This was our backyard in mid-April:
The grass was definitely greener on the other side of the fence, although I guess that saying didn’t hold true from our neighbors’ perspectives!
In 2013, we moved into the house and completely ignored the lawn aside from occasional mowing. Yes, we are those neighbors. I hang my head in shame.
Last summer, the weed situation in our yard became ridiculous. Huge weeds were shooting up seemingly overnight and were such an eyesore. We actually hired a service to come out each month and treat the weeds, because, honestly, we are not outdoorsy people at all and we had too much going on in our life at the time to tackle it ourselves.
Unfortunately, this resulted in the huge dead patches you see in the photos above, since apparently we started out with more weeds than grass!
So when Ace Hardware asked me what outdoor project I wanted to take on this month, I knew this was the motivation I needed to finally do something about the lawn!
The front yard is a whole other story, since we have also been dealing with an underground water leak there (ask me how much fun that is!), so I decided to re-seed and fertilize the back yard, which was actually in the worst shape, leak notwithstanding.
We used the Scotts Deluxe Edgeguard Broadcast Spreader, two bags of Scotts Classic Heat & Drought Seed Mix (I think this will be great for our Texas summer heat!), and half a bag of Scotts Turf Builder Starter Fertilizer. I love that I was able to find products that are all designed to work together perfectly!
I have such a black thumb, it gave me a boost of confidence to have everything spelled out on the packaging, like the spreader setting for each product.
Bryan offered his services as my spreader model, so I got to sit back and snap photos for once!
The spreader made quick work of seeding the yard, so then it was my turn at manual labor – raking the seed into the yard to make sure the it wasn’t just sitting on top of the current grass. Bryan got a rare opportunity with the camera (I’m generally pretty possessive of it) and snapped this artistic shot… Yep, that’s me in the flattering gray sweatpants.
After the raking, we moved right on to the fertilizer – the bag said to apply directly after the grass seed and before the first watering. Again, this took almost no time at all with the spreader!
April has been insanely and unusually stormy here in the Dallas area. We’re talking deluges, downpours, hail, tornados – the works. “April showers” is the most adorable little understatement ever… Like when someone names their massive Great Dane “Tiny,” or when real-estate listings describing a falling-down, condemned structure as “quaint”.
After looking at the forecast for an entire month of rain (the weather app on my phone displayed day after day after day of cutesy thunderstorm emoticons) and worrying about our new grass seed washing away, we finally decided to just go for it and keep our fingers crossed that we wouldn’t accidentally drown the seeds.
Needless to say, we haven’t needed to actually water the lawn very much, since the heavens have been doing such a fantastic job of that for us. On rare days between rain I’ve gone out and watered with a hose (the leak in our front yard was from the sprinkler system, so that has been turned off for now.) I was really concerned about the non-stop stormy weather, but I was excited to spot some tiny little baby grasslings popping up yesterday!
I’ll be sure to share more pictures and updates with you once the new grass grows taller and fills in! For now, the lawn actually looks about the same since you have to get up close and personal with it to notice the new baby grass. But those itty bitty little green sprouts sure made my day when I noticed them!
Are there any outdoor projects you’ve been putting off for far too long as well? My friends at Ace Hardware are here to help! One lucky reader will win a $100 gift card to Ace Hardware to get you started on your next DIY project!
The giveaway will run through next Tuesday, May 5th at 12:00am CST. Entry is easy through the Rafflecopter widget below! The winner will be contacted by email and announced within this post as well.
Good luck you guys!
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I couldn’t be more excited to be a member of the Ace Bloggers panel this year and to partner with Ace on this post! Ace Hardware provided me with the materials for this project and I was also compensated for my time and this post. All opinions and positions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Ace Hardware. |
We're using the Scotts Ap to figure out when and how to take care of our lawn. It's awesome and our grass is looking amazing this year! We were always "those" neighbors, too. Yikes!
Here's hoping we can get out of the "those neighbors" category too! 😀
Look at you 😉 Oh and I can't get my grass to grow in certain locations.
I'm out from behind the camera for once… Or at least my gray sweatpants are 😉
We are hoping to do some landscaping in our backyard as well as staining our deck.
Sounds awesome Kari!
i think grass growing requires so much patience, and i rank in the 0-5% for having patience, so i admire you! it's going to be beautiful! and the neighbors are going to have green envy!
I'm not very patient either! But yes, here's hoping! 🙂
I need to redo the landscaping for a more water-efficient one; been putting it off, but I have to do it soon.
I'm hoping the heat and drought grass seed will play well with our water restrictions here over the summer – I totally understand!
We are definitely in the more weeds than grass category here. Some of the weeds are kind of pretty, though! We're not the worst yard in the neighborhood, but we're sadly ensconced in the midst of a pocket of the neighborhood where everyone else uses a lawn service, so we look terrible comparatively. I've been meaning to get some grass seed down for forever.
Our front landscaping beds are full of bluebonnets right now – technically a weed, but I love them and let them take over in the spring because they're so pretty!
I love outdoor work! I'm actually attempting the opposite of you, and trying to get a full yard of moss. But now we're thinking about selling our home so I don't know how the [possible] new owners would feel about my love for moss ;- ) otherwise, the bed/shrubs along the front of my house (curb appeal needed) need help – I've been ignoring them in hopes of adding a porch which isn't in the cards. Good luck to you with your grass!
A yard full of moss sounds so pretty! I love non-traditional yard/landscaping looks!
I'm going to be container gardening this year. I can't wait to exercise my green thumb!
I wish I had a green thumb! Any tips? 🙂
getting that grass to grow can be a pain!! we just finished a huge landscaping job last weekend before our son's baptism…but I have a BLANK space patio that needs to come to life…that is my next victim!
Fingers crossed our little grass babies make it! 😀
And a patio makeover sounds so fun!
YES! My husband has plans to build a pergola and redo our entire back patio. Bring it on Summer!!!
Sounds awesome Bethany!!
We are in the process of relandscaping our yard! This would be a huge help!
Awesome project, Donna! Good luck!
I have a section of plants and flowers that were destroyed by deer so I am re-doing that whole area and planting new flowers/plants/etc.. and hope that the deer leave it alone!
Fingers crossed for you! Deer are so pretty, but so pesky I'm sure! (We haven't had to deal with them in our area.)
I'm relocating my vegetable garden – it's a daunting task but I'm hopeful!
Wow! That is a big task! But I'm sure you can do it – good luck Nicole!
We have so many areas that need to be seeded after we took down a bunch of trees. Weeds surely have started to creep in but hopefully we can regain that turf (har!).
Haha, love it! Show them who's boss! 🙂
My front porch is so sad looking. It's on the top of my priority list after ORC!
I can't wait to see what you do with it! I know it will be great!
We are going to start our garden.
Awesome! I wish I had a green thumb!
We need to lay new sod in our backyard.
Good luck with that!
We want to put up a shed!
That sounds awesome Tara!
I am going to paint the backyard fence.
I think I need to stain our fence one of these days… Good luck Elena!
I love to garden so my vegetable garden is my big project this spring.
That's so wonderful Linda! Fresh veggies – yum!
The backyard of our new house has a few random holes like maybe some bushes were previously dug up and a large deck that needs refinished.
Sounds like a great plan! A large deck is fun – wishing you some great summer evenings out there enjoying it!
I am excited to see how your yard turns out! We live in an apartment, so all of my yard dreams have to be lived vicariously thru lovely bloggers like yourself. 🙂 We do have a few potted tomato plants and herbs we want to grow this years, so fingers crossed!
Thanks Alicia! I'm cautiously optimistic… 🙂 One of these days I'd love to overcome my black thumb and grow some veggies and herbs too!
I am working on growing some grass among the bajillion weeds in my lawn.
Yep, I hear you! 😀 You can do it!
I didn't have much luck with my grass this year so far….hoping it recovers when the rains come. I'm working on my front patio and doing a stencil pattern on the cement to give it more life.
Samantha
A stencil pattern sounds so pretty, Samantha! What a great idea!
Our grass definitely needs some help.
Good luck with it, Jennifer! Wishing happy lawns for the both of us! 😀
Our next project is a play structure for the kids. They are so excited for us to get started!
So fun, Jenelle! I still remember how thrilled my siblings and I were when my dad built us a swing set!
We are finally planting a vegetable garden!
Awesome! Garden fresh veggies are the best!
I have a bunch of fencing I need to replace – backyard and horse corral!
Growing up, I helped my dad put up a good amount of fencing and a horse corral or two – I was definitely raised a country girl! 🙂 Good luck with your project!
We are working on planting new plants
Awesome, Amelia!
Yes, we are re-doing our back deck.. re-staining it and getting it ready for summer.
Sounds awesome, Steve! I hope you guys have some great times this summer enjoying your newly redone deck!
I need to clean flower beds and trim bushes. A complete redo I think.
Good luck with your redo, Barbara!
Yes, we are weeding all the flower beds and putting new mulch, taking out some hedges that look terrible & putting in some flowering shrubs that can handle the heat here in Florida! Thank You!
Woohoo! Sounds like a plan Stacy!
We are planning to add new compost beds, plants several fruit trees, and re-do the deck this summer. Lots of work, but it will be worth it.
That sounds awesome Holly! I'm sure you'll end up with a wonderful outdoor space to enjoy!
We have an entire yard/garden/landscaping to tackle this year. We just built a new home and none of the outdoor work is done. Let's hope for good weather! :o)
I totally feel you on the hoping for good weather – the storm clouds finally moved away over here and we've had sunny days!!! Fingers crossed for you! 🙂
We have spent the last few weekends power-washing the entire exterior of our home. It makes a heck of a difference.
Oh wow – I bet it does! That might make it onto our to-do list one of these days!
Oh, does this poat remind me of my back yard. My husband has been trying to grow our grass for about 2 years. We havent had much luck so he did end up putting some pavers on hafe of the yard. I would definitely love to win and give that back yard another try. Angelica (the_decor_adobe)
The pavers sound like a good solution! This whole "lawn" thing is harder than it looks! Good luck Angie!
I've been working on our gardens.
Awesome!
I have a lot of flowers to plant in the front and back of our home.
We live in a condo, so outdoor projects aren't on the list for us right now, but we have loooooots of indoor projects. Trying to get the condo ready to sell and find a place with a yard!
Good luck with the condo sale, Tara!
I have been wanting to start a flower bed on the side of my house this year.
I am in the process of building raised flower beds for our garden. It has taken a lot of time and money so far but I know it will be worth it!
I’m sure it will! Sounds awesome, David!
I think this summer we’re finally going to replace our home’s old screen doors and outdoor lighting fixtures. It’s only taken us 7 years!
Yes, we are tackling the front of the house! We have some big holes from removing trees that need to be filled with dirt, and we want to get some bark and new plants because the front of the house needs in update. Most of my plants died, and it is bare our front. I feel embarrass about how much weeds that need to be removed.
We have tons of weeds too! One step at a time, right? Good luck Julie!
Oh this spring I have a couple projects I am working on….first…I want to repaint our shed! Its out by the pool, so I want to make it fun colors as it holds all our pool floaties! I also am working on a container garden, and need to paint our picnic table…again…want some fun colors!
That sounds so fun, Laura! Love your plans!
I am going to have the in-ground swimming pool filled in. Huge job with a ton of new landscaping.
Wow – that is a big job! Good luck Marilyn!
We need to finish staining our deck. We finished the railings and so far they look great. I can’t wait to see it totally done.
Sounds awesome Connie! Exciting!
My biggest project if making the lawn lush again because right now it’s far from it.
We expanded our garden this year. It’s about three times as big as it was last year. We planted a lot more veggies and berries. Can’t wait to taste the fruits of our labor! 🙂
I’m excited for you! So fun!
I really want to put in a little above ground fish pond.
Oh – that sounds so lovely!
We have been doing some major pruning on shrubs but we need to do something like this with our grass as well.
I plan on making 2 or more new flower gardens. And a new walkway.
My husband wants to get his project boat done
We have a nice brick raised bed in front of our home….empty! We t this house a couple of years ago and have been remodeling. Now I am ready to do something with that bed and another on the side. Maybe some nice easy shrubs with colorful flowers in front? Maybe some berries on the side?
I need to tackle the empty bed in front of our house too! I’ve been so focused on the inside. Your plans sound lovely!
Great job so far! Besides doing the obvious sprucing up mulch and getting some new plants and the garden planted, I want to tackle painting the exterior of our house. Yep. And all by my self in fact (since my husband would otherwise say nope). I’m insane, I know, but sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do! I love how you made sprucing up your lawn look so easy! I may have to tackle that next.