this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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I have lived at my current property for nearly 7 years now, and while I cut the main area up against the house once a week, I typically let the rest grow out for a month. Never used sprays other than flea and tick for my dog's yard, and never even pulled weeds.
Still, it's almost all completely homogenous grass. Not sure what species, but it doesn't grow very high. 3-5 inches. No wildflowers have encroached, no other grasses except clover, not even weeds other than dandelion. The only other thing that grows anywhere is some English ivy that's pissing me off all over the house. Every time I pull some out and dig up the root, I find more a few days later.
Still, MUCH higher insect, pollinator, and other wildlife activity vs my previous residence. It's been nice seeing fireflies again, even if it's still nowhere near what it was when I was a kid.
Our yard is about 3" of top soil on top of basically solid clay. When we moved in a little over a decade ago I tried taking on the dandelions, but I quickly pivoted to planting clover. Now we have tons of the stuff, fewer dandelions despite no chemicals (not that I really mind them anymore), and our yard smells fantastic in mid to late spring when all the clover is in full bloom. Tons and tons of bees, crickets, etc. We re-did a flower bed and intentionally planted swamp milk weed and red crocosmia in it. They look fantastic together and the bees absolutely love it, not to mention the butterflies.
But yeah. About English ivy. Been fighting that stuff for years...
Switch it for a proper garden.