By Vicki Brown
I am highly involved in a turf war. It is vicious and ugly.
No, it is not between me and any of my delightful neighbors; it is between me and my yard.
It all started 30 years ago, when we first moved into our home. The yard was an overgrown disaster. The weeds were as tall as I was and an entire family of rabbits were living there. Through dedication and hard work, we cleaned it up and desperately tried to turn it into a nice yard.
But we discovered much later that our home was built on a pile of sand. Nothing but weeds can grow here. One time, I managed to create what looked like a small golf course putting green on half the yard while the other half was bare dirt. But that meant I was outside hand watering the grass twice a day.
Needless to say, I was done with that.
Another year my husband and I dug up every single weed by hand because the weed killer was not doing the work. The results? The weeds came back more than ever.
I have used every single chemical known to mankind, including dropping in grass plugs in the bare spots but nothing worked. My poor neighbor down the street even dug up his yard twice, fertilized it, and added sod. It all died.
My other neighbors have irrigation systems or landscaping professionals to take care of their yard, but in our house I am the landscaping professional. Ha!
I begged my husband years ago to get an irrigation system, but he pointed out the difficulties that our other neighbors were having with their irrigation systems and said he did not want to invest in that. We would just end up watering weeds. So I came up with a plan. I thought it was perfect.
I was wrong.
I paid a company to xeriscape my yard. Xeriscaping is what most desert homes do. They use intermittent plants that are drought resistant and very hearty in substandard soil and surround the rest of the yard with decorative pebbles and rocks of various colors and sizes. I saw pictures and thought it was beautiful. It seemed like the best thing to do in the soil in front of my house. And just to make the thing more picturesque, I added artificial turf.
The company saw my pictures, liked them, and went to work. Within a few days, my yard was gorgeous. And I enjoyed it for almost a year. But there were several things I had not counted on.
First, were my grandchildren. Children love rocks. They love to pick them up, stack them, and throw them, especially onto artificial turf. So it wasn’t long before the small white pebbles that were decoratively surrounded by the larger dark brown riverbed rocks got mixed up. It took me hours to try and separate the two and to get the small pebbles out of my turf.
But that wasn’t all.
The second issue was the deer. They ate half of my plants. So that involved me digging them up and searching for deer resistant and drought resistant replacements. That’s easier said than done.
The third issue I had was the grass growing up through the landscaping fabric and the decorative rock, and there were even some stubborn weeds that managed to make their way up through the turf. Unbelievable! NOW grass was choosing to grow?
So I bought weed and grass killer and a small pump and went out and sprayed them almost every day. It began to cost me almost $300.00 a month in grass killer. Frustrated, I knew I had to find another solution. And I did, but it’s caused another problem.
I discovered that a mixture of vinegar and Epsom salts would kill grass, so I sprayed it on the little shoots that were emerging among my white pebbles. It only cost a few dollars, and I was delighted when it actually seemed to work! So what other problem could I possibly have?
Well, it seems as though the deer were attracted to the salt and would come out and lick the remnants on the rocks, which caused them to poop on the turf! Unbelievable! So I sprayed deer repellent, but they came anyway. Next, I went on Amazon and bought deer sensors that would flash strobe lights and a high-pitched squeal when the deer came near. But the deer don’t care, they come anyway. Every. Single. Night.
Where’s a good accurate deer hunter when you need one?
So what am I doing now? Glad you asked. Nothing. I am still salting the wretched grass coming up between the pebbles and rocks and hosing off the deer poop on my artificial turf.
Sigh.
I think I am losing the war.
