# Ldware9's lawn journal



## Ldware9 (May 27, 2018)

I just bought my house 2.5yrs ago. Took the front yard from mainly weeds to 7/8" HoC KBG starting September 2018 with a full renovation.

March 17, 2019 after the snow melted.


My wife was surprised that the lawn was green all winter (So was I).

Had a small fault of mine by letting the grass grow longer than it should and it was laying down and smothering itself. Fixed that by raking the grass to stand up and mowing to correct height. Then decided that I wanted to try a reel low lawn, since I was cutting at sub 2" anyways. Gradually started to mow lower and lower till my troybilt was as low as it would go. Bought a McLane reel mower from craigslist, got it home and backlapped the reel. Used the original wheels for about a month then went to my local hardware store and bought a 5/8" solid metal rod and some 2" diameter washers to make a roller for it. Works like a charm for the most part keeping everything level. Due to the change from wheels to DIY roller it brought the HoC to 7/8" which was quite a bit shorter than I wanted to take off at one time. Took the risk and nothing bad happened.

June 26, 2019 brown spot is from watering and burning the lawn.


I've been mowing daily with the reel mower. Plan to buy the sun Joe dethatcher combo and renting an aerator for fall.

This is the struggle I've had with my front/side yard areas.

On the backyard I spilt it into 2 halves. One I started spring 2018 (was surprised it lived), the Reno that my son and I did to the backyard fall 2017 was a complete flop, yard grand up then browned out just as fast. During the spring '18 reno of the bank used my son found the gutter brick (thing that goes under the gutter to help disperse the water) 6" underground. We came to the conclusion that the backyard was washing out so we built a retaining wall just under 2'.



Reinforced with rebar.



The retaining wall was started mid 2018. I've been back filling the area slowly, mainly due to making a paver patio for my wife and finishing our back patio with tongue and groove boards. Hopefully it will be completed prior to my fall maintenance time. My family and I agreed that we all liked the low cut look. So planning to renovate the backyard to the same mono strand of white horse KBG.


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