it's not easy being green

I lied about finishing the bathroom first. We couldn't turn down this perfect weather to work inside. We did some of this last night:

And a lot of this:

It rained on and off today and the 10-day forecast looked ideal for overseeding. Ideal meaning showers on and off, 60-70 degree weather and no frost at night.  We have learned from our past 2 years owning the house, that having a nice lawn does not come easy.  Constant fertilizer, water, overseeding and aerating (in no particular order) are just a few of the key ingredients to a nice yard.  This is what our hard work got us last year:

This time we used Groundwork Premium Tall Fescue for our lawn. Fescue grass does well in our climate and we have had success in the past with it. It withstands heat in the summer during droughts and needs little maintenance.  We used a Scott's SpeedyGreen 3000 for our seeding needs.  If you have something like this and used it for fertilizer, make sure you rinse it out very well before dumping your new grass seed inside of it.

The past two seasons we had an outside company take care of our fertilizing needs to get our lawn under control. It has come a LONG way and are taking on that job ourselves this year.

As you can see, Greg was in charge of seeding and I was the raker.  I dragged/raked up the lawn after he laid the seed down. I read a lot of recommendations to complete this step so the seed gets a contact point with the soil.  It worked out great because the ground and soil was soft and damp. It couldn't hurt the seed any and it was definitely a good workout!

We completed the front, back and side property in about an hour (~1/3 acre). This included all overseeding and raking. Not too shabby for a potentially thicker, more plush lawn.

While picking up our seed at Tractor Supply, we noticed some trees outside.  We always stop to look at the quality and price because our lawn is in desperate need of some shrubs, trees and shade! We walked away with this guy...

Can you tell we're Spartan fans?!

for only... drumroll... $20! Yes. A Red Maple for $20! You can't tell from the picture very well, but this tree has branches reaching over 10 feet, they are taller than our gutters!  The buds on the tree have small leaves opening and it is overall perfectly shaped.  We could not be happier with our purchase. This only leads to more work outside in the very near future :)

Here is a fun picture to leave you with. Look closely between the porch rails and you can see our supervisor!

xo, Erin