Gardening 2023

[johnnyvw]

Can someone identify this grass for me? Our old neighbor planted it on purpose and it's taken over his lawn completely and now making inroads into ours. It’s a warm weather grass, which turns brown as soon as it gets cold here. Looks like crap. The red parts of the stem are stiff, and it spreads by sending out these long trails of invaders, and then Seems to branch off in all directions.
View attachment 207944 View attachment 207945

Looks more like centipede grass...tends to have thicker stolons than bermuda. But may also be St.Augustine grass. As you've found out, very invasive, which is part of why people use it. Unless you can use roundup along the edge of your yard, you can try using a selective herbicide, combined with making sure your lawn is well-fed so the centipede grass can't compete
I just put down $8000 worth of bermuda grass sod...the stolons are much finer than what you have pictured. But the builder put centipede grass plugs in the backyard, and it looks almost exactly like that. I basically had to go "scorched earth" and kill off everything before the sod went down. Worth the effort, I have a nice green carpet that feels great under bare feet

 

[Scruffy]

Your lawn looks really good!
Our lawn looks good in the spring/early summer, but as soon as things start to dry out, it has this one spot that always seems to go dormant. There always seems to be bunny poop in the area so I figured it was bunny damage, but after doing some seeding, fertilizing and on the off chance that there was a fungus, I even put a fungicide on it....not looking good, even after all that effort.
Seen here in between our golf net and patio.
View attachment 209235

Grass needs to associate with mycorrhizal fungi to be healthy, so putting a fungicide on is probably making it worst. How is the soil under that area? Is it compacted? Is the thatch too thick and not allowing good gas (oxygen/co2) exchange to the roots? I'd try aerating to open the soil. And dethatching if the thatch is thick. I'd then rake some compost in and reseed with appropriate grass seed for heavy sun and your area. If it's a small area you could just use a pitchfork to open up and de-compact the soil.

 

[Jenny]

Hmmm, Burmuda grass was one thing suggested to me for high drought areas.
That doesn't look like something I want in my yard.

It spreads like mad. We only have it because it's invaded from the neighbor's yard. It looks fine in the summer, but since it's a warm weather grass their yard goes brown early and greens late.

 

[Tricia]

It spreads like mad. We only have it because it's invaded from the neighbor's yard. It looks fine in the summer, but since it's a warm weather grass their yard goes brown early and greens late.

This is from the website where I was looking for grass that is good for high desert areas.

Common Bermuda spreads aggressively, which means it recovers from damage quickly but can also get out of hand and become a weed. However, there are hybrid varieties designed not to produce seeds so they don’t spread. Hybrids also tend to stay green longer each year.

• Spreads by: Above-ground stems (stolons) and below-ground stems (rhizomes); fast growth rate
• Drought tolerance: High
• Foot traffic tolerance: High traffic tolerance during active growth season; low tolerance in winter
• Shade tolerance: No shade tolerance; needs full sun
• Maintenance needs: Common Bermuda is low-maintenance, but hybrids are higher maintenance because they need more nitrogen fertilizer and more frequent mowing.
• Recommended mowing height: 1-2 inches for common Bermuda; 1-1.5 inches for hybrids

 

[Ken_R]

That is what I was thinking.
I also read an article with a caution about evening watering because lawns are more prone to fungus, and I did have a few mushrooms growing in my yard earlier in the spring. Not something we usually see in Reno.
During that rainy time I did not have my irrigation on.

This area has been problematic every since we moved here, and it does get direct sunlight during a really hot part of the day and recently I was looking at older photos from when this house was listed. It appears that the area I'm talking about used to be a place for planting flowers or something, not lawn so I also wonder if the sprinklers, don't saturate there the same as the rest of the lawn.(see picture below.) So...I increased my two AM watering times by 2 minutes each but left the one evening watering at a original 6 minute time.

View attachment 209250

Sooooo, I took an old window screen and used it for cover, reseeded, watered with a fertilizer.
We shall see what happens.
If this doesn't work, I may order this for that patch area.

Just renovated a 5' x 50' " patch of my lawn using this seed:




It germinated in a week! Its growing solid. I did do a lot of prep and killed all the old grass and took it down to dirt and raked it a lot to get small rocks and big chunks of material out and made it pretty level. Will update how it goes but so far so good.

 

[Ken_R]

Hmmm, Burmuda grass was one thing suggested to me for high drought areas.
That doesn't look like something I want in my yard.

Do NOT introduce bermuda grass. It is a nightmare. I am still dealing with it. I suspect one of the previous owners of my house introduced it and it is horrible. You dont want it anywhere near your property.

 

[Tricia]

Do NOT introduce bermuda grass. It is a nightmare. I am still dealing with it. I suspect one of the previous owners of my house introduced it and it is horrible. You dont want it anywhere near your property.

That is something I knew immediately.
I great up with the old quack grass, which is something I couldn't get rid of to save my life.

Typically when I lived in Michigan and wanted to reseed an area, I would use a blend of annual rye, perenial rye, red fescue and Kentucky blue grass.
The idea is that the annual rye germinates quickly, giving substance to the soil, then perenial rye comes in and takes hold, and red fescue fills in as the third germination and then KBG comes in after about 8 weeks of germination and then creates a substantially nice lawn.

In Reno Nevada, this is not necessarily the blend that takes hold for high desert and full sun.

 

[Dr.T]

When we retired 2 years ago we bought the lot east of our house and built a shop/garage. Darla wanted a vegetable garden so..........she doesn't do anything halfway. She spends a lot of time out there and in her greenhouse but she loves it! Happy wife, happy life!

 

[Jenny]

When we retired 2 years ago we bought the lot east of our house and built a shop/garage. Darla wanted a vegetable garden so..........she doesn't do anything halfway. She spends a lot of time out there and in her greenhouse but she loves it! Happy wife, happy life!


View attachment 209394
View attachment 209392
View attachment 209391
View attachment 209390
View attachment 209389
View attachment 209387
View attachment 209386

Impressive!

 

[Dr.T]

Unwelcome visitor to the garden this morning. Darla was gathering tomatoes, set one down then noticed something lurking in the shadows. Yup, small rattlesnake. It has since be sent to rattlesnake heaven.....

 

[Dr.T]

Here's a better pic of another one from last month by the house:

 

[Tricia]

Here's a better pic of another one from last month by the house: View attachment 209506

Yikes!
How often do you guys get them around your house out there?
I have yet to actually see a rattle snake since moving to Reno but I heard one while riding MTB a few years ago. I did not investigate where the rattle was coming from

As for your wife's gardening.....Just WOW!

 

[Dr.T]

We get one or two per year around the house. If we see them out hiking or biking we just leave them alone but if they're in the yard they get dispatched. Too risky with our dog and all the gardening/yard work. The two so far this year were small. Here's a photo of one from 4 years ago out by the front yard, biggest I've ever seen around here. They're out at night a lot. The photo was taken just after the beheading and rattle removal. Sorry if too graphic.......

 

[Tricia]

We get one or two per year around the house. If we see them out hiking or biking we just leave them alone but if they're in the yard they get dispatched. Too risky with our dog and all the gardening/yard work. The two so far this year were small. Here's a photo of one from 4 years ago out by the front yard, biggest I've ever seen around here. They're out at night a lot. The photo was taken just after the beheading and rattle removal. Sorry if too graphic.......
View attachment 209527

WE have a neighbor who caught a rattler that big and they kept the skin to mount on the wall. I'm not so sure I'd want one of those for decor.

@Andy Mink had a dog get bit by a rattle snake a few years ago. She still has the scars to prove it.
I believe this is the picture he took of her after she was treated by the vet.

 

[Dr.T]

WE have a neighbor who caught a rattler that big and they kept the skin to mount on the wall. I'm not so sure I'd want one of those for decor.

@Andy Mink had a dog get bit by a rattle snake a few years ago. She still has the scars to prove it.
I believe this is the picture he took of her after she was treated by the vet.

View attachment 209530

Poor dog. I'm glad she made it ok!

 

[David Chaus]

Fortunately we don’t have rattlers on this side of the Cascades.

Here’s some recent gardening projects. We had a week of upper 80’s and low 90’s weather, which meant a lot of watering to keep everything from drying out. Back to more typical PNW weather today.

This is a bed we put in last year. It used to sometimes be a parking are part of the lawn, then had been a staging area where we had a lot of potted plants, and decided we would make it a bed. Most everything went in last year. We’re calling this the Small Conifer bed.

This is a new bed we just put in this year. We’re calling it the Maple bed.

The creeping conifer at the bottom is a Sequoiadendron Sempervirens (Coastal Redwood) kind of unusual.

We then expanded this bed next to a large Cedar, and this area get lots of shade so ferns and couple of Rhodedendrons, including the SinoGrande which can develop 3 ft leaves (the longest on this plant is 18 inches) so I have high hopes for this one.

Shiro plums are more juicy than flavorful, kind of like water balloons.

Front porch (street side), some of these will go into the ground at some point.

Here’s the back entrance, though this is where we actually walk in and out of the house most of the time.

Tiger Lilies in bloom.

 

[Tricia]

I've seen two stories today about people replacing their water demanding lawns with bee friendly flowers.
If this is actually happening, that's kind of cool.

 

[anders_nor]

I spent 3 weeks straight (entire vacation) gardening on the new house.