On Sun, 20 Apr 2003 21:16:34 -0700, Lil wrote:

Hi all!

I don't know too much about lawns so forgive my ignorance...

We got the lawn with the house and not knowing any better, we proceeded
to water our lawn everyday for 7 min. a day. This went on for several
months and the lawn has gotten progressively browner and browner. When
I asked, it seems that that was the wrong way of watering the lawn. So
now, we've been watering the lawn 3 times a week for 15 min. each time
real early in the morning (it gets warm in the afternoons) to maximize
water absorption.
(I'm still not sure if I'm watering the lawn properly because I noticed
that about 3 hours after watering the grass was dry and the dirt beneath
the grass was only moist. Shouldn't the grass be soggier even after 3
hours? It may be that most of the water the sprinkler system is
delivering is not being absorbed--we have clay soil--and is stimply
running off the sidewalk.)

The lawn is now mostly brown and the only green appears to consist of
coarse grass (crabgrass?) that puts forth tall spikes with something
that resembles wild oats at the ends. These grasses are very coarse and
poky, and are really tough to yank out...

So the questions are, can we resuscitate whatever bit of lawn we have
and can we get rid of the coarse grass that's taking over the lawn?

I'm not keen on resodding because of the expense and because there's no
guarantee we won't kill the next lawn...



Good day Lil. Watering 3x a week for 15 mins is still too shallow of a
watering schedule in my opinion. Once a week for 30 to 45 mins would be
better. It will encourage the root system to travel deeper into the soil
and you'll have a more drought tollerant lawn in the end. But, after
reading your posting, I believe that your may have too much water and not
enough air in your lawn at the moment. Clay soil can hold much more water
than sandy soils due to clay's ionic charge and large surface area. And
clay is also famous for becomming compacted which destroys the air holding
ability of the soil.

So what to due to correct this issue? First off, your not going to get a
really cheap fix here. You must first change the cultrual enviroment in
which you wish your lawn to live. First deal with the compaction issue (
if this problem exists ) with an aerator. Punching holes into the lawn
will help with air and water movement through the soil. If you have a high
clay content, do not 'sand over' the lawn. People like to do this to fill
the little aerator holes with sand to aide in drainage. What tends to
happen is the soil will 're-compact' over time and the sand/clay mix will
turn to cement. It you feel the need to fill in these holes, then use
compost or even plain old soil.
After your done with the aerator, you will want to rent a thatcher.
De-thatch the lawn area. It should look like it's almost bare dirt. Rake
up all the grass/weeds reseed and peat over the top of the seed. Water and
watch it grow.

In the furture, place a cat food can ( or some other container about the
same size or a nice rain gauge ) half the distance away from the
sprinkler. Run the sprinkler untill you have an inch of water in the can.
Remember the amount of time it took to fill the can. This is the amount of
time you'll need to run your sprinkler to get the right amount of water on
your lawn. Your shooting for an inch per week. Don't forget to subtract
out any rain that you might of gotten during the week. Good luck

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