I'm going to give a preliminary answer, and hope that some of the turf people will chime in.

I understand grass, but I am NOT a grass expert.  (I'm not a rose expert either)    We all know more about some stuff than other stuff, and there are people on this forum who understand grass through and through, in ways I do not.

So....with that caveat--that I may be wrong, I'm going to say what I see.

i think you have either fine fescue or bluegrass, and I can't tell which, in most of your lawn.  My guess is fine fescue but Ky bluegrass grows great in most of Ohio, so you may have that.

That big clump is a coarse clumping fescue.  Dig it out and add some soil to level that spot and sew some more grass seed.

BUT....you have some dead spots in your lawn and it looks to me like you're not too late to renovate that lawn.  It needs dethatching, if what I see on the ground in the dead spots is actually thatch and not bermudagrass.

Let us pray that it is not bermudagrass.  If those spots get green in the summer, I'm wrong.

Okay I should have added...you need to dethatch your lawn, and if it were mine, I would then overseed with more of what you have, water it in, and @cuttingedge may tell me I'm so far off base it's ridiculous.

ETA:  You need a shovel or spade to dig out the big clump of coarse fescue.  There's a reason "grassroots movements" are hard to stop.  The roots on that are really tough.  Get a shovel, cut around it, shove under it as shallow as you can, and pry it up.  Then pull it up, (it'll come up all in one piece unless you cut through the root clump) bust off the dirt and leave it in the (considerable) hole, then you will need to add some dirt to level that spot.

Okay.  That's good.  It means you don't need to worry about adding screening plants to the sides of your yard--at least not for that reason.

Let me see if I can get enough brain cells clumped together to draw something for you.

Got it.

I'm going to save and print this and put on it what I *think* I understand about your property.

Back to you asap.  My elderly mom is in the hospital so my attention is divided, and I beg forgiveness if I'm not quick about it.

@DirtyDirk

Take a look at this.

Do I have this right, generally, for what you have going on?

Note that there are some question marks beside some stuff.  I'm not clear on what some of the lines mean.

The blue arrows pointing to lines with no text beside them....I don't know what those are for sure.  Can you help?

Kitties

This is CERTAINLY so here.

Our lawns are almost always KY 31 Tall Fescue/bluegrass mix.  But we get hotter here, for longer, almost every year, than they do in most parts of Ohio.  I think that's why the KY 31 is STILL so popular here, even though there are many more fescues available now.  It's sort of no-fail.  Plus, the fact that it's cheap doesn't hurt.

@Engineer  do you understand "cool season grass" vs "warm season grass" ??

Extremely simplified, "Warm Season Grasses" are green only in the warmer months, and turn brown in winter.  So when you see those golf courses with the big curvy brown swaths, or lawns out west (often) that are completely brown in the winter, you are looking at a warm season grass.

In the east, we love cool season grasses because we get a lot of rain (they need water) and they stay green all winter.  (Green is relative, but if you see a brown, dead-looking lawn, yours will be quite green in comparison, even when it's 10 degrees outside.)

So what you have in your lawn is a cool season grass, which means it stays green all year long, even in the cold weather.

You are welcome and please ask more questions if you need to.  No question is dumb in this thread. You can see that *I* don't know some things, and ask dumb questions too.

Oh!  Perfect!

Sorry guys...full time at the hospital with my mom right now.

I have not forgotten this, but am lucky to hit the forum at all.  I know it's the time of year you want to get going.

Bad timing on my part.

Thanks.

She took care of me.  Now it's my turn I guess.

I will be back more, I hope, in the next two weeks.

Dealing with cleaning out my mom's house to get it ready for sale, etc.

Apologies again, to all, for being AWOL at the moment.

Kitties

Okay I have re-read your answers to the questions about how you see your property and using it.

I should ask, since I've been AWOL....have you added anything?  I know my life issues have thrown a wrench in my ability to help this spring, but I am taking these as I come to them, and hope I can still be of help.

I have some ideas and I will print your "map" and outline those as best I can. But if you've already taken action and planted stuff, I should know that before I do. :0)

Kitties
@DirtyDirk

@blackx-runner

I'm starting to work on the project questions in this thread.

Have you taken any action on your landscape?  It's okay if you have.  But no point in me saying, "do this" if you've already addressed that area.

And can you give me the approximate dimensions of your house and yard?  Basically, how much space do you have at the ends of your house between the building and the property line?

And I want the size of the house (close is good) so I can sketch it out on a piece of paper. (I'm old school. )

I'm thinking you want to address the front of the property first, for curb appeal.  Is that correct?

Kitties

@FN64GR ask your questions if you have them.

I'm here for the moment, though I'm in and out dealing with stuff.  Sometimes questions are easier to answer than designs, because I have to print, create, scan, upload, and explain when I offer designs.

That's not a complaint. I love doing it.  It just takes more mental energy and more time.

Aw dangit.  Double tap.

This is a good spot to insert a public service announcement regarding tree topping.

DON'T DO IT.

Don't.

It's bad for the trees and helps nothing.



Yes, I had to deal with very sick trees this past month--they were once beautiful but were irreparably damaged and dying before their time-- sick because they'd been repeatedly topped.

Okay I've got a question @DirtyDirk

Mostly, I'm going to show you ideas and give you recommendations about how to THINK about where you plant stuff to make sense in your landscape.    I'll probably spend an entire post about that--how to think about what you're planting where, to fit within your philosophy and what you want to accomplish. Because you have to make the decisions. I'm not there.  The point is, "how do I make it MORE beautiful and make it look like God put all this here, including my house?"  At least, that's what I think you want.

I'm getting that your kids are grown, this is your retirement home, and you like wide open spaces, expansive views, and......LOW MAINTENANCE.....if I have this right.

So....I'm looking at your front porch area and the idea of the perennial beds there and I'm coming up against this question.

How much do you want to work in ANY of your gardens?

Are you and your wife gardeners?

I ask this because....(and let me say this first part....)  I LOVE the type of landscape you've set up.

What I'm going to suggest for you is a variety of shrubs a few (very few) small flowering trees, some wetland "edge/transition" plants and MAYBE some ornamental grasses (maybe not...I'm still chewing on it) here and there throughout the landscape, but the bottom line is that you're not going to mow.  You're not gonna maintain the boundaries.  You're not gonna spend your days weeding and/or string trimming or mulching. You have to have stuff that's going to make it--or not--in the landscape once you stick it out there.

You may find that sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

That's the beauty of what you're about.  The ones that thrive...you will enjoy them. The ones that don't....well.....they were not meant for what you're doing.

HOWEVER.....that part right in front of the porch.

What do you want for that?  

I, since I don't have to maintain it after all, envision a butterfly-and-bee-friendly front garden (the dragonflies will be around the side of the house and out by the woods).  This would be a narrow strip of perennials that actually WOULD be maintained by you.  Which would mean weeding in spring and fall, and a few bags of mulch put out, just on that part.  You'd have some tulips.  Some daffodils.  Some clumps of stuff that might not survive if you dumped it in the middle of your prairie grasses.

Do you want that kind of front garden?

Or do you want as close to ZERO maintenance as you can get?

Got it. Thanks.  Looks like about 60' length for the structure.  That's mostly what I needed, for proportion.

One more question.  Which direction does the front of your house face?  (This will tell me how the sunlight travels across your landscape.)

Bump to keep this out of archives.  unexpected deadline past two weeks, as my mom's house sold and I had to get the stuff out and fast.

I'm back, and will be posting in the upcoming days.

Apologies, again, because life stopped me after I offered help.

I am returning from the dead, and letting anyone know if you are still interested in help.

If not, believe me, I understand.  I'm not particularly interested in help from me after the drama of this spring/summer.

Okay I'm sort of back.  Gonna try to go through these as I can.

So very sorry life has gotten in the way of the help I promised, but hopefully things will even out a bit on my end.  I may be a little slow, but I will get to you.  

Here's the truth.

I don't have a freaking clue. Michigan is like another planet from Kentucky.  Y'all's winters, and your soil type...totally different from what I know.

If you ask me how to design with what you have available, I can help.  If you ask me about basic plant growth and development questions, I can help.

But if you ask me what grows in Michigan?  I will go look at Google, which you can do too.

NOW....if you want some resources, I can help you find your land grant university (the one responsible for helping with anything agricultural) and I can help you tell truth from bullshit.

And I'm happy  to do that.

But most landscape people are good with the plants in THEIR areas.  And if they say different, they're probably lying.  Just sayin.

So...Ask me different questions.

You have a landscape thing going on.

Take photos.  Post them here.  Ask questions about what would look good where.

I can help you.

But "what grows in Michigan?"

Yeah, I don't have a cluee.

@ejeviking I would like to see the progress, and the stages, if you care to post.  Your project is interesting, and how you made you decisions might benefit other people.

@blackx-runner

Let's start with the front of your house.

I agree that you should keep it simple.

POINT 1:  I believe you should incorporate curves in the beds--basically the curves would soften the look of the place in a good way, BUT....

POINT 2:  What you need to know is that you should keep it symmetrical

I'm going to draw you a little design to help you with the size and shape of the curves of the beds.

But here is the outline of the procedure you will follow:

- To make your life easy in the future, you're going to

a- remove the sod and dig out the beds (or till them and painstakingly get the grass out), then if you have heavy clay, you're going to mix in some compost.  If you have awesome midwest soil, you don't need to.

b-THEN you're going to rake it out all nice and lay down some good quality landscape fabric. NOT plastic.  Make sure the level of the soil and mulch will not be above your porch, which sits pretty much level with the yard from what I can tell.  You might have to move a few wheelbarrows of dirt to the back or sides.  You can use that to get good drainage slope around the ends of the house, and to help you as you prep for the "walk" and plants that will go around to the back patio from the driveway (for when you have people over to grill out. )

c--As you do this, you will prep for the edging material.  If I forget to tell you how to prep, cuz I'm so freaking long-winded, holler at me.  The edging will make you love your life and it will keep your beds looking great with very low maintenance.  (There is no such thing as NO maintenance unless you live in the desert and have rock beds with stone sculptures.) You can have just a "trench"for edging, but that's HIGH maintenance.  You want low maintenance.  That means work up front, to make life easier later.

Don't skip this edging step.   It's very important.   However it is one of the more time consuming bits, depending on what you choose to do.

d- THEN you're going to put in your plants and mulch with something NOT made of rubber and NOT dyed some funky shade of impossible red or brown or black.   And not white or funky colored rock.  Kay?  You have a blue house. Let it pop out of the landscape and be lovely.  Don't do some funky color with the mulch, and fake mulch made of rubber looks like fake rubber mulch forever. Your choice should be something inexpensive and available locally, like pine bark nuggets or bagged cypress mulch or pine straw or whatever is the thing in your area.  Any of that will fade to a nice warm brown/gray naturally, and will compliment your landscape and your pretty home.  You will buy a few bags of mulch once a year.   You will have to weed just every now and then, and it will be "oh there's a weed"  *walks out there and pulls it up*  The landscape fabric is your friend.  A good fabric will last for a minimum of 5-8 years.  I have seen it last 15.  I do not promise that yours will last that long.

Now...EDGING:

You have two options for the edging...

**Go and buy pavers and sink them side by side (NOT END TO END, OKAY?) in the ground to form the edge.    This will be beautiful. You can also do this with rough cut, flat rocks.  No cutting involved.  Your edge will be more rustic and grass might encroach a little quicker. The ditch will be wider, though.  So you have a thicker wall around the castle, so to speak.

Here is a good video from This Old Housee about brick pavers and how to lay them, and they even do a cheater wet saw with a circular saw and a bottle of water.  HOWEVER, you can get thinner pavers than what they show here. OR....get some kind of edging stone that has a natural curve to it.  Even rough stone like limestone of whatever you have in your area can make a great edging. BUT...  what they show here....this is the way to do it, and they make it simple.

*****Let me add right here, that the shape of that bed in the video is okay, but it's not wonderful.   There are some curves in there that appear to be added just "cuz" and make no sense.  Good curves are important, for a woman, and for a landscape bed.  They've got to be smooth, large enough to matter, and in the right places.


Yes, I'm appealing to the understanding of the main audience demographic.  

With regard to the paver installation.....You can cheat, but like all cheats, it's never quite as good as the real deal.  (Let me just say that I have cheated on this, many times.  I am not a snob about cheating on the landscape paver installation.  Nobody is going to die, after all. )

Your SECOND edging option is.....

**Use plastic edging.  The important part of this is that the pllastic edging has to be buried all the way so that only the round part at the top is exposed. Done correctly, it is barely visible.  And that's a good thing, because who thinks black plastic edging is beautiful?  NOBODY!  BUT it can work!  If you do it right, you can run your mower over the edging and not cut it.
OH my gosh, SO MANY TIMES  I've seen some of this stuff installed that is barely in the ground, sticking up out of the landscape like a black plastic wall that is supposed to keep the bushes back by sheer force of ugliness.  "Nooooo!  Don't get near the waaaaallll!"  

Now then..the OTHER side of it.....I am not gonna pretend I like black plastic edging, but it is WAY better than none, it's cheap (though not as cheap, normally, as the guy in the video got it) and done right, it can work really well.

Here is a video with a guy who shows how to install it.


Listen..this guy's "island bed" at the end of the video?  It's horrible.  Truly horrible.  It has no reason to live. Don't do anything like that.  BUT...he does a very good job of showing how to install the edging at the right height for the round top edge to be at the right level.  I might do it a hair deeper, so it's not so visible. It can work well, managed right.

This guy's curves are just....well...if I were a gay man I would be waving my hands and running in circles, yelling "OhMYGod!" in a little girl voice.  Just sayin.

BUT here's the key..

Whatever edging you choose......YOU HAVE TO SINK IT IN THE GROUND.  YOU MUST DO THIS.  If you want your landscape to look freaking awesome, you've got to sink the edging in the ground.  Even if some of your beds are raised, with stacked hardscape (rocks or bricks, etc) outside that stacked hardscape, you want an edging around those beds that is set in the ground. (Usually.  There are exceptions, but for this application, let's keep it simple) This keeps you from having to trim around it with a weedeater twice every freaking week. It also keeps the grass from encroaching for a long time.  You can just run your mower wheel right over the top of the edging and Ta-Da!!!!  Nice-looking landscape.  Tthe edging separates the hardscape from the grass.

I think you need to keep the beds in front level with the porch, sloping out toward the front of the property.  We ARE going to create elevation and height differences in your landscape, but we're going to do that with planters and different height plantings.

Now then....with all I've said, my point is that digging out and edging your beds is going to be the bulk of the work in your yard.  

I will give you a drawing, hopefully this weekend, of the curves I think would work for your house/yard.

Do you have questions about any of this?

I HAVE ONE QUESTION.

The mailbox by your front door says to me that your mail carrier walks your neighborhood.

Is this true?

if so, how does he/she get to your front door?

Up the driveway, beside your cars, along the front of your house to the mailbox, and back?

I ask this because one thing that would really, significantly, add curb appeal to your home would be a front walk. You can do this with pavers.

A front walk says, "welcome home."  Your property would benefit from that, in particular because it's a stately house, with columns, and there is going to be a gap for a walk in the landscaping at the front entrance.  Because it's a residential property, it's difficult to realistically design it any other way. Without a front walk, If I design beds all along the front,  the house might feel sort of "walled off" --maybe a little unapproachable, which is not a good thing when you are attempting to sell (which you indicated you might).

So....the walk would mean a few 18" paving stones laid out in a nice pattern (not two pavers, side by side, the depth of your front yard, though that is better than none.)

My design will include a front walk, (not an expensive one) unless you say you absolutely don't want that.

Now then...that's a lot to absorb.

Thoughts?  Questions?  Go drown yourself in the pond out back, Kitties?  

Talk to me before I draw this, scan it in, and upload it to the forum.

Let me know how my thoughts work or don't work with what you want.

I am very interested in your property.  The pond with the sand shoreline intrigues me.  

Post your photos.  Give me an overhead or a diagram of the property with sizes of stuff or directions or something.  I'll ask questions.  You'll have answers.

We will go from there and help you with whatever you need to make it beautiful and functional.

@Pavelow16478 did you do anything with the sidewalk yet?  I had some ideas, then got sidetracked, and scrolling back through I realized I didn't really address this much.

I know you have more stuff going on with the building for the parental units.

So not sure where you stand with this part...whether it's on hold for putting out bigger fires, or if you already did something with it.

Kitties

@ blackx-runner

I started to draw, looked back at your photos and got confused.

This photo...

It looks like there is a significant drop from your yard to the neighbor's in a very short span.   It appears you are significantly "up hill" from the neighbors with the white car.  I cannot see the bottom half of their wheels, which makes me think a foot of drop over eight or ten feet. (given your 60' property width--am I remembering right?)



Then in THIS photo, it looks like there's not nearly that much drop.  I can't really tell there's a hill at all.



Camera angles can  be tricky.

And along that same line...

Your comment about the drop from the yard to the sidewalk....I can't see that in the photos.  (I also could not tell whether you meant yard to sidewalk, or sidewalk to street, which is not pictured.)  If it's sidewalk to street...I'm not worried about that.

If it's yard to sidewalk, that matters.

I really hate to ask, but can you go down in front of the neighbors with the white car and take a shot up the street, so I can see your house, your yard, and the sidewalk and your driveway, from that direction?

Or if you can't, can you describe it?

I don't want to give you something that won't work.

So sorry.

Kitties

Gotcha

Okay these photos help tremendously.

I see what you mean, now, about the "safety" issue with a flat walk to the sidewalk.

I need to understand your thinking.  ABSOLUTELY NO JUDGMENT on any of this. I just need to know your thoughts on what you want to do or not do.

You said you weren't interested in steps, and to go straight to the sidewalk (my first choice) you would need them.  They don't have to be concrete or built by somebody else, but I get that it's more work. More digging. More installing pavers and such.  More thought investment.  More...just..more.    So, is that a matter of "I just don't wanna do that"? (which is absolutely fine, I swear) or is it the idea that you'd have to pay somebody else to do it?  I ask because you were not scared off by the "you have to do good edging" section of my last post.

I will give you two options.   But my FIRST choice would be for your front walk to go straight to the sidewalk.  Mainly because it looks like you park very close to the edge of your driveway, and a curved walk will be for looks only, mostly.  I don't generally do a lot of stuff for looks that isn't also functional.  I want it to function, too.    But secondly, because of your awesome front door.  The symmetry of your house, and the grand front door, would be enhanced by a somewhat formal approach to the landscaping.  It can be simple and formal (formal usually just means symmetrical) and that leads me to want a straight walk and landscaping to frame that front door. It looks like from the back tire of the car, down to the sidewalk, it's too steep to do without steps (on your potential walk.)  So the sidewalk would have to curve over to about where that blue car's back tire is, or else you would need steps.

Is that what you also see?

So...talk to me about the whole "not interested in steps" thing.  And for real...your answer will not be wrong.  I want to know what works for your REAL life.  Not a pretend one.

ETA one more question....Do others in your neighborhood have front walks?  Or does everyone pretty much just use the driveway?

Okay, good deal.  If a front walk to the driveway would actually work for you, then we'll call it a plan.  I think you're absolutely right to stay within the "return on investment" considerations for what you are after.

Back to you asap.

Don't bow yet. I'm havin' trouble finding what I want that I believe will be trouble free and actually survive your winters.