 1st time this year, I had to switch on my headlights for both the drive to work & back home. It was a wet & gray morning, just the way I like it. On days like these, I don't desire to stay snuggled up in bed. Rather, I want to be outside, taking in the sights. The wet road, leaves hanging limp from the moisture, lights from the cars. I'm such a weirdo.

I've been working late for the past 2 weeks, arriving home past 7 pm almost everyday. I've been combating that by keeping to my 8 hours of sleep. It'll be another fortnight of madness as we head back for a visit, having my parents over & getting ready to move. There'll be lots of packing, lots of cleaning & probably lots of chucking.

The lawn, though not perfect, is looking great. Last Sat, as usual, I woke up at 6 am. A still sleepy hubs volunteered to drive me to Bunnings when he woke up to see me getting dressed & ready to head out. I heard many good testimonies about using manure as a fertiliser so I wanted to make a last ditch effort for the lawn. I think he probably regretted it for the stench filled his car & winding down the windows didn't help much. Lol.

Before the storm came in, I mixed up sheep & chicken manure in a bucket & applied it to the front lawn which is still patchy. It attracted a lot of flies & I could smell it from far away. But once the rain came down, the smell was gone. Might be my wishful thinking, but I thought the grass looked better than pre-manure already. I'll apply it to the back lawn (& probably another application to the front lawn as well) early next week so it'll have 2 weeks to work its magic. 3 more weeks to go. Be good & stay green & healthy. I want my bond back. It's such a waste though. All that effort & money making it look good & I can't take it with me when I move. Oh well, at least I rode the ride & gave it my best shot.

28th Jan 2015. Front lawn. Taken after getting pest control to spray the lawn for lawn beetles. This was the extend of the damage caused by the beetles.

15th March 2015. Front lawn. Taken just before I applied the mixed manure. Organic 1 somemore ok? Don't play play.

19th March 2015. Front lawn. Taken just today, 4 days after application of manure. Yellow areas have greened up & the gaps closed up even more.

28th Jan 2015. Back lawn. Same as front lawn, taken just after the lawn was sprayed for beetles. Not only have I got multiple brown patches, I've got huge bald areas too.

19th March 2015. No manure applied yet but will do so either tomorrow or early next week. Lawn mowed by gardener Nix & gardener hubs. Lol. Brown patches gone, bald patches have shrunk tremendously due to regrowth of grass.










Nah. Evidence that I really bought & applied organic shit to the lawn. 

Grumblings Rumblings

A post for me to vent. And rant. And did I say rant?

It's just as well that the pest control came on Monday to spray the lawn for beetles. Late Wednesday night, landlord informed me that they'll be coming today. Need I say more? You know what's coming right?

Let me 1st present to you a picture taken in late September or early October. This was 5 months after we moved in. The lawn became like that becoz of insufficient water. The reticulation had to be turned off as it was winter & we were instructed to water once a week. It was during 2nd week of spring that they told us we could turn the reticulation back on. The landlord claimed it was becoz we didn't pull out the weeds that caused the lawn to turn brown (die).











This 2nd picture was taken in late November or early December after I painstakingly watered the lawn manually everyday with fortnightly fertilisation for 2 months. (Dried sprigs are the uprooted winter grass.) Surely it was a vast improvement, no? By then, we knew some things about lawn care. Like reticulation alone is not enough. Like reticulation can miss big areas which you have to water manually. Like fertiliser is super important. Photos speak for themselves. You be the judge.











I don't need to take a picture of the current state of the lawn. Coz it's worse than the 1st picture. How long did it take for the beetles to kill off half the back lawn & 80% of the front lawn? Not very long at all. By the time I called the pest control company who did my wasps nest after the Christmas & Boxing Day holidays, it was already in this state.

I listed the things I did for the lawn. Namely the daily watering & fertiliser. Also, I told them I set the reticulation for the back lawn to come on every day. When the lawn is in a bad shape, it needs frequent watering you see. So I'll only have to water the dry areas manually that the reticulation missed. I also told them about the beetle problem & that it has been taken care of. I warned her that there're lots of dead beetles on the lawn. I sent her (I communicate with the wife only) both pictures showing the difference 2 months of care made. I told her it'll probably take me 2 months to green up the lawn again.

Knowing that they're coming, I went to trim the grass around the sprinklers after work yesterday. This tip I got from J who told me that when she was renting, the grass grew over the sprinklers & the landlord couldn't locate them & they had to forfeit part of their bond. The lawn had been mowed during the Christmas period in preparation for the pest control to come over.

The only comment she made was that I forgot to put her letters in the mailbox for her. I thought they accepted my explanation for the state of the lawn. I should have known. In the evening, the messages came. It was like everything I did was not appreciated. Not that I'm looking for appreciation. Just understanding that I'm doing the best I can. But not even that.

They'll be coming back in 2 weeks to check on the lawn. They wanted us to mow the lawn every 3 days so that instead of growing long, the grass will spread. Then they wanted us to trim the grass around the sprinklers (remember I already did yesterday which obviously wasn't good enough for them). Then said the plants in the garden bed outside the kitchen are not doing well coz "somebody" switched them off (which we've not even touched since we moved in). She wants the lawn to be watered by the reticulation only on watering days of Tuesdays & Saturdays. I can only turn on the reticulation on for the back an extra day on Thursday. If the lawn still isn't doing well, we are to increase the watering duration to 30 mins. Do you seriously think watering 30 mins on Tues & Thurs will keep the lawn alive? What happens when the temperature is consistently high on all other days? Again, it's their way or the highway just like it had been previously.

I'm trying my best to keep cool. But how can works of nature be our fault? It's not as though I neglected it & let it die. I get so stressed everytime they come (& they always give super short notice) that I can't sleep at night. Everytime after the comments they make to us, it strains us & our relationship. Every single time, we ended up in a shouting match where I'm the 1 getting shouted at.

I'm so tired. I don't want to think about it but that won't solve the problem. I really don't know what else to do. I did everything I could but the lawn refuses to survive. Many people suggested that I not do anything since they're being overly unreasonable. I just want to do whatever I can & if by the time we move it's still not green, then I can truly say I did my best. If I leave it alone now, I can't say that isn't it? Coz the lawn did green up with my efforts the 1st time round.

We thought of breaking lease but that will only benefit them at the expanse of our hard earned money & savings. Then came the news of a friend going to court becoz of their lawn problem with their previous rental. It's such a bad experience. I'm gonna say I'm definitely steering clear of lawns & gardens if I possibly can.

Curse Of The Lawn Beetle

So there. The culprit of my dead lawn. They successfully killed half the lawn in half the time I took to green it up. It started with patches of dead grass which slowly expended till they merged into 1 big dead patch. It's hard to come to a diagnosis as I've not seen them prior to this. I've read that you can pour soapy water (lots of it) on the lawn & they'll emerge from underground. It'll not kill them but merely confirms their existence. In another article, it says that lawn beetles & grubs help to aerate the soil & stimulate root growth. Regardless, they destroyed half of my back lawn &  80% of my front lawn. So they need to be gone before the grass can have a chance to grow back. 

I used the same local business that got rid of my wasp's nest. He came on Monday & explained that he sprayed a wetting agent, insecticide & liquid fertiliser on the lawn. By yesterday evening, I saw some dead beetles on the lawn. By this afternoon, there were lots more. While I could have done it by myself, it would have been time consuming for me & worse still, may not be a perfect job. So I feel that this $110 is well spent. Hopefully with this underlying problem gotten rid of, I'll be able to restore the lawn to an acceptable condition.

Back To Basics

We spent a good deal of time & brain power to green up the lawn. Several weeks ago, there was a day where the temperatures hit 35 degrees. In the days that follow, big patches of the lawn turned yellow. At the pot luck, J was sharing with me the products she use on her garden. I bought the same product (Thrive) in power form as it is cheaper than the liquid ones she uses. But after several weeks, the lawn still refuses to green up.

Sometime last week, Thursday I think, P & J came over as they wanted to drop off 2 bicycles & a pot of oregano for us. At the same time, they wanted to have a look at our lawn. They said the lawn doesn't look too bad (though I know my landlord will beg to differ) & it's normal not to have a lawn that is entirely green. It's normal to have yellow or brown patches. Then J asked if the sprinklers are reaching all areas of the lawn. She advised us to just keep watering the lawn & it will green up. So on non-reticulation days, we'll just have to do it manually.

Thinking of cheating, I set the system to water the back lawn everyday. The back is all fenced up so I think we won't be caught & it'll save me lots of time. I'll just water the smaller lawn patch out on the front by hose. Remembering what J said about the sprinklers, I stood there, watching as the stations came on 1 by 1. True enough, the massive yellow patches were not watered. The water didn't reach those areas.

I guess I think too far & complicated that I overlooked the simplest rational for it. Perhaps also becoz the landlord kept blaming us for the weeds & therefore depriving the lawn of nutrients that I kept thinking the problem is due to lack of fertilisation. In the end, it wasn't something we did to the lawn. It wasn't even the weeds. The lawn wasn't thriving simply becoz it wasn't getting the water it needs. Perhaps that's the solution to life itself. I wonder if the many problems we're facing just requires a back to basics approach as well.