New Forum Added for "Lawn Care Basics 101"

andy10917 · Post by **andy10917** » June 5th, 2016, 1:52 pm

The BL/ATY team is pleased to announce that a new Forum is being added, which is aimed at two groups: (1) members that want to ease into lawn care and wants to learn the basics before being introduced to more advanced topics, and (2) members that do not wish to spend time/money to develop a "Best Lawn" and would be happy with a healthy, somewhat-weedfree lawn.

Postings made here will receive responses that will involve watering, mowing, fertilizing -- but unlike the Cool-Season or Warm-Season forums, all of the solutions will be easily acquired locally at garden centers and big-box stores. Specialty herbicides will not be recommended.

Existing members making response postings should be aware of the intention of the new Forum, and keep their responses limited to the Forum's scope. In other words, Keep It Simple and don't overwhelm the member asking questions.

This Forum may be divided into separate "Warm-Season Basics" and "Cool-Season Basics" if the Forum is used heavily.

OldGlory · Post by **OldGlory** » June 5th, 2016, 2:14 pm

Great idea!

Redtenchu · Post by **Redtenchu** » June 5th, 2016, 3:48 pm

Interesting.

Pennstater2005 · Post by **Pennstater2005** » June 5th, 2016, 8:58 pm

Finally, I can give some advice

BoatDrinksQ5 · Post by **BoatDrinksQ5** » June 6th, 2016, 10:33 am

Good call on the section add! Does seem like some hobby forums have sections dedicated by interest(psycho) level... haha

Will be great to see posts and get angles on peoples responses, will help in talking to neighbors and family about improving their lawn.

Pennstater2005 · Post by **Pennstater2005** » June 6th, 2016, 12:25 pm

I am more of a basic lawn care kind of guy. I started with the triangle approach and then started fertilizing and a pre m after. I got to level 2 and stopped. I can tolerate the grassy weeds although I occasionally hand pull or spray them and reseed.

I've never applied any other selective herbicides aside from WBG and triclopyr, and Dimension. No soil test yet. Part of that is financial (level 3 herbicides) and part is I'm satisfied with my mostly broad leaf weed free yard.

I am planning a possible over seed in the fall but that might get it's own thread.

tlinden · Post by **tlinden** » June 7th, 2016, 12:29 pm

Nice!

[ Post made via Android ]

dan10 · Post by **dan10** » June 8th, 2016, 8:31 am

"unlike the Cool-Season or Warm-Season forums, all of the solutions will be easily acquired locally at garden centers and big-box stores. Specialty herbicides will not be recommended."

Exception should be made for purchasing seed. We all know what quality seed like Midnight, Blueberry, Bullseye, Cochise IV, etc. can do compared to run of the mill seed from big box stores.

andy10917 · Post by **andy10917** » June 8th, 2016, 8:35 am

Nope, no exceptions.

Pennstater2005 · Post by **Pennstater2005** » June 8th, 2016, 12:19 pm

When I purchased seed I sourced it locally at a garden center. It was from the Oliger seed company out of Akron, OH. It's a northern mix of KGB, perennial ryegrass, and some creeping fescue. I know it's not the best but it's a lot nicer than what I have.

dfw_pilot · Post by **dfw_pilot** » June 8th, 2016, 7:44 pm

I am not able to get my head around the need for this forum. My hope would be that this forum isn't used because I think that though the intention is good, the result won't be. I feel like people join BestLawn to learn about best practices and affordable methods, gain experience on advanced topics, and put their lawn on an upward trajectory. However, with artificial restrictions like "box store only" options, we aren't helping people move beyond what they could already learn from places like GardenWeb, Google, garden center employees, or even just following label instructions.

By having beginners reading the main forums, they learn more, see more, and are exposed to more. Mistakes with spraying WBG (Weed-B-Gon) in July or even Celsius are not unrecoverable events, but go a long way in helping people learn. I don't know very much, but what I have learned, experienced, and accomplished so far while being on BestLawn, I'm glad I did so while learning from the main forums.

With beginner articles like the Triangle Approach, The Bermuda Guide, and lots of patience shown by so many members here who give of their free time, I think people who aren't ready to get "Beyond The Hose End" and into the "Bermuda Triangle" are best served by reading, posting, and absorbing in the same place the rest of us are.

If people who join BestLawn want to ease into lawn care and limit themselves to box store options, a dedicated forum might actually be a disservice. It also feels like this extra compartmentalizing breaks a bit of the spirit of the site. If you are new and reading this, I hope to see you over in the main section of the site. Happy learning!

[ Post made from the Home Depot garden center ]

Tony alony · Post by **Tony alony** » June 8th, 2016, 11:13 pm

Dfw_pilot I think the moderators and originator of the site feel that they need to allow newcomers a place to post their questions. Here's a case in point: 103,435 posts in the cool season forum. The warm season has or 31,000 posts. Organics over 13,000 posts, Lawn Renovations over 38,000 posts.

That may seem daunting to a new visitor with a quick question looking for a simple answer.
I think the new forum serves a purpose.

tlinden · Post by **tlinden** » June 9th, 2016, 7:49 am

Most people I talk to don't want to be told how to special order stuff. They don't want elite grass they just want grass. So this forum is perfect for them.

It also prevents them from being ridiculed for their practices. For the average homeowner aeration helps, for the elite group it brings unwanted weed pressure. So if someone here says they aerated they won't get blasted.

Final thought.. My brother in law showed me the nice lawns in his neighborhood, his favorite lawn was full of poa but he couldn't see it. I laughed but to the average homeowner they don't care

[ Post made via Android ]

Pennstater2005 · Post by **Pennstater2005** » June 9th, 2016, 8:15 am

tlinden wrote:Final thought.. My brother in law showed me the nice lawns in his neighborhood, his favorite lawn was full of poa but he couldn't see it. I laughed but to the average homeowner they don't care

Hey! Don't laugh at my lawn

dfw_pilot · Post by **dfw_pilot** » June 9th, 2016, 9:02 am

Tim, "most people" don't sign up for accounts here, either. All things to all people doesn't work (GWeb).

Arguments over whether an issue is basic or not and threats of deleting comments not fitting the rules have already cropped up. The soil test forum is hugely popular but can't be mentioned here, so I just don't think this forum fits at BL/ATY.

[ Post sponsored in part by Halts® ]

turf_toes · Post by **turf_toes** » June 9th, 2016, 9:13 am

The plan for this sub forum doesn't include deleting posts. (Unless there is a violation of the TOS.)

That was the way of a now extinct forum. But it is ok to set ground rules. I think that's what Andy has done. We are not editing this site. But we are laying out the rules for participating in this sub forum.

Can those rules evolve? Sure. But we have to start somewhere.

Sent from my iOS device using the Yard Help App

Pennstater2005 · Post by **Pennstater2005** » June 9th, 2016, 9:17 am

If folks go beyond the basics I think they'll take it upon themselves to further explore the forums. If not, they'll still get better advice here, in this sub forum, than most other places.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

Dmt · Post by **Dmt** » June 9th, 2016, 9:39 am

I think this forum could be great for many people and may be a stepping stone for some people into more advanced lawn care. The general population applies a weed n feed a couple times a year, waters too often and mows incorrectly. Fix those 3 things and many people would be happy with the results and wouldn't need to go any further.

However, ATY members have to be willing to answer the same questions over and over again either with a copy and paste answer or a link. Look at my grainy pictures of weeds or lawn damage and fix my problem from your computer with a $10 solution. This is the kind of stuff that happens at gweb but the frequent posters often give conflicting advice. Some are advocates of organic lawn care that prescribe specialty products or stuff from feed stores and lead newbies into a new, confusing world of organic lawn care. They get overwhelmed and impatient with the slow results and quit. Others treat newbies like they are stupid for what they already applied and the newcomer exits quickly.

For this forum to be successful, ATY members would need to be patient with newcomers and repeatedly regurgitate the same information. I am a newbie myself and I wish I had a forum like this months ago when I first started caring about lawn care. Now I am hooked on more advanced lawn care after finding ATY, but a general primer in the beginning would have saved me some time and money.

ken-n-nancy · Post by **ken-n-nancy** » June 9th, 2016, 9:50 am

Dmt wrote:I think this forum could be great for many people and may be a stepping stone for some people into more advanced lawn care. ...

However, ATY members have to be willing to answer the same questions over and over again either with a copy and paste answer or a link. ... the frequent posters often give conflicting advice ...

[Newcomers] get overwhelmed and impatient with the slow results and quit. Others treat newbies like they are stupid for what they already applied and the newcomer exits quickly.

For this forum to be successful, ATY members would need to be patient with newcomers and repeatedly regurgitate the same information.

Quoted for truth. +1

I think it would be really helpful for some of us longer-term members to come up with some "agreed basic strategies" and share the load, so to speak, of assisting others. One of my favorite "basic plans" is this one posted a couple days ago by ENVY23. It's short and sweet, simple to implement, and likely to "do no harm" for a cool-season lawn, regardless of the (unknown) soil test findings. If the OP follows the advice, they'll have a greatly improved lawn -- at that point they'll either be satisfied and able to keep the lawn there on their own, or they'll be inspired to take their lawn to the next level with more advanced practices, a soil test, etc.

Also, some (maybe most?) of the "Articles" and "FAQs" have advice that is no longer the "consensus" advice on this site. Updating those articles and being able to help newcomers find / understand those articles would help a lot.

dan10 · Post by **dan10** » June 9th, 2016, 10:09 am

Maybe this newbie section should be moved to the top of the Forum menu list and renamed "Lawn Care Basics 101 - Beginner's Forum" ?

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