I wanted to share with you my project this summer. I purchased a new home last year in a residential community in a outside of Austin, TX. Housed are on mostly 1/3 to 1/2 an acre so they are pretty close with neighbors in the back yard. I can see my neighbor sitting on his couch from my couch and I end up keeping my blinds closed all the time. So I decided to create a hedge to create some decorative privacy and planted 67 Italian Cypress trees 28" apart along the fence in all areas where my neighbors were visible. Also planted 2 Tiny Tower Italian Cypress trees in my front flower bed. Knowing these trees need good drainage (and my yard is heavy black clay with poor drainage) I decided to put a French Drain in at the same time along the entire fence perimeter between the fence and the trees. At the same time I killed my cheap common Bermuda and resodded with Zeon Zoysia. Attached are pictures I took this morning after I mowed. Everything was installed only 7 weeks ago. So I have a couple questions and anyone's advise would be appreciated.
Questions:
1. How do you think it looks being 7 weeks from planting trees and sod?
2. I have my cypress on a irrigated line drip under the weed barrier and stones. I water about 3 gallons of water per tree every 5 days. Is that enough? Too much? I have had some leaves browning so I increased to current water schedule and it seems to be not getting worst.
3. Should I fertilize my trees? If so, what should I use?
4. I'm watering the grass everyone 4 days and the yard is getting about 3/4-1" of water. Is that enough? Too much? Also, it hasn't rained an inch since they installed everything and daily temps range between 99-105 degrees everyday.
5. Does my grass look established enough to use a pre-emergent this fall?
6. My yard is a little wavy (washboarding) I have a new jd 260sl reel mower. Cut at 7/8", am I doing something wrong to create the wavy look?
Thanks again for any help in advance!
