Yard Work Continued

We’re still poking away at our yard. Wanda and I took our first class in the Home Owners Landscape Series at the Fox Valley Technical College. The class was on yard maintenance. We’ve since learned the proper way to prune trees and shrubs, and we’ve replaced a large bare spot of grass in our backyard. We tried Scott’s PatchMaster Sun & Shade Mix, which includes seed, fertilizer, and a biodegradable mulch made from recycled paper. A neat idea, you just lay down the mixture and water. It’s supposed to germinate in 7 days, however, we’ve so far had mixed results. I think we didn’t lay enough down, and it rained hard shortly after, washing much of it away. We might have to consider laying more this weekend.

May 11th, 2005  home, school   Tags: fvtc, landscaping, outdoors, school, more...

Giving the Yard a Facelift…

Since buying our house, we have come up with several big projects we’d like to do. Obviously, the timing and extent of what we do is dependent on the bank account. We’d like to eventually redo the kitchen, although it’s still a matter of contention whether we’d install a dish washer or not. I think our kitchen is too small, but Wanda thinks it would be a good addition. We’ll see.

Our yard also needs major work. There are a couple of spots that need to be filled in with topsoil. Also, we have a lot of areas of dead grass. The trees need to be pruned so I don’t kill myself while cutting the lawn, and our bushes are pretty much at the end of their life cycle. I also really want to get concrete curbing installed, but that’s not high on Wanda’s priority list. In all, we’d like someone to design out landscape, install the curbing (which is surprisingly expensive), and then implement the design.

This week we talked to a landscaper to do some spring cleaning of the yard, including trimming the trees, filling/grading the holes, and tearing out the shrubs. It’s fairly expensive, so we need to decide what we’d like to do ourselves or wait for.

April 27th, 2005  home   Tags: landscaping, outdoors, more...

Lawnmower

This week we set out to buy our first lawnmower. I thought it would be as easy as going to the store, picking one with the features we liked, and handing over the credit card. I was wrong. With so many models missing one feature or another in our price range combined with conflicting information regarding mower and engine manufacturers, it was not an easy task. I wanted one with the bigger rear wheels since we have a lumpy lawn, but those on are available in the front-propelled models. I preferred the rear propulsion because it keeps the front end lighter and, in my opinion, more easily meneuverable. We ended up getting a Craftsman 37482 for one heck of a deal at Sears. Everyone says Toro is the best, but I thought I’d give Craftsman a try because it seemed to offer excellent bang for the buck. Craftsman mowers also had decent ratings on consumerreports.com, ranking in the top three with regard to repairs, behind Toro and Honda. We’ll see if my next lawnmower is a Craftsman or not

March 20th, 2005  home   Tags: craftsman, landscaping, lawn, lawnmower, more...

Fall Yard Maintenance Tips

Since a lot of my friends have recently purchased houses, I thought I would share this article on fall yard maintenance that Wanda found:

• Link: Get Ready for Fall

October 5th, 2004  home   Tags: home, landscaping, yard, more...