Bought my Gpa's old house last fall and the yard is just a mess. The front yard had overgrown the driveway and sidewalk by about 6 inches which I finally edged this weekend, ended up with about 5 wheel barrows full of dirt.
Next project is to get the grass looking good and I need some advice. The lawn looked fine when my GPA lived there but I think the combination of drought/no one watering for the past 2 years have killed it.
This is what it looks like now(complete with pictures of dogs), any suggestions?
Sorry Benji, water isn't bringing that back.
1. Get rid of the dogs, do you want dogs or a nice lawn? its tough to have both
2. Get your soil tested. Your local extension office will do this for like $20
3. Treat soil as directed from above results
4. Wait until this fall and aerate/verticut it and over seed
5. Water like crazy
6. Start a routine weed control program
Pro tip: most of weed control and yard seeding should happen in the fall
This is all good, but I'd recommend just paying a professional to rehab the lawn for the first year. Then take over from there with your own fertilizer/weed treatments. A couple other tips:
1. I'm guessing you don't have a sprinkler system. If you don't, and you want to have a nice looking lawn, get ready for a lot of work setting out sprinklers, moving them around, etc. It's a pain in the ass.
2. If all that grass is dead instead of dormant (fyi - zoysia is still dormant), you're probably better off applying roundup this summer and starting from scratch this fall.
And using rock instead of mulch generally blows. Rock gets hot and bakes shallow root systems, and doesn't break down and fertilize your plants (like mulch). You'll generally have healthier plants if you spend a little time spreading around some mulch every spring.
