My New Temporary Tattoo

Wednesday and Thursday last of the week of Easter, I did not go to work. I took some vacation. It was an unplanned vacation. Friday was a paid holiday so I had not planned to work, at least at the office.

Last year, and for the past few years, our front yard is getting worse and worse. By worse and worse, I mean less and less actual grass and more and more weeds. This past summer there were some large patches where there was no grass, only some vine-like weeds. Without paying hundreds of dollars for a service to come and help or spending the same amount on chemicals or new grass, I decided to try something different.

I spoke to some neighbors and coworkers that have used zoysia grass and said that it is the greatest thing since ___________ (insert your favorite greatest thing here). According to the legends surrounding this variety of grass, it will choke out weeds and other kinds of grass. Since my front lawn was primarily weeds and crabgrass, which is a kind of weed grass... this new zoysia should flourish and run rampant. In a discussion with our local postal carrier, I also learned that I need to water the new grass for about 3 weeks and then hope for a hot dry summer. The hot dry summer will cause the zoysia to put out many, many, many roots which will in turn choke out more unwanted residents. Another nice thing about the grass is that it does not grow very tall. For me, this is very good. I would like to avoid having this happen again...

Of course that was my back yard, not the front. I was travelling a lot and didn't have enough time to mow the back. There is also a low spot in the back yard and we had a lot of rain that spring. I could have mowed everything but the low spot, but if I'm going to mow any of it I might as well mow it all... or not mow it...

Anyway, back to the grass or lack there of in the front yard. I slightly underestimated how long it would take to do the entire process. Here is the web site where I purchased the grass: http://www1.zoysiafarms.com/. There is also an instruction video on how the process works here. There is a nice tool on the web site that estimates the amount of plugs needed to fill the area you have. I measured the area I wanted to cover and added 15% as a safety factor. A couple months later, the plugs arrive and I under estimated the amount of plugs needed by about 30%. If the grass seems to be going well in 3 weeks (if it has turned green and started to spread) I will order some more and do some other areas of the yard.

The process for putting down a new lawn starts with mowing the current lawn as short as possible. My lawn was scheduled for a mowing on Wednesday. So I mowed it on the normal setting. Then I lowed the mower down as low as it would go and the mower immediately bogged down and stopped within the first 3 feet. OK, I need to step it down. No problem. The lawn's normal cut length is 4 notches on the mower from the shortest setting. It makes the grass about 2 to 2 1/2 inches tall. I drop 2 notches and realize there is too much grass being cut and it will cover the lawn in chaff. I put the bag attachment and cut the lawn section I'm planning to plug. After mowing the section 2 notches lower I drop one more notch and do it again. Then finally as low as the mower will cut. I filled up 2 large garbage cans and the large trash bin provided by the trash company with grass clippings. It is ok, I will use it to mulch the garden after it is planted.  The mowing took all morning on Wednesday. Here is the final result:

Now for making the holes to plant the plugs. I started using the step-on plug remover until my neighbor brought over an electric drill and a 1 inch auger bit. That made the process much faster. I pulled up 3 five gallon buckets full of plugs using the step on plugger before getting the drill...

After the holes are made, the plugs need to be cut out of the sod sheets provided. I did this by sitting on a five gallon bucket in the driveway and using a pair of garden shears to cut the sod into strips and then to cut the strips into small pieces. I placed the cut plugs on a wooden board and then moved them to the area of the lawn where they were needed.

After three days of this, my legs were sore from the squatting and bending down. Also, another side effect was my fingers were rubbed raw by the process. The picture will enlarge if you click on it.

Friday was a colder day than Wednesday and Thursday. So I was wearing a long sleeved shirt for the entire day working in the yard. In the morning I had a sweatshirt over the long sleeved shirt but I had to take that off at some point in the morning. Since I am very, very white and I sunburn very easily, I was wearing SPF 50 sunblock on all areas of exposed skin. Neck, ears, face, hands, arms were all covered multiple times per day. It turns out the one spot that I did not put sunblock on was an area I did not intend to expose. The long sleeved shirt was a little short and while I was sitting on the bucket or bending over in the yard, there was some lower back exposure. If it was a tattoo, it would be called an asshat...

At least it looks happy...

... and I'm happy that I didn't have any crack showing. Nobody wants to see that.

Say "Hi" to Fez helping in the picture...

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