🏡 Better Homes Lawn Lords and Garden Gentlemen
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Saw some clover and creeping Charlie pop up the past few days. Spot sprayed with some big box 2,4-D dicamba mix I had laying around using baby shampoo as a surfactant. Research is showing me that stuff usually just stunts ground ivy/creeping charlie so I ordered some Triclopyr Ester from domyown.com that supposed to really knock out creeping Charlie so we’ll see if I need it. I try to avoid carpet bombing my whole lawn with chemicals, and typically just pull dandelions by hand, but the creeping Charlie is real hard to pull so chemicals it is. May also order that Speedzone I mentioned earlier. Comparing labels it’s real similar to the big box store weed killers that are 2,4-D, Dicamba and mecoprop-p but the percentages are much higher even when you consider you’re using 1.1-1.8 ounces per gallon to a weed be gone at 2oz per gallon. It was a bit over my head but I was reading that the 2,4-D in its ester form is more easily absorbed by weeds also.
Picked up some ortho bug b gone for the back yard. A lot of people say it works well for mosquitoes. I’m skeptical for mosquitoes but hope it does something for box elder bugs and hornets. Mosquito repellant would be amazing though because we have a beautiful deck that is almost unusable at certain times of the year due to mosquitoes. Just mowing the lawn can be difficult.
Anybody use anything like this before with any results?
Anybody use anything like this before with any results?
my last house, was basically in a swamp, and our hood/association pitched in all together for these dudes to spray our hood:
Mosquito Exterminators | Skeeter Beater
Is your yard or home plagued by mosquitoes? Call on Skeeter Beater, the best mosquito exterminators, for help today.
www.skeeterbeater.com
it was like a fucking light switch when they stopped at the end of the year one year... someone said end labor day weekend because they were derrrp thinking summer ends then, and it doesn't... cuz it's still fucking warm out.
and legit the next week it was fucking GNARLY how bad they were when they stopped.
Yaj Yak Same situation really. Our neighborhood was built on wetlands and I have a fairly stagnant pond behind my house. We have pitched getting aerators and the little pucks of mosquito killer shit but the association feels like it’s not their responsibility to take care of it so I need to try something.
i think the part of my association that went to it was like $40 per house. it was super reasonable and it was game changing.
fair enough. At least I know if we are going to be entertaining I can spray in the morning and have it be pleasant outside that evening. And we have zero trees or shrubs- just grass
Where I live is a very strange mix of people. Like half are yuppies like me who moved here for lower cost housing than Crystal lake, who take care of the house and lawn and are willing to pay to have something like that. The other half are straight hicks who moved out of the gutter and literally work on their car in the middle of street and have never or will never do anything to care for their house or yard except mow the lawn (weeds) when it gets too long. They will never in a million years spend a penny on something like that when they could spend it on a 30 rack of Busch lattes
apparently the hicks where i lived were willing to spring the $40 to not get eaten alive.
I discovered this stuff from my mad scientist neighbor. We were drinking beer on the porch late one night and I look over and he’s spraying his lawn with a battery powered sprayer in rubber boots
. I thought he was doing some secret liquid fertilizer applications so i asked him about it the next day.
1oz per gallon in a sprayer and I just sprayed down my back yard, shrubbery, foundation of my house, everything. Usually needs about 2 applications per season but it takes care of the mosquitos, ants, spiders, errrrthang. Same active ingredient (Bifenthrin) as the Ortho but it’s at 7.9% instead of 0.3%. I’m finding that professional strength stuff is way cheaper than the over the counter stuff, but you have to make the initial investment into some spraying equipment as it isn’t setup for a hose end sprayer. My 16oz bottle will probably last me 2 more years so it’s insanely cost effective at $21 for 16 oz when I’m using around 2 oz per application on my 1/4 acre. If you have a bigger property paying $7 more for the 32oz would make sense. I applied this stuff with a 1 gallon Home Depot pump sprayer last year and it wasn’t bad, but it will be easier this year with my 2 gallon battery powered one and a very fine droplet fan tip on it.
Edit: I had a bunch of Asian beetles in my walk up attic last fall so I put on a half face respirator and sprayed my attic down with this stuff too. Added bonus I haven’t seen any stink bugs up there this year yet either.
DanJ do I have to worry about my daughter playing outside in the backyard after applying that stuff? I mean I’d obviously wait at least a day or 2 before letting her out there but It just makes me nervous
Im not sure. I’d have to check the 248 page label
. It’s the same active ingredient as the ortho stuff, but you’re just diluting it yourself.
Lawn was looking decent today. Had to snap a quick pic. Of course still room for improvement in several areas but I’m already embarrassing the neighbors
I reached out to the company who's doing some landscaping for us about de-thatching, and they said they don't do it anymore because they didn't see any results. Huh? Is lawn de-thatching controversial? Or perhaps they didn't see the ROI from how much time it took. I really don't want to do it manually, or rent a machine and have 20 bags to sticker up and put on the curb.
If you poke down between the blades and have over an inch of thatch it’s a problem. from what I read some level of thatch helps shields the roots from the summer heat so you do want some. Everything I’ve seen basically points to mowing too infrequently as the cause for thatch since your clippings aren’t as fine. I raked out my front yard with the groundskeeper rake to get some airflow in there. Had a couple yard waste bags of debris from 4200’ so I don’t think I really did a full dethatch as much as fluffed everything up and got some matted stuff loose.
My neighbor bought one of these. Works really good.
Sun Joe AJ801E 13 in. 12 Amp Electric Scarifier + Lawn Dethatcher w/Collection Bag, Green https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FEATL2I/?tag=tcg21-20
Sun Joe AJ801E 13 in. 12 Amp Electric Scarifier + Lawn Dethatcher w/Collection Bag, Green https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FEATL2I/?tag=tcg21-20
I haven’t put Milo down yet this year, but I did last Fall and put it down pretty heavy in the back. I’ll probably skip Milo this year.
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