Nice Cookies

I have a lawn problem.

I moved from Indiana to South Carolina a few years ago, and my boyfriend and I just bought our first house last May

But I have discovered a malice to the sanctity of my sanity:

Pine straw.

Yes, that stuff that seems to be lining the shrubbery of every mall parking lot, every tree-lined street, every landscaping nursery in South Carolina. You see, I have more than your average home owner’s allotment. When we moved in last May, the ENTIRE BACK YARD was covered in this crap. There is no grass. Zero. Full shade with patches of sunlight that peek through the trees. And after almost exactly 12 months of fighting this vile substance, I am tempted to throw in the towel.

The previous owner apparently got into this pattern of pine straw>fall leaves>pine straw>fall leaves that has been repeated it seems since the dawn of time. In comparison, it took me until all the leaves dropped this past January to get the front yard completely raked up. The front does have grass, but I’m likely guessing low when I say that I probably used 30 bags for the front yard alone–and it’s a small yard.

I just can’t get the back done. I’ve raked 13 large lawn-sized bags of leaves and straw today, and it looks like I haven’t even put a dent in the thing. And it’s hot out now, too–85 degrees or so. That’s a cool breeze to Southerners, but I’m from Indiana. To me, that’s a late July heat wave.

But I digress. I’m leaning more and more towards 1) calling a landscape company up to rake the whole mess, and 2) laying down brick in the main yard so that I won’t have to deal with this on such a grand scale ever again. Otherwise I’ll just have dirt and a whole lot of weeds to deal with. I do have some brick landscaping already, with a lot of azaleas and hydrangeas–and the beautiful shade trees that have started this whole mess–but I’m at the end of my rope.

This issue really is driving me crazy. Every day I look out my kitchen window and it looks like Fall. It’s depressing and demoralizing. And I’m exhausted.

I want grass so badly. Our soil is very sandy as well, and we’re on a bit of a hill , so when it rains water slopes down our yard toward our house, bringing sand with it.

What should I do, Lawn Crew? Should I give up and get more pine straw? Should I try sod or seed? Should I brick my whole yard and be done with it?

If there’s any interest here I’ll post pics, but I’m not sure how vital it is to the solving of the problem…
it’s too hot to try and grow grass now, but I would definitely have your soil tested officially. The lack of grass/many evergreens/happy azaleas suggest that your yard is very acidic. You can begin laying lime down (stay away from your shrubs) as soon as you rake up the mess.
get all that pine straw up and buy some Palmetto St. Augestine for a high-shade area, install the SOD and water it in real good for several weeks to get it established
Find types of plants that do well in acidic soil like hostas, rhododendron, azaleas etc… There are some groundcover plants you can get also. This should help keep the sand from washing toward the house when it rains and eliminate the need for grass in some areas.
If the soil is really sandy, buy some bags of humus, manure, and claybreaker, and till them all in with a rototiller before trying to grow any grass. Grass needs organic dirt, not just sand.

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