Spring Sprung?

You know how every year you anticipate the beautiful days of spring? The air is suddenly more crisp, the birds seem to chirp louder, your pale skin gets to come out and breath a little(some of us are more pale than others), the wildflowers start rising up to greet you and your lovely little lawn that you fed, watered, and just plain loved on starts to turn green and thicken up again....enter screeching car sound here....  Well that isn't the card we were dealt with this year.  Have I mentioned before that we are trying to get the casa ready to put on the market pronto?  Like "we are going to put it on the market in the spring" kind of pronto.   Look at our sad sad sad front lawn:(((

No really...we did baby this little piece turf to no end.  We actually like that kind of thing.  It is therapy for us(except when the poor hubby can only find a window of time on a 106 degree day to mow it) .  So low and behold when we noticed that it was all shriveling up and becoming a dusty baron mess.  We initially thought it was a fungus issue and actually treated it as that as soon as we noticed it happening.  Then when we really thought about the areas that were being affected we realized that would really make no sense.  You know those seemingly senseless tracks of grass that are in between most curbs and the sidewalks?  Those areas that you can never water effectively without wasting a ton of H2O in the process?  Why on earth would that have a fungus issue?(this may be possible but it my brain it doesn't make sense).  

So we started digging around and found some of these brace yourself for a yuck moment..... 

Yup we had grubs all over the yard.  Hopefully it is past tense.

Look at the damage they can do.  We literally just lightly raked the lawn away in places.  So we had to treat the problem of course.  We always go to what we consider the best organic nursery in the land The Natural Gardener to figure out the best way to handle the situation and the safest way to do it.  Our kids Love playing outside and they are usually half dressed with no shoes..not to mention the 15 month old just likes to eat rocks and dirt and sometimes she is super sneaky and  gets away with it. So we opt for a pesticide free approach.

 We checked the natural gardener website and found that beneficial nematodes applied July -Oct was the way to go.
Uuhh well it is march so we don't know if it is going to really help or not but what are our other options.  I suppose we should have actually consulted with someone at the nursery but we didn't and there you have it.  We are gambling with it I guess but we have to get a nice lawn kickin before we list this house.  Now I realize not everyone feels this way but I am super duper picky about the way I want our house to show so this has to be fixed quick so it will all fill in and look nice.  So after we applied the nematodes we laid new sod.  Now this is St. Augustine which wouldn't be our first choice because it needs soo much water but we can't replace the whole lawn.  The builder put this grass in the whole neighborhood and I would say 75% of the lawns have some type of issue..that looks really similar to this.  So here is the hubby laying the sod while I snap pictures and he claims that the neighbors will think we are soo weird.  I think he is getting use to it though;)
Bbbbbbre very effective. Apply July Through October.

 I don't have an after picture to show you yet....That may just have to wait until we have our MLS pictures when it is all thick and lush and perfect for all the tiny naked feet that stomp, skip and jump all over it!  So I leave you with this...One of our first bloomers in our yard this year.  It is one of my favorites because of its grayish green leaves and awesome shape and texture.  It's a Gopher plant (I am not certain I am spelling that correctly) and if you live in a climate similar to central Texas you have got to have at least one but preferably three because I think that flower beds are a lot like decorating interiors and you need odd numbers to make it look more natural.  But really what is more natural than a plant..so maybe that is just crazy talk but that is how my mind works.

So get out there and baby those lawns and hopefully you will reap the rewards and not be faced with replacing it like we were!