Looks great! Yes it takes a lot of work to maintain a yard. When we moved into our new home in 2005, the builder did a crappy job landscaping. My back yard sloped towards the back of the house, and there was no retaining wall so every time it rained I had a lake in my back yard. It cost me $20k to hire someone to totally redo the whole yard. Fescue sod, Versa Block retaining wall across the back, sprinkler system, French drains, had a nice block patio put in from the retaining wall to the back deck. I use Trugreen for the chemicals but I do all of the cutting and aerate (in the fall). I have a small 120' x 80' yard in a HOA (a little less than 1/4 acre). It's pretty much flat except for the slope in back. I'm trying to get it landscaped to be mostly maintenance free. It's been 12 years in the making but it has come a long way.audtatious wrote: ↑Sun May 20, 2018 9:48 amI had a great yard back in '02 that went downhill when the wife wanted to focus on other things and stopped paying a lawn company to spray every few months. Started getting weeds and those damn African Violets. In 2016 we had our first run in with moles who destroyed the back yard and brought in more weeds with them. Last spring the moles were back with a vengeance, but, we had had enough and decided to focus on the yard again. First off we used mole bait to kill all the bastards and had a company come in and aerate/seed the yard. I then picked up a small tiller and hit 2-3 horribly dead/weedy areas that the moles had destroyed and re-seeded. The wife spent an ungodly amount of time tending to the yard to the point she had a Parmesan Cheese shaker with grass seed in it and would go hit small areas throughout last year. By the end of '17 it was looking pretty good. This year it's filling in and looks great. Here's a pic showing one of the areas we tilled and reseeded
Everything is filled in and really plush. 95% of all weeds are gone and the ones left are getting removed as I run across them. I hate to know the amount of money we spent to get it this way.