# Advice for 2018 plan for sidewalk area grass



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

The grass on the strip between the street and the sidewalk in front of my house has been problematic for the 20 years I've lived here. The fact that I haven't used a pre-emergent fertilizer for several years and have been focused on spending each fall over the past few years dealing with the annual May fungus damage on the rest of the lawn haven't helped things:



One issue is that this area isn't covered by my irrigation system (not practical) and is on the south-facing side of my property and subsequently gets lots of sun. About ten years ago I rototilled the entire thing, removed the many fist-sized rocks the builder left behind, added some topsoil, and planted some drought resistant Fescue. It looked pretty good for a while, but stuff like snowplow damage, weed creep, and general lack of attention have taken their toll.

Now that I think I've started to get a handle on the rest of my lawn, I'm trying to think ahead about what I can do with this area and when I should do it. I think that the easiest thing to do would be to use a pre-emergent in the spring and then just overseed the entire thing with some sort of drought resistant grass seed again in the fall. Does that make sense? Should I consider just nuking the entire thing and starting again, which might not be wife and/or neighbor friendly? Should I be considering something other than Fescue? Is this a good project to start in August? WWYD?


----------



## FuzzeWuzze (Aug 25, 2017)

Honestly it doesnt look that bad weed wise unless im missing something, just needs to be heavily raked/dethatched to get all that dead crap out, throw down some TTF seed and spray for weeds once the grass has been mowed a few times.


----------



## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

A lot of the dying off that you might have seen over time is likely due to salt damage. You should consider adding some gypsum to amend the soil and try to counteract high salinity. My parkways were doing well in the baking heat of the sun here in coastal Georgia, and I have no irrigation. Once you get the turf growing, just spend about 5-10 minutes a week every three days and throw some water on it by hand, or set a sprinkler on it. Alternatively, you could rig up something like I've got to water them while you enjoy an adult beverage on the porch.


----------



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

Thanks guys. The brown crabgrass was still green a couple of weeks ago, so it wasn't quite so obvious where the weeds stopped and the remaining grass began. I did throw some seed down, but there was enough crabgrass that it wasn't easy to get uniform growth.

I do like the gypsum idea. I put reflective stakes along the road to keep the grass from getting scalped by the plow, but it makes sense to address potential salt damage too.

Hopefully using a pre-emergent in the spring will help keep the crabgrass at bay until I can hit it hard with some grass seed next fall. Keeping it watered can be challenging though because quite a bit of my frontage is up an incline next to my neighbor's house because of the way the builder laid out the house lots.


----------



## vnephologist (Aug 4, 2017)

If you overseed and stay TTTF, I'd consider Firecracker SLS.


----------



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

vnephologist said:


> If you overseed and stay TTTF, I'd consider Firecracker SLS.


That sounds like a great choice for my situation. Is there a good online source for it?


----------



## vnephologist (Aug 4, 2017)

massgrass said:


> That sounds like a great choice for my situation. Is there a good online source for it?


I picked mine up from United Seeds.


----------



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

Thanks vnephologist!


----------



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

Well, it's been a year and after having my hell strip looking like a barren wasteland during the hot and dry summer, I took vnephologist's advice and tried overseeding with Firecracker SLS. I did get a bit of a late start since the initial seed went down about 4 weeks ago, but it has grown in pretty nicely so far. I wish I had enough warmer weather left for it to get more established, but hopefully it will hang in there over the winter and take off next spring. Watering it is the biggest challenge, since parts of it are 200' away from the house and in front of a territorial neighbor's property. :x

FWIW, I also overseeded around my Dad's grave with Firecracker SLS to see if I can get that fixed up a bit next year too since my Mom was upset about it being such a weedy mess. I'm basically the weirdo sneaking a manual reel mower, seed, fertilizer, etc. into the cemetery and hoping that the staff there doesn't see me.


----------



## TN Hawkeye (May 7, 2018)

You could do like @Shindoman did and install artificial turf. His looks pretty good.


----------



## Miggity (Apr 25, 2018)

massgrass said:


> FWIW, I also overseeded around my Dad's grave with Firecracker SLS to see if I can get that fixed up a bit next year too since my Mom was upset about it being such a weedy mess. I'm basically the weirdo sneaking a manual reel mower, seed, fertilizer, etc. into the cemetery and hoping that the staff there doesn't see me.


So I'm not the only one out at the cemetery. I've never mowed, but hit it pretty regularly with a weed wacker and blower, and fert and squirt when needed. I do the whole width of the section about 4 rows deep so it does not make the 'neighbors' area or ours stand out. The staff have seen me and seem to approve, less trimming for them.


----------



## Shindoman (Apr 22, 2018)

TN Hawkeye said:


> You could do like @Shindoman did and install artificial turf. His looks pretty good.


I did. The neighbourhood dogs ruined my boulevard.
I'm in the process of putting the fake stuff in my little front lawn where my dogs do their thing. 
I've been fighting a losing battle keeping it look good for years. I'll start a thread soon about 
the diy project.


----------



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

Miggity said:


> So I'm not the only one out at the cemetery. I've never mowed, but hit it pretty regularly with a weed wacker and blower, and fert and squirt when needed. I do the whole width of the section about 4 rows deep so it does not make the 'neighbors' area or ours stand out. The staff have seen me and seem to approve, less trimming for them.


Ha, I'm not bold enough to bring power equipment along. This is a cemetery run by Catholics, so I always feel like I'm doing something wrong when I'm there. 

I was wondering how far to extend the area I'm taking care of without attracting too much attention to my Dad's grave. I think expanding the area is a good idea and I'll have to make a wider sweep when I put preemergent down next year and nuke the existing weeds. Hopefully I'll have a decent area to throw some seed down on again next year.


----------



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

Shindoman said:


> I did. The neighbourhood dogs ruined my boulevard.
> I'm in the process of putting the fake stuff in my little front lawn where my dogs do their thing.
> I've been fighting a losing battle keeping it look good for years. I'll start a thread soon about
> the diy project.


My wife is a gardener and it would probably be hard to convince her of that one. And my neighbor comes running out of his house any time he sees me doing anything on my property that he doesn't like. Ugh...


----------



## Shindoman (Apr 22, 2018)

Most people can't tell the difference. I've had bylaw people come by because someone complained I was watering my boulevard when water restrictions were on.


----------



## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

The hotel I'm staying at in florida has sections of it. It looks really nice and could fool anyone. It looks better than bermuda. I noticed they left the irrigation heads in place and do run them to clean the sand off.


----------



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

Did you have to cast a wide net to track down a specific high quality artificial turf? It certainly looks nice in the picture, but I imagine you get what you pay for as with anything else. It certainly doesn't look like the shabby stuff at the local mini golf course.


----------



## Shindoman (Apr 22, 2018)

The stuff they are making now is really impressive. Many diff types, heights and styles. The stuff in my pic I installed 4 or 5 yrs. ago. The new stuff is way better. Here's the company I got mine from. 
It says they have US dealers.
http://www.rymar.ca/#rymarmain


----------



## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

Interesting, thanks!


----------



## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)




----------

