Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Discuss how to and whether you should renovate your lawn
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HoosierLawnGnome
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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » December 26th, 2014, 10:59 am

:lol:

I'm thinking white clover, as originally suggested, is the way to go right now. Basically zero input - quick growing, will spread, attracts wildlife, and will look uniform.

Specifically I'm looking at Dutch White Clover right now.

I may give it a little input, and do an occasional treatment here or there to keep new things from coming in, but I think this will be a good path.

For those experienced - once it's established and thick - how does it do in terms of suppressing other plants from coming up?

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by crabgrass » December 26th, 2014, 11:46 am

HoosierLawnGnome wrote:For those experienced - once it's established and thick - how does it do in terms of suppressing other plants from coming up?
Oh, you know, like anything else - when it's an undesireable weed it does great at suppressing what you DO want in a traditional lawn. As soon as you try to encourage it as THE lawn, it will do a lousy job.
:rotfl:

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » December 26th, 2014, 12:50 pm

Murphy's law applied to whatever I'm trying to grow!!!

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by andy10917 » December 26th, 2014, 2:16 pm

A weed is nothing but a plant that is growing where you don't want it to grow -- whether it is a great plant or not.

There are very few herbicides that will not harm Clover. If you grow a Clover lawn, you'll have to sacrifice the herbicides for the most part. Clover was once a desirable part of the lawn, but when 2,4-D arrived, Scott's started lobbying that you didn't want it, because they couldn't avoid damage.

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » December 27th, 2014, 10:17 am

I'm doing a lot of reading on dutch white clover. Looks like I'm going to need to apply it with a carrier like milorganite, which I still have a good amount of. I'm going to try and do a soil test here in the next few weeks if I can get to the ground before it freezes up too. Then I'll be thinking about dormant seeding!


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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » January 5th, 2015, 2:24 pm

Well, I went ahead and ordered 5 lbs of dutch white clover seed today. It is supposed to take 1/4 - 1/2 lb / K of seed to plant, and I have about 2K to plant immediately, so this should keep me covered for any reseeding next fall as well as other areas that may need to have brush cleared.

As if there weren't enough bees to sting me out there last year.....

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by oze » January 5th, 2015, 7:14 pm

Good luck, Hoosier! Your project is going to remind me of my youth, with the soles of my feet full of honey bee stingers! Ah, sweet memories!

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » January 5th, 2015, 7:25 pm

Yeah, I hadn't been stung in a decade until last summer when I went out there to repair some damage to the old building.... :lol:

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by Tony alony » January 5th, 2015, 7:36 pm

Hey! I wonder if you Indiana guys have wasps as well? If so, are they subterranean?

**Edited**: oops , forgot to add the link: http://mayerimentgardens.wordpress.com/ ... n-indiana/

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » January 6th, 2015, 11:40 am

We do. I wasn't stung by a honeybee last year - it was a wasp (I think) that made a home in my electrical panel outside. :shock:

Either a wasp, or it was one of the yellow jackets nests that were on the forest floor in the area - I stepped on a few last year. They don't like that. :lol:

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by Tony alony » January 6th, 2015, 12:43 pm

HLG, be careful out there. I'm sure you are aware of all the dangers from insect stings.
Wasps and other insects in the forest can cause severe illnesses .Sometimes , if you're lucky, you will only experience a mild skin discomfort. Be prepared if in doubt.

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by oze » January 6th, 2015, 4:01 pm

Guys,

When I was a kid, every lawn I ever played on was at least 50% clover, and thus, honey bee magnets. Being the young heathen that I was, the shoes came off after the last day of school, and except for church on Sundays, pretty much stayed off until school started again in the fall. I was stung so many times that I think I developed an immunity to their venom. My wife, not so much. She almost died from an attack by a single hornet 10 years ago or so, and now has to carry an epi kit wherever she goes (except in winter).

And we most definitely have ground-nesting hornets around here (we call them yellowjackets):

Image

I had the misfortune of running my lawn mower within 10' of a nest I didn't see, and was rewarded with a calf-full of the little bastards, hammering away like there was no tomorrow. Good thing the mower was on and drowned out my voice; I wouldn't have wanted the neighbors to hear what I was screaming at the beasties. I went into the house, downed a couple of Benadryl tabs, and iced the 6" area of welts. I was amazed at how little swelling there was. Oh, and, being the vindictive old cuss that I am, before I went in, I dumped the cup or so of my oil/gas mix that was in the can down their nest. Lighting it didn't work, but I never saw any more of them entering nor exiting *that* hole again. Getting stung by them feels like being the butt of the "did you ever see a match burn twice?" joke. Being stung by bumblebees, on the other hand, feel as close as I ever want to get to being shanked.

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » January 7th, 2015, 11:26 am

:lol:

Sorry - I am laughing at your pain! :lol:

----------------------

So, from the reading I've been doing on planting cover crops effectively, it's not terribly different than planting grass seed. Basically, don't till up the surface, but scratch it a bit so the seed will get caught and work it's way into the soil.

I haven't done a soil test, but this soil is very tight / silty / clayish. The topsoil was thin to begin with, being on a ridgetop, before I had the dozer come through and pull out the debris from my previous buildings there. At 7 feet down we get rock shale for a long, long while. So, that thin layer in between is a subsoil in all likelihood. Farmers years ago tried to farm this soil, but found it unsuitable for crops - they then sold it off to the state, who formed the state forest from the properties they amassed. But not everyone sold it off, which is why I own this piece of what I manage for timber.

So - current seeding plan. I'm going to dormant seed in late winter - probably at a time I can see the surface in the next few months. I'm planning on mixing the clover seed with milorganite to spread it more evenly. I'll plant on the heavy end of 1/2 lb / K. I may need to put up some silt fences for the spring as well.

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by oze » January 7th, 2015, 8:51 pm

HoosierLawnGnome wrote::lol:

Sorry - I am laughing at your pain! :lol:

----------------------
:rotfl:
Image
You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little %&*#@$ up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to @^%**&' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny? :club: [/jk]

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » January 7th, 2015, 9:25 pm

I can laugh because I stuck my hand in a flower pot full of wasps as a kid, and ended up going to the doc for shots that afternoon. :lol: I can laugh NOW....

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by oze » January 8th, 2015, 11:45 am

HoosierLawnGnome wrote:I can laugh because I stuck my hand in a flower pot full of wasps as a kid, and ended up going to the doc for shots that afternoon. :lol: I can laugh NOW....
Yikes!

Hoosier, I hope you know that I was kidding with the Goodfellows reference. The mental image, let alone memory, of my dancing around, slapping at my leg, and "speaking in tongues" is, I admit, hilarious! :rotfl:

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » January 8th, 2015, 12:59 pm

No, I know you were kidding - and if you weren't I wouldn't be getting my panties in a wad anyways. I leave that for painting glyphosate on quackgrass. :club:

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by crabgrass » January 12th, 2015, 1:34 am

I gotta say, HLG: I love the thread and premise, and admire the devotion to a natural choice.

Why would you want your hard-earned retreat swarming in bees, and tough to walk barefoot?

I love bees and am aware of their plight. I still wouldn't go out of my way to attract them to my porch/doorstep. 30-40 yards away? Sure.

[ Post made via BlackBerry ] Image

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » January 12th, 2015, 9:26 am

Well, I'm more interested in attracting deer and other wildlife really. I need something that will get established in pretty short order too.

I dunno - I think it will turn out ok. I will probably have to redo this "lawn" summer after next anyways, so if I just hate it and the bees are too crazy - I can start over then.

I'm also going to have to figure out some shrubs for erosion control.

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Re: Surprise Winter Cabin Renovation

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » January 12th, 2015, 9:38 am

By the way - got my seed in the mail the other day.

It's innoculated with some sort of rhyzome and has a water absorbant coating on it.


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