Thank you. Now I have another pair of gates to hang out by the eastern deck, where Val has decided to keep a number of her potted plants. They should be done today.
At the end of the day yesterday, I managed to finish the lattice on the side of the arbour. That completes that section of the build.
Very nice indeed Keith, I just hope those little rascal deer are not good at Limbo dancing. Although I wouldn't put anything past them !! Lol.
I don't think they can go quite that low, there's only about 6" of ground clearance there. And with the usual summertime increase in the local population here, it looks as though the deer are staying away. We don't see them much in the summertime.
We have a lot of non native muntjac deer here in the UK. So small, they get in absolutly everywhere and have large appetites. Luckily you don't have them, Yet I believe !!!
Never heard of those D. Except for the newborns, all the deer here are pretty big. Not really any chance they could sneak under.
Early morning photos again, this time after several hours of rain overnight. The far end looks quite good and has always been that way compared to the rest of it. Here's "the rest of it". Note that string that I have pulled down close to the long flower bed. That's where the pathway is supposed to go. The ground there is very hard and the grass has not been doing well there at all. But it dawned on me after looking at this photo that I don't much care for straight lines in the garden. Maybe it can be disguised by adding some additional plantings on the north side of the path? We brought home a "Multi Blue" clematis yesterday, it was the only one I recognized as being hardy enough for this area. Only had a choice of three different names! That will go alongside the arbour on one side, and maybe one of the hop plants on the opposite side. With a plant height of 6' to 9' it should eventually make it to the top of the arbour.
More lawn troubles. Early this morning took these photos of the top lawn by the driveway. This one was done with turf and was good right from the beginning. Now there's about 50 or so of these very dead looking areas. Any ideas? Animals perhaps?
Sadly Keith it does looks like urine patches, is there a musky smell to each area?? But another culprit for this appearance is leather jackets. The grubs eat the roots and cause dead patches everywhere until they hatch out later in the Summer/Autumn. Then the adults lay their eggs in the top of your lawn and off it goes again, it is a vicious cycle. The use of Nemetodes will do the trick, if you water them in around the middle to end of September. To check if these grubs are the cause, dig out a small area and you will see the white grubs at work. D
Your first guess was correct, as I was unable to see any grubs. I dug out about a square foot of the dead grass, rooted through it quite completely, but no grubs. I thought maybe they had migrated to greener pastures, so I took up another strip alongside the dead grass, but which was nice and green. Still no grubs. Is there a cure for the dead patches? Perhaps remove them and put more sod down? I will be removing some sod from the lower lawn shortly when I do the pathway, so maybe I could put some of it to good use. As an afterthought, I might decide to add a net screen alongside the driveway. While it wouldn't keep any deer out, I suspect I'm might discourage any dogs or other small creatures from venturing there. After all the work we put into that lawn area, it would be a shame to see it vanish like this.
Good morning Keith, yes some new turf will be fine, but the animals who do this will cause the problem again and again etc etc. So fencing is the only way around stopping this happening again. D
Val made a tiny confession to me a couple of days ago...saying that she used a commercial Cedar and Evergreen fertilizer on the lawn. Since both the lawn and the cedars have similar soil requirements maybe that's OK. But then she further said that she "may" have over fertilized the grass "just a little bit". Sounds like the "couple" of plants which end up being over 20! I did try the sniff test, nothing. So now perhaps the burned (or dead) areas might be all right if I dig out the very dead turf and replace it. That fence may not need to be built after all.
Oh dear Keith. I think the grass was burned by over fertilising after the confession. This often happens when done by hand rather than a spreader that puts out just the right amount. A replacement piece of turf will sort the problem out, but if you want to leave it, then it will come back in time if the fertiliser was the cause. Do tell Val that we have all done it, so not to beat herself up about it.. D
She did use a spreader, but she has a habit of picking it up, pulling it back in the air and doubling up on places she thinks it is necessary. Most of the burned areas seem to be in lines, which makes some sense after trying to figure it all out. I think what I might do is to get some turf off the lower lawn, and get out there as soon as it's daylight and replace the damaged parts before the sun gets hot. I will say that where she did the spreading nicely, that the grass is quite incredible! I checked this morning, and I definitely have to mow it today, so I'm off outside to do that right now.
Sorry to say that, once again, we are confronted with one very large patch of dead looking grass and a few smaller ones. Whether or not this is a result of the extreme heat over the past week or so we don't know. But Val used the dethatcher yesterday on the big area, about 70 square feet or so, and today we are going to give it a really thorough raking, then try adding some fresh soil mix, then re-seed to see what happens. We have been very conscious about keeping the watering up, given the very high temperatures, and some of the lawn is good, while other patches not so much. Plus we have about 70 of these little mushrooms growing in the grass.
