One of the things we studied in grad school was the similarities of mechanical, hydraulic, and electrical "spring/mass/damper" systems. Without boring you with the math, what you want is the largest diameter, most rigid pipe you can find. If you can squeeze a piece of pipe with your hands and deform...

As a starting point I would use an oscillator sprinkler (the $25 metal turbo kind, not the $5 mechanical link or the $15 plastic body). Place it next to the house and set it to water away from the house. You'll have to move it, of course, down the long sides of the house.

I don't see a back flow preventer...at least not anything I'm familiar with. Is it that giant brass thing? Can you point to the leak?

Yes. I assume you've done the can test. Have you done the screwdriver test? Poke a screwdriver into the soil before you water. Then do it again after you water. What's the difference? The screwdriver should easily go all the way in after watering, but not always easy or not always all the way before...

Thanks for Roseville. That's much more informative for us. Yes, in Roseville warm season grass would be preferred to fescue or bluegrass. UC Verde will seem expensive, but it's a one time investment. If you can find a local garden center that has it, ask them if they can direct you to installations ...

Contractors usually give the wrong advice on watering, so count your blessings.

bp, when he said it grows in long strings, it made me wonder if he had real creeping Charlie. It's the long strings of field bindweed that lend it to the use of RoundUp in a bud vase.

You do realize the cat food can needs to be empty, right? :rotfl: If you have a spot that gets 1/8-inch in 18 minutes, then you need to water 8x longer than 18 minutes. You could try adjusting or changing sprinkler heads to get better coverage. You'll have to do the can test again once you finish th...

Rydog, I would be surprised if it did not work at least on some of the torpedo. It is a low cost option with high payoff when/if it works.

The different fescues suffer differently from heat and watering. There's no way to spend enough time hand watering to get an even distribution of water on the soil. The oscillator is the best approach, in my humble opinion. I spent several hours with the oscillator on yesterday on an area that I hav...

I think there is no better place on the Internet for lawn advice, so yes, right spot. You said you brought in topsoil. Most people who do that do it because "that's the way daddy did it." Some people bring in 1/4-inch per year not realizing that 40 years of doing that amounts to 10 inches of excess ...

Blank slate: I get it. At least you won't have to unlearn a lot of lawn care garbage like I did when these Internet forums first hit the world. Watering new sod or seed: Light and frequent should be the schedule. Light for an oscillator is, likely 1/2 hour. Frequent means 3x per day at breakfast, lu...

I'm glad you included a pic of the finished project, because I was about to go a little bit ballistic. Just to confirm what I think I see, you have a central bed of grass surrounded by what looks like a wooden barrier. Then outside that barrier is additional landscaping including a rock walkway next...

Masbustelo, would you mind posting a picture of your creeping Charlie? I might be envisioning a different weed. Speaking of different, but similar weeds, at least similar to the long strings you describe, is bind weed. https://i.postimg.cc/LJ2CX5wz/Bindweed.jpg Bindweed is a vine with arrowhead shap...

Yes that is a dethatching rake, but eliminate Creeping Charlie? How does it do that?

Most definitely eliminates the need to go to the gym. Get some good gloves for that tool.

You may have heard that the Earth is in a warming part of the temperature cycle. What that means to you is the transition zone is moving northward and you got caught. For your acreage, bermuda would be easy enough. Interestingly, so would St Augustine, except for the no irrigation part. Bermuda will...

Bermuda is not known for getting fungal disease, but it looks like you might have one. Before you do anything, can you please answer a few questions? Does the dead area get wetter than the surrounding area of grass? I'm thinking it might be a low area where the water drains from the fence in and fro...

The objective is to fill in the front lawn entirely with St Augustine. My wife has been expanding her gardens into the lawn and moving patches of St Aug into the unfilled areas. So... Today I sprayed the weedy areas between the patches of grass with this stuff. https://i.postimg.cc/MXCSKpzc/Spectrac...

I see most of the recipes are for more manly meals, but I've been experimenting with lemonade this summer. My sister in law has a Meyer lemon tree, so we get all the lemons and juice we could ever want. It turns out I do not care for Meyer lemons all that much; however, I have found that when I mix ...

I use a heaping handful of alfalfa pellets under the roses once a month through the growing season. I happen to be out of alfalfa currently so I'm using corn meal the same way.