Hi Folks,

We bought a new (to us) house the beginning of the year. When we were
being shown the house, I saw that the yard was cut very short. Now that
we're moved in and the yard is growing in earnest, we've discovered that
the yard is close to 50% weeded over.

I applied an early season fertilizer with crabgrass halts in March. But
there are large patches of clover, and dandelions scattered everywhere.
We've got a spreading creeper with small white flowers that runs along
the edges of anything that has an edge. We have lots of wild
strawberries, and a thin, pipestem like weed that's thoroughly
intermingled with the fescue over large parts of the yard. There's even
horsenettle and poison ivy in the landscaped areas.

We get a lot of sun so the stuff grows fast. Mowing once a week is
barely enough. I'm trying to let the grass grow to a reasonable height,
about 3.5 inches to encourage filling in. But of course the weeds grow
faster.

Has anyone had to recover a yard this heavily weeded? Did you use a
professional service? Tear it out and put in new sod? I've been
pulling what I can and spraying roundup, but we have a lot of
maintenance to catch up on besides the yard. I'm hoping to determine
what kind of long range plan I'll need to get the yard decent looking.

Thanks,

-dreq