Moved into a rental house just as winter was starting, we knew our yard was mostly weeds. Had no idea how bad it was until now. Just wondering from people who have had experience, how long will it take to get this back to normal grass.
by Thoros__
Landscaping
31 Comments
Depends on how much money you sink. And how much money you’re willing to sink to maintain it. This is ultimately the landlord’s responsibility though. Good news is that yard is pollinator central. No Mow May is a thing for this very reason. Another plus is that all parts of the dandelion except the stems are edible and tasty. I wouldn’t eat anything exposed to pesticide/herbicide however.
its a rental so dont so anything. if you want to waste money weeding someone elses yard then come do mine
Leave it and just mow. 1. Bees really need it and they are dwindling in numbers 2. You have a cute pittie . Let him be on natural grass
Grass is actually a weed
Depending on how long you are planning on living there. A hose sprayer broadleaf killer will take care of the dandelions. Two bag of contractors grass seeds( cheap), a bag of starter fertilizer and a spreader will cover the yard. But this time of year the water bill will high because you are going have to water extra. After killing the dandelions, I would really just buy a spreader and seed with mircoclover. It is more exciting than contractor grass seeds but it maintenance free and cheaper in the long term.
Looks really beautiful to me, not gonna lie
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpEy-Mpm6AI&t=87s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpEy-Mpm6AI&t=87s)
# “DANDELIONS are the BEST INDICATORS of…DANDELIONS are the BEST INDICATORS of…”
If I were you I’d probably embrace the wildflowers. You have what looks like good healthy ground cover and I’m willing to bet it’s going to remain greener in the summer than your neighbors. I’d give it a year and sit on it before you decide to do anything. If their were dead patches, muddy or it was a mess I might feel different, but this looks reasonably attractive to my eye.
Also consider, any effort to replace your native grass with a traditional suburban lawn is going to be expensive and time consuming. You’ll want to check with your landlord first, but I don’t know that I’d be willing to go through the time and expense trying to swap ground cover options on a place I didn’t own.
Whatever you do don’t just start spreading chemicals thinking you can just reseed. That might work for existing lawn maintenance, but for complete area removal like this you need resod the whole thing. Talk to a professional and get a quote.
Get a couple of honey bee hives and make money from your yard instead of sinking it into a lifelong battle of lawn maintenance. Unless your yard is the prime source of local dandelions, they’ll be back in force every year.
Looks like you get some good sun, so you could invest in some raised bed gardens and grow some of your favorite vegetables and herbs.
This year is gone. You can spread a broadleaf weed killer, probably multiple rounds, which will turn your lawn into a dirt patch, then spread pre-emergent seed killer to prevent new weeds, then plant seed next spring. Ideally you would seed in the fall, but you can’t with the pre-emergent in the soil. After two or three years of this, 90% of the weeds will be gone.
As most others have said, embrace the diversity, consider dandelions wildflowers, and save yourself a lot of time money and effort trying to fight them.
It’s a rental just leave it lmao
Ok. My husband maintains the key is to fertilise the grass and the grass will crowd out the weeds, I think also keep the grass (and weeds) cut.
– eyes lawn – not sure this works as well as he thinks lol.
Leave it be. When it gets high, mow it.
You are a renter. The bees need food, leave it.
Why are people so crazy about getting rid of “weeds”? So long as there is ground cover, I don’t understand the problem.
Make some dandelion wine!!
a spray and a reseed probably 3 months if you’re willing to water intensely but summer gonna be rough on seedlings at this point unless you’re going to invest heavily in watering and providing optimal canopy
it’s also a rental so you don’t really get to make the decisions here nor should you invest a damn thing into the yard
Depends on how much you like dandelions…
none. Dandelions are great for the soil, the birds, and the bees! And you can eat the flowers and leaves too is so inclined!
Not sure why you’d want to get rid of the dandelions. They’re great for the pollinators. Way better to have than lawn. I wish our lawn had more. 🤷♀️
You are coming up on peak season for dandelions, a lot of these will die over summer/fall anyway leaving big dirt patches. So you can poison them now, and expedite that process, plant seed, fertilize that seed, and see how much of an impact you can make this spring. It’ll be tough with the dog, but I did something similar last year. It took a lot of effort, and was semi successful. I thought it was worth it to have a decent lawn last summer, but it was a whole weekend, two long days, of work, and then maintenance multiple times a week all summer.
I would say your best opportunity for making a major appreciable difference in the quality of the lawn is going to be this fall unfortunately, and you won’t reap those benefits until next spring. But in the fall you would want to kill the dandelions/remove them by hand (both really), overseed/seed with a grass that spreads naturally, take care of it, and then next spring hit it early with a preemergent, and pull any dandelions you see coming up right away. Good luck!
Overseed clover. It looks nice, is drought tolerant, and is resistant to dog urine.
a rental? well in owner will cover the bill – its at least two seasons and a hellofalot of water to get a nice lawn if the soil is decent, else, you are looking at a couple of grand or more out of your pocket.
As with the majority of comments, don’t waste YOUR money.
Are you responsible for cutting? If so cut every couple days to keep weeds from spreading.
Those aren’t weeds, those are wildflowers.
It will take however long it takes the landlord to fix it
Seed whatever clover you like to add nitrogen to the soil. No need to spend a ton on herbicide
Most of us here support pollinators and a more natural lawn. I think it’s beautiful.
That looks better than normal grass. r/nolawns would be happy about this.
You could ask the landlord if they would be able to take care of it or at least reimburse for materials if you want to donate the time.
What process, more words my man. What are you trying to achieve. Looks like a lovely dandelion filled space with zero landscaping so it’s a blank slate. Just needs to be mowed but not too low and don’t overfeed it. Don’t fall for the bullshit of the Scots picture perfect over irrigated, over fed lawn that has caused so much environmental damage. Because of this propaganda is considered the norm standard to compare all lawns. Here you have a lovely natural thing in spring cover and it looks lovely. Don’t fall for the big box store fertilizer bag BS
Beyond that you could use an extensive landscape plan with shrubs and border to soften the angularity of that blinding white feds. Need sunglasses to look at it. The yard is lovely however, love a burst of dandelions. And if you don’t fertilize them for dose them with ugly chemicals you can go pick the leaves for sale it’s delicious