A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion New Members Newbie from NC - needs lots of advice!

Hi folks! I'm fed up with looking at the weeds and bare beds and am going to finally bite the bullet and get my hands dirty. Up until this point the yard work at our house has consisted of raking, mowing, aerating, cutting out shrubs we did not like, and potting plants. We've been here for five years and the yard has great potential I just don't know where to start! My husband says the lawn. It's full of weeds. We've aerated and sown seeds and even hired a service for a while, but the weeds are taking over. Any advice would be helpful. I'm wondering if we should just till it all up and start over?

I also want to prepare the beds for spring planting. I've pretty much pulled out all the weeds, what to do now. We have a lot of clay and the top soil is hard.

I have started a compost pile so that by next spring I should have some inexpensive compost to help with new beds.

You actually have a good start. weed and feed (or just the chemical for the 'weed' part) will get your lawn back to grass as long as it is grass you want. Bulbs should be available now in your area for fall planting and getting a start on those beds.
Do you know what you might like out there besides a magical, fairy filled forest? Are you looking for easy care as most of us really like for the basics?
And welcome! You have stumbled into a fun, friendly place.

welcome christie! the compost you are making will help loosen the soil tremendously. great idea getting started on that ahead of time. I don't know much about grass. when we first moved out here I used to 'water my dirt' around the house quite often. we did put down one pallate of grass but most of our grass is native stuff that just came up by me watering it regularly in the spring and summer.
Yep, I agree with tina. you are off to a good start.

Welcome to the forum, Christie!

I'm no expert on lawns, but when we bought our place 4 years ago, the back lawn was 90% weeds, and half-way up to my knees. I can't use weed and feed, due to 2 children, 2 rabbits, and 2 cats. I've adopted a long- term approach, where I put up with the weeds for a while. I have found that in winter the weeds do take over a bit, and in summer the grass starts winning. Constant mowing seems to help by stopping the weeds from seeding (the grass we have grows with runners). Also, loosening the soil and planting heaps of grass seed works for me, but you've already been doing that. Don't know about tilling it up; sounds like it should work.

The compost is a good thing, and some gypsum would help break up the clay also. Winter is a great time to prepare the beds.

Jonni took the words right out of my mouth.

Is weed and Feed the actual name of a product I should buy? Is it too late to aerate and overseed again this year? We haven't had first frost yet, but it's coming very soon.

Thanks so much for your advice and I look forward to checking back here often!

There are a lot of brands to choose from (Scott's, Bandini, K-grow, etc). They will all say weed and feed or something similar on them. I use that every six weeks or so year round in my SoCal location. There will also be stuff that is only 'feed' and if you look there is stuff that is only the 'weed' part. I like that second one for stubborn weeds between treating with the weed and feed. Please read the directions. The stuff has never affected my pets in any way. It really is easy.

It's nice to have another newbie onsite with me We'll learn together, even though we are in different parts of the U.S. I'm also from So. California. like Jonnie.

The weed and feed we use down here is Scotts brand. Although, I'll warn you that with the nasty spurge weeds we have, the joke around here is that we're actually feeding the weeds instead of killing them.

welcome christie!