I LOVE my new front yard, and other stuff

My Empire Zoysia sod is now about a month old, and I promised to show it at this point. 

I also got a new dog!  LOL... I said I was done with getting dogs, but here he is.

Silky Terrier named "Ricky"

Ricky is squirmy, but I have started trying to get his ears trimmed, and get him looking like a Silky.  He is adorable!  He is an adult, but acts like a puppy.

Besides the grass, I have started lots of very small plants that aren't much to look at right now, and planted some seeds.  It is somewhat of a "test garden" because I have had so little luck growing things in the past.  The addition of compost and topsoil seems to be working, and everything is doing well so far.

There is a wide assortment of stuff started under the tree, and in the parkway (full sun area) at the front of the house.  It really feels like home to me now (finally).

Sod Installation - First Phase

I have spent many hours reading about Empire Zoysia turf, and most web-sites repeat the same "official" promotional information.  I chose this grass because it requires less water than St. Augustine (I have no sprinkler system, and don't intend to install one)  It requires less fertilizer, is resistant to chinch bugs, needs mowing less often, ... and MOSTLY because I love the look of it (when it is established).  So, in advance, my photos in this post show the grass at the end of installation, and it will look much better when it gets established and turns green.

Day of Installation 4/12/13

It is now 3 days later, and the new sod gets more color each day.  I haven't done anything except water it.  The sod farm said that I shouldn't use any fertilizer until it puts down roots into the soil, and then it can actually use the nutrients.  I did change the design from my original idea, and used a bit more lawn.  The neighbors all wince at any mention of reducing the amount of lawn, so I made it look a bit more like the rest of the neighborhood.

I circled the sod around the tree

Originally I was thinking of straight lines of sod, but this is a bit less "different" than how my neighbors do things.  This grass does spread, and it will be okay if it moves in closer to the tree.  I just didn't want to pile lots of soil at the base of the tree and smother the roots.  The area with no sod was the high ground before, and the plot is fairly flat and level now.

I bought another 18 yards of a "planting mix" which is lake bottom muck "top soil" & compost mixed 50/50.  Most of this is to top-dress around the entire property.  It doesn't have sand in it, like the soil that I put under the sod.  It is very rich in organic material and intended to improve the soil, not to build height.  I did use quite a bit of it under the extra sod in areas where I didn't add lots of topsoil.  It is full of worms and hopefully will improve the soil generally.  That was $560 which was not in the budget, but this stuff needs time to improve the soil, so it is really a down payment on next year's gardening.

Second Truckload of Topsoil 18 yards

In the big hole in the new lawn I laid a thin layer of the compost/muck mixture and planted some St. Augustine plugs, dusty miller, dichondra seed, creeping fig, bromeliads and a variety of things in the ground and in pots around the area.  It looks a bit less odd now because of having some plants to show that it will be a planting bed, (but obviously not any kind of a finished product).  I will see what works and what doesn't work, and proceed with anything that does well in this difficult area.  It can be any combination of anything that will grow without disturbing the tree roots.  None of the stores have impatiens right now, so I need to wait for those. 

I have been experiencing lots of aches and pains from shoveling and laying sod.  I have had a few days to let my muscles rest, and now I am ready to start laying this compost mix around the property.  I will post again in about a month (?) when the new landscaping starts to look like something.

Installing Empire Zoysia Sod

I am currently preparing for new Empire Zoysia sod.  After many failed attempts at gardening in this Florida sand I decided to go "all out" and see if topsoil will work. 

The soil here has several problems.  It is "sugar sand", water does not soak in, it is full of tree roots and shade everywhere from 14 oak trees.  Florida has watering restrictions most of the time and restrictions on fertilizers during the "rainy season" (summer).  The neighbors here also have an expectation for a lawn, rather than gravel or cactus gardens.  I'm going to strangle the next person who tells me to add lime, fertilizer, and water.  I have done ALL of that.  I had a very green, very fast growing (mostly weeds) lawn last year, and this year at the end of March I couldn't hardly find evidence of last year's St. Augustine.  And so... I am re-doing the "front yard" just a small section of the property.

12 yards of topsoil (after some was moved around)

The cost of the topsoil was $20 per cubic yard plus $30 delivery, $286.80 with tax for that big hill of dark soil.  It should be enough to lay two pallets of sod.

Changing the grade, to reduce runoff

Because I have the oak trees, and the oak tree roots, I can't roto-till.  It isn't really okay to add dirt on top of oak tree roots but I feel that it isn't reasonable to live with an ugly yard either.  I am raising the edges of this area with topsoil and sod so that rain water will not run off into the sidewalk, and I am sprinkling just a light top-dressing near the trunk of the tree where the ground is higher.  I might try to grow some kind of ground cover in that St. Augustine area later.  I want to get some large pots with impatiens flowers for the base of the tree.

Before TopSoil

I drilled holes in the sand with a huge masonry bit all over this area before the soil delivery.  This will create drainage through the tree roots and allow the topsoil to get down into the sand a little bit.  It also provides some aeration.  I didn't remove any of the grass or weeds, I put the new soil right over whatever was there.  It isn't possible to remove anything without digging up tree roots, and it is very difficult to dig at all.

Roto-Tilling is SO wonderful.  I hope this will work.

There are machines that pull out plugs to aerate soil, but those also damage tree roots.  In theory, I think that the holes I have drilled will do the tree more good than harm.  There is only one large water oak in the area where I am installing new soil and grass, and the roots are all near the surface.  With the new grading, drainage holes, and good topsoil I think that (in theory) I can get more moisture deep into the soil, and the tree roots can go deeper.  I'm not sure if they will.

It is very hard to show how the yard sloped

This area is about 40 feet wide by 50 feet deep (2000 square feet), with the base of the tree trunk much higher than the rest of the area.  I placed a 2x6 board at the corner to protect my baby palm tree from getting buried.  It is a Bismarck Palm, and they don't like to be transplanted.  It is the ONLY thing I planted here that is doing well, so I'm not messing with it.  My plan is to build somewhat of a berm covered in new sod along the sidewalk edge of the area.  In the photo the ground is nearly level now, before the topsoil has been compacted.  When I am finished, the base of the tree trunk will actually be below the level of the sod at the edges of the area.  This way, the more attractive Zoysia grass that grows in the sunny area will be visible from a distance, with the less attractive shaded area partially blocked from view.  Obviously, you will still see the inner yard from up close, but it should look nice from across the street.

Lawn Starter Fertilizer

I will be using Super Bloom as my lawn starter fertilizer.  It is 12% Nitrogen, 55% Potash (for root development) and 6% Potassium.  I'll apply it with a hose end sprayer.  It seems to me to be even better than the lawn starters, because of the lower nitrogen.  I'll get some 10-10-10 lawn fertilizer to apply after the first month, and then the fertilizer restrictions go into effect. 

I am hoping that this little project will give the look of some "landscaping" for under $1,000, and hopefully I won't kill the tree in the process.  If it goes well, then I will tackle more small areas later.

The Age of My House is Unknown

I am feeling pretty frustrated after spending way waay too much time looking for information about the history of my house.  There are a few things about this house that indicate that it is quite old.  It has one push-button light switch in the garage, wavy glass in the windows, and forged nails in the original wood framing.

My neighborhood was established in 1923, and all of the other houses with antique windows are recorded as built in the 1920s.  My house is constructed of concrete block, similar to the house across the street built in 1938.  There was a patio, which was enclosed and 1960s style windows with aluminum frames were added.  I suspect that the modification of that patio created the 1961 construction idea.

Source: westonmillwork.com via Galrion on Pinterest

This photo shows an example of antique window glass (not my window).  It is very difficult to photograph the distortion in the glass, but the old windows SPARKLE in the sun when they are clean.  They are one of my favorite things about my house.

Source: ebay.com via Galrion on Pinterest

I have found a few photos of Clearwater Florida in the 1920s and post cards for sale from the 20s and 30s, and the funny thing is that only the CARS indicate the years.  It looks pretty much the same today.  I should take some current photos and show this view now.  LOL, it is almost freaky.

The population in Clearwater per U.S. Census was 383 in 1900, 1,171 in 1910, 2,427 in 1920, 7,607 in 1930, 10,136 in 1940 ... 34,653 in 1960 and 107,685 in 2010.  I have spent several hours trying to slog through 1940 census pages online, but they are nearly impossible to search by a street address.  I never found any notation of my street in the hours that I searched two different enumeration districts (with gibberish boundry descriptions). 

My house is not large or fancy, but I am becoming super curious about the history of it.  Most of the old buildings in this town aren't all that fancy, but it seems (from the population counts) that there are not as many old buildings as I thought.  The Assessor doesn't even care about the lack of information, and the County Recorder website would give me the deed information if I knew the name of the owner from BEFORE I can find records.  LOL!

Source: rexophone.com via Galrion on Pinterest

This light switch looks just like that oldest one in my garage, and I really don't know when people stopped using them. It is certainly not anything circa 1960s. 

I don't have any "reason" to need the information, but the idea that I don't know the age of my home is making me crazy.  I think that I need to go to the County Recorder's office and figure out how to research this.  There must be a way to solve this mystery.  If anyone out there in the blogosphere can point me to how to get the information I would so appreciate it!

The Compost Project

I finally harvested the compost pile that I started last year, after I had about 100 bags of leaves and a mountain of tree trimmings hauled away.  Here is the spot where the pile was:

The dark bare spot is where the compost pile was.  It was a low spot when I started the pile, and it seems that a good deal of the completely decomposed compost is now full of tree roots, and the spot is not quite so low.  I mostly moved the compost from the pile out around the edges, and then raked it further out from there.  I added my collection of leaves from this year (dumped out hefty bags), and used the mulching mower to chop them.

I made two compost "bins" from seven of the old window screens and threw away the rest of the screens.  I had been toying with the idea of restoring the screens, but when I tried to put them back on the windows I realized that each one fit only on the window that it was made for, and the whole thing was just too much work (especially since I don't open the windows).

Each screen is about 4.5 feet by 2.5 feet, so the one full bin is holding about a cubic yard of leaves, which have been mostly chopped very fine with the mulching mower.  I tried to rake-up the leaves after chopping them around the back yard and also used the mower with the bag attached pick-up the chopped leaves.  This bin of leaves will shrink down as it decomposes, and I'll be adding to it whenever I mow (with the bagger).  I have the second bin so that I can move the pile back and forth between the bins to turn it, and also I can hold any excess that won't fit or start next year's pile before I move out this year's compost.

So this is how my back yard looks now from the sidewalk (no fences).  I actually have a pretty good lawn in this area, but it has been cut very short and quite a bit of fresh chopped leaves and last year's compost is hiding a bit of it.  In a few weeks it will look very green again as the grass grows and the new topping settles.  What looks like a black box in the far left corner is the new compost bins.

I add my coffee grounds and kitchen scraps, the bird cage food scraps & newspaper, as well as the lawn trimmings to the leaves over time.  This time of year I have lots of leaves (browns) and not much else, but in the summer I will have lots of lawn trimmings (greens) and not much leaves.  I think that the bins look much better than the old compost heap and piles of hefty bags.  They are held together with jute twine at the corners, so I can cut the twine to move the pile to the other bin, and then put the sides back up.  I should be able to contain my whole composting operation within these bins, so that I don't have any eyesore for the neighbors to look at.

All of the online information I can find about composting explains mixing the green lawn clippings with the leaves as the compost pile is created (or how to fill the bins) but that means that you need to pile up hefty bags of leaves waiting for the grass trimmings, which looks really awful.  Instead, I have a bin full of just chopped leaves right now, and I will add grass clippings and stir them in over time.  In Florida the grass grows like crazy in the summer (rainy season) and the compost shrinks really fast at that time when it is hot and humid and lots of green grass trimmings are being added.  I have realized that all of this waste shrinks down to not very much finished compost, so I am going to spend less time fussing with it, and just let it mostly do what nature does with it.  When I harvest the compost next time I will be carrying 5 gallon buckets to the further areas of the yard, where I have been using store bought compost up until now.  Hopefully, this new two bin system will be a very easy way to keep the compost factory working.