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How Grass Works? Yes, How Grass Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles t. W Chuck Bryant, and we
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: were just talking about Canada, so I said to you,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and there's Jerry over there. So this is stuff you
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: should know. Hello, live from the Bowling Green how Stuff
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Mhm, that's what the site's slogan is. Yeah, uh,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: are you doing all right? I'm doing great? Watch this, chuck. Yeah,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: have you ever seen grass? I have, sir, you won't
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: find a lot of good grass in my yard. But no,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is it terrible. I've I've seen it before. I don't remember.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: It's pretty bad. Well, I mean i'll I will um
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: bemoan myself all throughout this one. So well you have.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: It turns out the traditional American yard, did you know
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: that peck dirt, maybe a little bit of garden around, um,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and there you go some native grasses. That's the that's tradition.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: And it turns out, um, that's the way if you
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: went to an American house, chuck um, pre Industrial Revolution. Yeah,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: pretty much you're going to find that. Like you're just
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: gonna find peck dirt in the yard, maybe a garden,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: some weeds. Nobody really cared much. They were more um
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: trying to survive. Yeah, right, And then um in the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, as Americans said, you know, we've been hanging
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: out here for a hundred years, let's go back to
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: England and visit. Yet they found it was But they
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: also found that the English had something called a lawn,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: which is a beautiful, well manicured expanse of grass that
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a very wealthy English could afford. Well, wealthy Americans were
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: never wants to be um out by wealthy British now,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So they came back and they're like, I want a lawn.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I am worth so much money it's mind boggling. Make
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: me a lawn. And whoever they were talking to said,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: we can't really do that here, right, The native grass
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: is not conducive to camped lawn. You can't pop over
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to the big box hardware store and buy huge sacks
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of seed, right, And so they said, well, you know what,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back. I'm going to the UK to
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: buy my seed. And then they traveled there, and then
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: fourteen weeks later they made it all the way back
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and they said, here, you go grounds keeper, Willie, make
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: me a lawn. Here's some British seed for turf grass.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: And he said, hey man, he said, when I'm done
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: with you, they're going to need a compost mortem. Whoa wow,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the deep cut. That was good. I think that was
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: treat house with horror, like oh the one where he's ready. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: nice man. Gonna need to come Postmoredom. So he said that,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and then he said, well, here's the problem. Our climate
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: is different than the UK's and these seeds aren't going
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to survive here. So the lords and the ladies said,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I give up. We'll figure something else out. And it
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: took the Golf Association, the U. S. Department of Agriculture,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and the American Garden Club to finally get together and say,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: let's make this happen. Everybody. Yeah, they got together. The U. S.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: D A got together with the U S. G A
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and they said, our names are similar, so let's let's
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: plant some grass together. Right. Uh So what they had
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to do basically was looked for, you know, kind of
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: full around with the right combination of seed varieties which
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: they imported from around the world. Yeah, just to see
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: like all right, what this, what's gonna grow here in
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: this new country because we gotta place in golf. Yeah,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: like Kentucky bluegrass. Friends, that's from Europe. Firm muta grass.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Where do you think that's from? Obviously Africa, that is right.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: God knows where Zoisja came from, although I believe Asia
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: and not just because Zoysia and Asia are somewhat similar sounding. Uh.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: It took him about fifteen years and they finally kind
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of settled on some good combination of grasses. Yeah, but
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: you can thank golf to start. So if you hate
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: golf but you love your lawn, yeah, you have to
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: kind of like golf anyway. That's right, Um, but still chuck.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Even though they finally came up with the right grass combinations,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: you had to still be pretty rich to have a lawn.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: The reason why was because irrigation was a factor. Cutting
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: it was a big factor. Like all of those manor
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: houses in the in the UK, they had people whose
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: job it was was to cut grass with a scythe Yeah,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, I would imagine. Yeah, because these
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: lawns were not small. Um, and like you said, they
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: didn't have like garden hoses back then, Nope, and buckets
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: of water is not a great way to water a lawn.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Um all the livestock that you know, they did cut
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: them with the sites, but they also had cows and
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: goats taking care of a lot of that. Yeah. Who
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: was it who had the uh the um sheep on
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the front yard of the White House. I don't remember
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: what administration that one. I think it was Wilson was it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: He was saying like, look, what you can do is
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: an American you can put a sheep on your lawn. Yeah,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: so do it. And then he sold the wool or
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: auctioned it off for like a hundred thousand dollars. Wow,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and he kept it. Probably it's a good story. Um.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: The lawnmower mechanical mowing in the nineteenth century became a
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: real thing when an Englishman named Edwin Budding, who was
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: an engineer, developed what it's called the real mower, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: that is R E L And you've seen these. You've
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: probably seen some suckers in your neighborhood with one. I'm
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: just kidding. I actually have a real mower. I live
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: in a Konda. Yeah, real mower's I mean you can
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: still get him in. They're great and they have zero emissions.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Which is really neat because a lot of lawnmowers, um
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: are pretty bad offenders. Yeah, their internal combustion engines, which
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: means they put out all sorts of greenhouse gasses. Yeah,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and and they're not you know, it's not like a car.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: You know, they don't have catalytic converters and things like that.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just straight up bad junk. So you
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: can get a real more if you're into it. Um
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: it is. You've seen them. It's a series of blades
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: around a cylinder and uh it is. It's geared, which
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: is the key to making it work. If you just
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: pushed it and it traveled like the wheel did, you
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be cutting a lot of grass. But there's a
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: sixteen to one gear ratio, so when you're pushing it,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: your wheels are turning at this speed, but the blade
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: is turning really fast. Yeah. That's sort of the secret
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: how they work. And apparently, um Mr Budding said or
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: he found another machine that was similar that was used
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: to cut the nap on velvet. Yeah do you know that? Yeah,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of where he got the idea. And
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: it took off like a rocket all of a sudden.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: People were like, hey, we can have lawns. Now, let's
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: buy these things. Apparently there were somewhat affordable. In eight five,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: America built fifty thousand of these things and sent him
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: around the globe. Yeah, that was the beginning of lawns
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: in America. Really. Uh. And you know what else that
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: got in vided? What the adjustable wrench? Is that? Right? Yeah?
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: You dynamo or is they called it the adjustable spanner?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Who called it that? Uh? The internet? And I was like,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: what the heck of spanner? And then it turns out
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it's a wrench spanner. This doesn't even make sense. Yeah,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: that may be an English thing. So um. The garden
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: host comes around and that helps too. That was a
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: big help as well. But even still you had this thing.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: It was kind of like, Okay, Richie, rich love your lawn,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I don't really care. I don't need one. And the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: American Garden Club said, oh, yeah, it's the nineteen fifties.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: You live in suburbia. You have to have a lawn
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: if you are a clean cut, decent America Rican person.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: And the American Garden Club had this whole thing where
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: they had contests and publicity and p s a s
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and basically drummed it into the head of every American man, woman,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and child that part of your civic duty was to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: have a perfect lawn sally. Yeah, and there was this,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: uh this article, man, I can't remember what the the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: article is, um or what the website is. I wish
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I could, because you know this, they did a great
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: job describing the history. But they quoted an American garden club. Um,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I guess stipulation that's an appropriate type of lawn was
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: quote a plot with a single type of grass with
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: no intruding weeds, kept moaning at a height of an
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: inch and a half, too short, uniformly green, and neatly edged.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: And then today Americans spend about thirty billion dollars a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: year on lawng care, you know how like people are
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: crazy for their pets and everything. Half a half a
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: billion really thirty billion on long care? Yeah? Now is
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that long care? Is that outdoor care care? Ok? Yeah,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I looked it up to just grass long care, not
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: planning a zaleus. No. I imagine like just the whole
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: total of outdoor stuff is sends it through the roof
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: of thirty billions long care. I mean I looked because
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that that UM article we borrowed from way outdated. Well
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: it was from like two thousand survey and it was
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: like seventeen billion on all outdoor stuff, outdoor home improvement.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I think they put thirty billion dollars on lawns. That's crazy. Yes,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: all right, let's get into grass. Um. It is the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: name for the Grandma gramina family of plants, of which
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: there are more than nine thousand species. And uh, if
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: you think, well, nine thousand species of grass, you might
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: not realized that things like corn and rice and oats
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: are grass plants. Bamboo is grass. Yeah, so building materials, plastics, room, sugar,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: all this stuff is made from grasses, corn grass, and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: some like if you look at a corn plant and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: then you get down on your hands and knees and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: look at your bermuda grass plants, because your lawn, although
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: it looks like one large, single organism, and technically you
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: could make the you can make the argument that it
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: is really is a series of interconnected related grass plants
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: that form a lush patch of turf. And if, like
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you said, if you get down and look at the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: little individual plants closely, it doesn't look so far off
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of a corn plant. Thank you for that thought for
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: me obviously growing No, but what is corn but a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: type of flower? Right? Yeah? I guess is it? No,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it's the fruit of the grass. I guess okay, because
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: corn does have like a flowery top. Yeah. And I've
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: heard I don't know if this is true. I've heard
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: that each corn stalk only grows one corn cob. Is
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that right? M I don't know. I'm not a farmer.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: We used to grow corn when I was a kid,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: but hated gardening when I was a kid. Man, I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: have to say, you remember we just recorded sushi, Yeah,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: and it made me want want sushi. This is like, man,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I love gardening. Yeah. Yeah. I think when you get
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: older you get into gardening because eventually, like you might
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: own a home and then you want it to look
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: nice and you want it to be a pleasurable place.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And gardening is just really uh like that's why every
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: old British rock star now just gardens out in the countryside,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: because it's just quiet and peaceful and it's just a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: really nice thing to do. Meditative. Yeah, very much. Um
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: right now, though, So you know, I live in a condo,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Like I say, I've got like a pretty nice little
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: patty garden going. But I am combating this one squirrel
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: who was driving me crazy. Is it the same one?
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Do you know? I believe it is. There was one
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: that was driving me crazy. I thwarted him, send him packing.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Now there's this I put up. So I have a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: bird feeder that squirrels love to attack. But I hung
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: it in a way and cleared off branches around it,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: so this one squirl go dive for it, miss and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: go sailing. And one time he hit it and realized
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: that he couldn't hang onto the chain and like fell off,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and that was it. This new squirrel man, he is
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: persistent TOAs squirrel. I'll look outside at any given point
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: in time and he is hanging upside down by this
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: chain with his feet eating out of my bird feeder
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: safflower seeds, which squirrels aren't even supposed to like. And
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: so that's just that he comes onto my patio. Now
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: it's war. He just digs up stuff, and it's like,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: stop digging in my plants. But I'm really kind of like,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you get a have a trap. I don't know if
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it's big enough for a squirrel, but you can get
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: traps and then just drive them out to Piemont Parking. Yeah,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: or you can set the trap behind like the exhaust
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of your car and turn on your car for a
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: little while. I want to kill a squirrel. No I don't,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: but man, this thing is pushing me. Yeah. I mean
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: if you look on like getting rid of squirrel websites, yeah,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: that's pretty much number one. Yeah, I don't want to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: do that. No, all right, you murderous thug. Let's talk
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: about you're a thuggy. I'm not, though, is the thing.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I don't smoke cashi and I'm not. I don't. I'm
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: not a band. Yeah, I just hate the squirrel. Let's
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: talk about grass. The grass plant itself. Um, at the roots,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: they are a little fibrous thread like and they're gonna
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: reach down to the ground like little fingers. They're gonna
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: soak up water and nutrients, and they're gonna secure it
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to the ground and then fustly that ground is gonna
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: be more secure as well. Yeah, because anywhere you have grass,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: it prevents erosion. Any type of grass is huge at
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: preventing erosion. Yeah. And I would recommend, as we're describing this,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: actually go to the article on how stuff works dot
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: com um about grass and pull up this great picture. Yeah. Yeah,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it breaks it all down. Um at the base. Uh,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the stem is called a calm, and the base is
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the crown, right, And the crown is like almost like
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: this clump of matter that's above the roots that the
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: roots are growing from that gives rise to the to
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the crown, yeah right, yeah, or to the um to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the stem, the calm. Yeah, there's a lot of like words.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I had no idea existed until this article came along. Yeah,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: always just called it the stem, but apparently it is
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a calm. And from the calm on the calm our nodes,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: which is I guess where new calm growth starts. But
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: for the most part that stem is going to be
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: hollow except that the node, which is kind of like
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: a connective ball. Yeah. Like if you've seen bamboo and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: how it looks like it's segmented, those the little places
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: where it's segmented, those are the notes. But it also
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: happens in your backyard grass as well. And then you
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: have the leaf, the leaf, Yeah, the stuff that we
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: call grass. We're actually talking about the leaf and we're
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: not even talking about the whole leaf. We're talking about
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the blade. So anytime you hear some old timer called
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: grass blades, grass he or she is correct. That's right.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: The lower part of the leaf is the sheaf, and
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: then the upper part is the blade. And then you're
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: gonna have a leg ule l I g u l
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: e um surrounding the connection of the sheath and the blade. Yeah,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it's almost like the blade comes to the calm the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: stem and just wrap it around in a hug. And
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the hug is the sheath. Which makes sense when you
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: see this picture because the stem it looks like it's
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: growing out of the sheath that leads into the blade. Uh.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: And then you're gonna have a couple of other things, um,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: these additional stems that grow sideways that you you might
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: have noticed. Um. If it's on the ground, it's called
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: a stolen and if it's below the ground, it's called
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a rhizome. And this is where you're gonna get new
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: grass plants. Yeah, this is how it spreads. Yeah. There's
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: two ways that um grass reproduces. One is through seeds
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: that are usually blown by the air um that are
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: produced by their flowers, or through um basically moving sideways
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: via a stolen or a rhizome, this kind of root
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: system that just goes over and produces a new crown
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and new roots and a new plant. Yeah, if you've
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: ever seen a new yard, um, then we'll get into
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: this later. You can either just plant seed, you can
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: do sod, or you can plant individual sprigs or plugs.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: If you've ever seen a yard that's all dirt and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a ton of little individual plants like a foot apart,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and you think, well, that's interesting looking, that looks very modern.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Eventually that's gonna all grow together thanks to the rhizomes
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and the stolen and fill in and form a yard. Yea,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So they are connected and because of that they are related.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: But really these are different plants, that's right. And it's
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: because of chlorophyll photosynthesis, because all grasses is a photosynthesizing,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: sugar making little machine. That's right. Remember sugar powers the earth,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that's right. So um chuck. There's probably a lot of
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: people out there who are just like, just tell me
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: how to improve my lawn. And we say, hold your
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: horses because we're gonna take a message break first, Okay,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: we're back. And that wasn't such a bad way, No,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it was very helpful to Um. So we're
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: talking how to take a lawn and make it into
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a world class American Garden Association approved lawn. Yeah, they
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: still had a lot of neighborhoods still have that junk,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: you know, where they have the contests and you're very
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: much expected to keep it up. It's to your civic
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: duty for your neighborhood association rules. I don't live in
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: one of those type of neighborhoods. There's no association, and
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of crappy lawns like mine as a result. Alright,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: soil that is uh, I guess your first start. If
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you want a good lawn, you're gonna have some good soil. Uh.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean you technically your soil is um
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: what holds your nutrients, It holds your water, It gives
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: stability to the roots and the plan itself. Soil is
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: pretty important. Let's just come out and say it, all right, um,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: And so with the soil, apparently for most turf grasses
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: in America, you want to have what's called loam, and
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: loam is a sand clay soil mixture. Uh. And ideally
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: loam would be sand silt and then clay. Yeah, it's um.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: You know, you want it to be sort of loose.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Uh so things can spread around and breathe and water
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: can get down in there, but not too loose. It's
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: got to be the right combination. And you also want
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: a pH of about six and a half to seven.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And um, this isn't something you can look at your
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: lawn and be like, uh five point three. Well maybe
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: if you're like the grass the soil whisper. Maybe if
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you are like that, then you should be charging people
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: for that kind of thing. I would think you'd at
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: least have to stick your finger in it. Right, If
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you have like a wacky disco ghost that follows you
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: around and it's really the one that's telling you the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: pH of different soils, you'd better be making money from that.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Uh So the pH you can get a home test kit,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: or you can have you can pay for someone to
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: come out and test your pH level. That's the more
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: typical way of finding out. Yeah, it'll either be acidic
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: or basic, and you can add various things to correct that,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: like sulfur or lime. Yeah, if you want to make
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: it more acidic, d sulfur, if you want to make
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it more basic headline, Yeah, and I've never done my
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: pH trading my soil. I've got you know, George is
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: famous for red clay. It's pretty awful. It's actually good
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: for growing, not not this. I mean, it's got to
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: be a mixture. So I've seen like clay. I think
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I think you're just just this is what I think
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: is going on. Oh boy, I know. I think your
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: soil is compacted. Yeah from I mean, have you ever
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: aer rated? Uh? Okay, Uh. You also have a lot
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of trees, so there's a lot of shade. Front yard
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: is way too shady, and um it's dry. Yeah. I
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: think if you fix those three things, you would have
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a fine yard. Well, here's what we're gonna do. We're
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: gonna forget about grass in the front yard and zero
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: escape it. Oh yeah, cacti and just small plants and rocks. Yeah,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go that route because it's too shady. And
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: then in the backyard. I have no excuse other than um,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: just not spending the kind of time you need to spend.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: The backyard seemed fine to me. Well, if you have
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: enough leeds and you cut them down, it can give
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the appearance of a green lawn. Oh, I got you.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: But it's not it's not real grass. All right, let's
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: get back to it because we're gonna solve your problems
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: just by explaining the rest of this to everybody. Okay,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: by the way, to improve your soil, um, not only
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: can you use the lime to get the right pH,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: but you can amend it with compost or fertilizer top
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: soil as well. Yeah, you can use manure, you can
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: use whatever. Just go out there and poop. Actually, I
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: looked into this. You want to use composted manure. You
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: don't want to add just poop to it now, that's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: all right. And you can just spread that stuff with
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: like UM fertilizer spreader. Yeah, you just have to use
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: more of it because it's organic, that's right. It means
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: it's weak. Yeah, and we'll get into some some cleaner
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: options too if you're not into chemical herbicides and stuff
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: like that. So you've got you've got your soil. You're
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: thinking about your soil, now, share a little bit of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: brain space for the actual kind of grass you want
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: to plant. So like UM. If you in America, there's
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: basically two types of grasses that we use, warm season
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: grasses and cool season grasses, and then there's a transition
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: zone in the middle. And by the way, you and
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I live smack dab in the middle of this transition
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: zone where you can considerably grow. Either the winters are
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: mild enough and the summer's used to be not so
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: hot that either one was prohibited. You could use both,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: so that like, uh, cool season grasses like Kentucky blue
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: grass a k a. Euro grass, warm season Bermuda grass,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and that's the one that turns brown in the winter, right,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I don't like it. It looks great in the summer,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: but I don't like it in the winter. No. I mean, like,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: if you've ever driven through a subdivision in Georgia in January,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: it is a depressing site. It's just this kind of mustardy,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: light brown khaki field with houses that all look exactly
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: alike right next to one another. But it looks great
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: in the summer. I mean, Bermuda is soft and uh
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: it's great to walk around on barefoot and lay in
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and what's the stars? Yeah, Plus it looks dynamite too.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: When you have you ever seen people who have their
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: like bermuda cut like a golf course, yeah, where it's
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: maybe a quarter of an inch tall. Yeah, and there's
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: special mowers that you have to get. There are thousands
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: and thousands of dollars that let you cut that without
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: killing your grass? Are they the ones where you stand
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: up and ride? Those are my favorite? That's just a mower.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Those these ones that are like they cut in a
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: certain way. Um, that are bermuda, just for that super
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: short bermuda. But yeah, bermuda turns brown in the winter
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: because it's a warm season grass, which means it's growing
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: season is the summer, cool season grasses. They don't go dormant,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: but they only really grow in the spring and fall. Yeah.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: And by the way, blue grass, if you've ever wondered
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: why it's called blue grass, is not named for the leaves. Uh.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: It is named for the seed heads. Is that right? Yeah?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: So uh, if you let blue grass grow and don't
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: touch it to like two or three feet tall, uh,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: it will appear blue at the tops. Beautiful. Yeah. And
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I never knew that. I didn't either Chuck schooled everybody, Terry.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Did you know that everybody, well everyone Kentucky is going
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: no crap, buddy man, Did I just insult Kentucky? That
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: was dead? Only? Okay? I love Kentucky. All right, so
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: you're you're picking your grass, you probably uh will end
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: up getting unless you're you know, a big bermuda ficionado
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: or something, You're probably gonna get a mixture or a blend.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Mixture is a combo of types of grass, and a
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: blend is a combo of varieties of the same type
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: of grass. Right, So like, um, a mixture is like
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: warm and cool season grasses maybe, or you get a
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: zoisha blend and it's all different types of zoisha. Yeah, uh,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And a blend is not as adaptable, but it will
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: probably look more uniform and attractive. Been pretty right. It's
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: not like pets work. But if you're just looking to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: fill in like some shady spots or something like that,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you might want to get a mixture, agreed, um. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: then another thing you want to take into account when
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: you're considering what kind of grass to get is the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: amount of sunlight that your yard gets. Like grass loves
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: sun direct sunlight. Uh, some love shade or not love shade,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: but some tolerate shape. That's way better way to put it. No,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: grassually love shade. And then there's some areas that are
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: like just shady all the time, in which case you
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: might want to consider something else like monkey grass or
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: something that's not a turf grass but it's still a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: grass that you can cut. Or zero escape. Yeah you
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: could do that too. I got that big oak tree
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: and it's just not very sunny in my front yard. No,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: which I'm glad you bring up zero escape because reading this,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: especially when we get to the watering part, it's like
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: grass is not going to be around for many more decades. Lawns.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: If we're gonna start fighting resource wars over water the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: next fifty years, there's no way that there's going to
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: be such a thing as lawns. Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: we're back to the old dirt dirt DApp or days. Yeah.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I'd welcome that dusty America, would you really? Yeah? The
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: dust Bowl was great times. We have one game it
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: was called chew the bark off the Tree. What's that from?
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: What was the crumpy old man the Dana Carvey thing?
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, to the park off the tree.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I think that's what he said. That's pretty good. Uh
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So the sun is you're gonna, like I said, or
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: like you said, take that into account, and then the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: water as well, um, there are grasses that like water
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: more than others, and some do a little bit better
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: without as much water. So if you live in Phoenix, um, well,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you're probably just watering all the time. But if you
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: don't want to water all the time, because you shouldn't
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: be watering all the time, because we'll get into watering
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: later and you should never be watering every day. No,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I predict lawns won't be around in fifty alright, mark
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: my words. No, Launce, we'll be dead. But let's see,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I could still be around. I'll be Aney three. If
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I'm still around in anty three, it's that'd be a
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: sad case of the human beings. I don't know, chuck, Like,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: they're making some serious advances in um in aging. Do
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: you want to be that old if I were healthy
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and happy? Heck yeah, all right, sure, especially if you
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: know friends and loved ones were like that old too. Yeah,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I guess so. I mean I wouldn't want to be
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: like cursed to walk the earth forever and like just
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: me be that way. But I mean I'm not talking
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: about a science fiction movie. No, I'm talking about, like,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: you know, advances in aging. Supposedly, if not our generation.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Then definitely the one right below us will see the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: triple digits for average life expectancy. And yes, that's the key. Yeah,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be chuffling around and drooling on myself. Well,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: there's a whole school of thought that like all of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: these are un necessary byproducts of aging. That it's not.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: You don't automatically become stooped over and demented just because
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you get old, Like we're doing something wrong or not
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: doing something that we should be. Well, that can come
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: bad all that. Like sarcopania, Yeah, that's easy, but like
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: getting into the brain stuff, that's a little trickier. But
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I mean we're there and you and I may live
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to benefit from it. Yeah. I think keeping the mind
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: active is huge totally because you know, Emily's grandmother's in
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: her nineties. She's sharp as attacked because she does puzzles
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: all day long and reads and on the internet. Balance
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: your checkbook all that chance. All right, So let's talk
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: about if you want to start a new on as
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: they call it, establishing a lawn. You can plant seed.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: If you want to go the cheap, hard working route, yes,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: but you have to wear nothing but overalls, nothing under
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: them no shoes. While you're planning seed. You can do SOD,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: which is we'll talk about that, or you can do
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the plugs and sprigs which I mentioned. Um, first things first,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna have to do this for all three methods.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have to prepare your soil. Yeah, so you
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: want to get like a tiller. Yeah, go down to
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: like your hardware store and rent one. Yeah, my mom's
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: got one in this case. Okay, so borrow it from
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: your mom. Anyone can borrow it from my mom. And
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: basically you're gonna it's probably a good idea to depending
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: on where you live. But if you live in a
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: subdivision and you value your cable UM TV or internet,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: you might want to call your local cable provider, your
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: gas company, you like a company and say, hey, someone
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: your people out and mark this and they'll come and
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: they're gonna spray paint your lawn and everything and give
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: you an idea of how deep it is. But you'll
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: know where your cables are and you can make sure
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the areator does then go too deep. You're gonna cut
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: right through one of these cables. That's a good point.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: So once you've done that, then you're gonna take that, um,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: not areator, I'm sorry, the tiller, and you're gonna till
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: the dirt up. You're just kicking it up down to
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: probably what six inches or so, I would guess. Yeah,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: and you you can, um, if you're oil is bad
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and you know this, that's when you're gonna add in
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: your top soil or fertilizer compost and you just kill
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: all that up together to a delicious soily soup. Yes, chuck,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: it is very important to add something to your soil. Like.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: You can't just kill it, that's right, and just leave
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: it like that? Well you can, I mean, if you've
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: got good soil, I guess, But I mean it doesn't
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: hurt to add more nutrients, does it? No? Probably not.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: But in some parts of the country you're good, like
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: you've got great soil and you're good to go. But
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: in Georgia, like I said, there's so much freaking clay
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: it's a nightmare. Um. Then you want to break that
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and level it out. They said you can use a
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: board scraper two. But you don't want to leave it
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: super bumpy and clumpy, right, Just smooth it out as
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: best you can. Yeah, and you're gonna thank yourself later,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: because if you have big bumps or holes or divots
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you're gonna run into those with your lawnmower.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: So you're doing yourself a favor by smoothing things out
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and leveling them. Now, that's right. Then you want to
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: scatter your seed. Um, you can't do it by hand.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: But what you want is one of those little walking
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: behind spreaders, uh that you get it hardware store. They're
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: pretty cheap, and you just dump your seat in there
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: and uh remember when you dump your seat in there
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: to keep a little gate closed, otherwise it'll just start
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: pouring out in a big pile. And then start walking
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: and open your gate. And it's got a little wheel
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: that's flywheel that spins and flings the seed out in
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: in a nice equal distributive manner. Yes, if you're doing
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: it by hand, you're probably gonna put too much some
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: places and not enough in others unless you're really good.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: It's very tough to do that unless you're that soil
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: whisperg guy he can do anyware right because his ghost friend.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: That's right. And then you take like a regular rake
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: and you just kind of want to cover this stuff up.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: A little bit, just rake over it. About half of
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the seat is covered. Yeah, if you have a lawn roller,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: you can use that, but um, I've never used that.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: So that um is basically it's like a big metal
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: drum that you fill a certain amount of water to
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: make it heavier and you just roll that over it
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to compact it something. Yeah, And like I said, I've
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: never done that. Um, but I got a crappy lawn
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that was the key. Yeah. Maybe so Uh, then you
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: want to cover that up if you want, with straw
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: multi material. They sell stuff in sheets as well. Um,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I've never done that either. I'm telling you I think
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I realized the mistakes I'm making. I think that you
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: should be a case study in this induced step by
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: step exactly what it says, and see what happens here long.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: All right, maybe I will Maybe I can get work
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: to pay for it. I'll bet you could. If I
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: document it via video, I'll back you up. All right.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: We'll see about that. Uh. Or you can go the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: easy route, which is side and that is when you
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: see the big rectangular rolls have already grown awesome turf
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and you you roll it out on your lawn after
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: your soil is prepared green side up and straight rows.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Make sure it's green side up. Stab. My friend used
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: to yell at out the window when he'd go by,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: like lawn cruise green sewed up. This is really obnoxious
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: a little. He's not my friend anymore because of that.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: But that says a lot about why greens, you know, uh,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: and you want to stagger it, like if you're doing
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a brick wall, don't lay them out, you know, and
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: exactly in a row, right, because the water will just
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: run right through there. It won't get trapped. Yeah, and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: it'll look a little funny for a while. It'll look
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: like squares of grass, and it will eventually grow together
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and look like one big solid turf unit. That's right.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: And the closer you lay your side together, um, the
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: better off you're gonna be because any patches in between
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: them will allow weeds to grow. Uh. And that's a
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: big problem with using spriggs, which is the third way.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Spriggs are plugs and spriggs are plugs. A sprig is
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: just a grass plant, a little individual grass plant that's
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: bare root. A plug is the individual grass plant with
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: like a little dirt root ball associated with it. Yeah,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: and you can order those online and get a bunch
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: of them shipped to your house if that's what you're into. Yeah,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: because some some grass doesn't it doesn't grow well from
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: seed like zoisja isn't. It doesn't propagate well from seed.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: But then some people are like, I don't have the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: money for sod. See can order a bunch of sprigs
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: or plugs zoeysa and do the work yourself. And you
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: dig these little holes about six or twelve inches apart,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: fill them with water. Then you take your plug, your sprig,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: put them in the hole and cover around it with dirt.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: There you go, boom. You want to weed these things
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: while they're growing in But zoisa apparently grows very fast
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: with the stolens and its rhizomes and whatnot. And uh,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: there you go lawn sixty eight weeks later or months
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: or years. Yeah, and all of these methods, you're gonna
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: you're gonna water a lot at first, um, just to
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: get things going. But we'll get into watering here in
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: a minute. To all right, Um, before we get into maintenance,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: should we talk about weed and feed? Oh yeah, which
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: is like the shampoo plus conditioner lawn care pretty much.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: That is a combination of weed and feed um herbicidal
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: chemicals and fertilizer chemicals. It might be pre emergent if
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you don't know what that means. That is a herbicide
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: that kills weeds before they sprouted in the cradle, that's right,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: or post emergent, which kills already grown up weeds. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: UH experts say this is not a good way to
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: go because optimum fertilizing time isn't the same as optimum
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: weed killing time. Yeah. Plus another problem is it's like
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: you may not need her and herbicide all over your lawn,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Like you don't want to use it just as a
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: matter of course, Like if you have some real problem
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: with weeds, um, you want to target them as much
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: as possible using kind of a low level herbicide rather
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: than just spraying herbicide all over your lawn because your
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: lawn is a plan as well. Yeah, and if you
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: have the children and animals and yeah, that you know
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you don't want to grap in your yard, at least
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I don't. So you got your plugs grown in, uh
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: you or your sod or your seed or whatever, and
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: you're like it's ready, I'm ready to maintain this lawn,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: it's established, what do you do? Well, there's eight steps
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: to lawn maintenance, and we will start with watering. Um.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: And like I said, you never want to have a
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: sprinkler set to water your lawn every day. No, it's
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: total waste. It's a total waste. Um. You might have
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: to water every day at first, but once it's established,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we should say that, like when you plan
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you have to water a lot more than
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: you normally would, I guess. Yeah, but once you're up
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and running, um, it's a total waste of water. Um,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna run your bill up and it's not
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: good for your lawn either. So you're really there's absolutely
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: no reason to know. What you want to do is
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: deeply soak your lawn when you water it and when
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it needs it. Right, and you can tell when it
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: needs it when you're when you step on it and
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: it doesn't bounce back in a minute a few seconds,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: then uh, it probably needs water. Yeah, it might curl
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: up a little bit. If you see it curling up
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: or changing color at all, you need to water, um.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And so get out there in the morning. Yeah, that's
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: the best time to do it. Yeah, don't dur in
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the middle of the day, it'll burn off. Yeah, it'll evaporate,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and the water in the morning will keep the soil
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: cool throughout the day. That's right. It's just a big
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: treat for your lawn. Yeah. And like we said, you
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: deeply soak it, so much so that you want to
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: have about an inch of water collecting above ground. Like
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a big long soak. Yeah. And if
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: you think, well, how in the world do I figure
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: that out? Just put a little cup out there, turn
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: your sprinkler on, and when that cup has an inch
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: of water in it, you're all set. I don't know
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: if that's right now, that's exactly right. No, because think
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: about it, that cup is going to fill up immediately
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: because no water is soaking through it. No, that's that's
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: how you do it. You put a cup and the
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: cup just collects little drops and it takes, you know,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: about an hour or more to fill that thing up
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: an inch. I think what I said makes sense anyway,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: because you out there and or not when when it
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: fills up in how is he going to tell if
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: it's I don't know. I guess you would take a
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: little measuring stick and like go out there every once
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: in a while and see you just put a cup.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Trust me, I think mine's better. Just guess. No, measure
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: with the measuring stick, because then you're measuring how much
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: water is collecting on top of the ground. And that's
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: what you're looking for because that means about six to
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: eight inches of the ground has been soaked. So measure
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: down six to eight inches. Is that what you're saying. No,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: just put it on top of the grass, like on
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the ground to like put it in the grass until
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: its measuring stick a ruler. So want I want to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: get this. You stick a ruler into the ground. No,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: you stick a ruler into the grass until it comes
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: in contact with the ground. And then when there's an
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: inch of water that measures up to the inch, but
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: it doesn't it soaks into the dirt, right, and you
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: want to keep doing it until there's about an inch
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: of water that's collected. Yeah, I'm telling you, dude, you
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: will never have an inch of water sitting in your yard.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: That's called the lake. Dude, I'm telling you, that's what
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: this article is saying. All right, I'm gonna leave it
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: out there. Okay, this is what we're gonna do the
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: people here. We're going to call for a turf pro
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: to tell us which one's right, and he will say, dude,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: if you have an inch of water, that means you
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: are flooded. We'll just find out. Agreed. So you're saying
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: the water the ground has become so supersaturated that the
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: water sits on top of the ground. Yeah, I'm not
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: saying it's saturated, but the water has accumulated enough that
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: it hasn't all soaked down enough. Okay, Okay, I think
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: it's clear he lives in the condo. Anyway, I recommend
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: you put a cup out. When that cup fills up
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: to an inch, then that means you're watered enough. I'm
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: calling for a terf expert to let us know what's what.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: All right, this is a good, legitimate disagreement. Okay, so
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: we were done with water? Yes, well, yea, that's right.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Uh and we mentioned water in the morning. Um. Mowing
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: is the second part of upkeep, and this is another
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: important thing because a lot of people think, oh no, man,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: you mow really low and then you don't have to
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: mow as much, and that is not what you should do.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: You should you should let it grow because it's better
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: for your lawn because when you cut too low, that
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: grass is gonna race to try and grow more blades
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: to make sugar, and it's gonna grow super fast, and
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: it's gonna use storage sugar. It's gonna weaken your plant
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: if you have tall grass, and that storage sugar is
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: gonna make new rhizomes and so it'll just be thicker
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and more lush. Yeah. But if you let it grow
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: too long, then it's using up a lot of the
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: nutrients from the root system and a lot of energy.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: So if you do something in between, I think for
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: like a cold seasoned grass, they say keep it at
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: about three inches um. When you cut it, you're just
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: basically forcing it to propagate because it's like, oh I
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: need to I need to pretty small chlorophyll, so I'm
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: gonna grow some more blades. So actually cutting it unlike hair,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: actually does make the grass thicker and more lustrous or
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: your lawn. Yeah. So you're doing the lawn of favor
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and yourself with favor because you're not gonna to mo
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: your grass as much. That's the dirty little secret. And
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: you can tell your wife, no, you're supposed to let
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: it grow and she'll say look it up and show me,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: and then you go to how stuff works. That's right. Uh.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: And in the summer you should let it grow a
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: little longer to in the falling winter, um, and spring
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: you cam o a little bit closer because you're um,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: your temperatures are cooler, right, so you don't need to
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: sweat it as much. Um. And then when you do mow,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: you should vary the direction you mow in, so like
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: one week mo north to south right and then the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: next week mo east to west. Yeah. And I think,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and a lot of experts think you should always leave
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: your clippings on your lawn and not bag them and
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: dump them. Um. Because when you're doing that, what when
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: you leave in the clippings, it ends up coming compost
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and it just helps your soil. If you constantly are
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: removing the clippings, that soil is gonna compact and get
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: hard and um. Yeah. So I'm I'm a big proponent
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: of of getting a multi mower and just leaving the clippings.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: And those clippings are do not equal thatch. Apparently the
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: clippings breakdown in like a week. Um. Thatch is actually
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: build up of dead crown and calms and other stuff
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: of the plant. It's not the cut blades. Yeah. It
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: actually if you remove your clippings, you're gonna encourage that. Yeah,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: So don't do it. Yeah, that's is no good. No,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: it isn't good because it keeps air and water out
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: of the soil, which are essential. Well, a little bit
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: of thatch can be okay some yeah, but not much. No. No.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And if you do have a thatched problem, you can
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: just break it out, yeah, and then your clippings will
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: come back the next week exactly. Uh. Fertilizing is key.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: You want to add nutrients to the soil. Um. Granular
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: fertilizer once or twice a year is the way to go.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: The spray on stuff it you know, that's not a
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: great thing because that just kind of gets on the
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: blade of grass itself. The granular stuff soaks into the
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: ground over the course of weeks, and it's like slow releasing, right, yeah,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: slow releasing. And um, a lot of these are chemical fertilizers.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not into it. There's a great brand called Ringer
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: and it's natural and um a lot of the chemical
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: fertilizers are just salt, and salt is no good for
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the ground. So it's really weird that made up of
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: salt understood that then the Romans used to salt the
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: earth of the lands they conquered. People couldn't grow stuff. Yeah,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: I mean what about idiocracy accidentally salted the soil using
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: gator right? Really? Yeah, I remember aerating, something I've never done,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: which is one of my reasons why my lawn stinks. Well,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: that's basically like, so over time, your soil becomes more
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and more compact, and as it becomes compact, there's less
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: error movement. Water trickles through, it's easily and is um aerobic,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: which means they need oxygen bacteria that helps like keep
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: things nutrient rich down there, and if they're not getting oxygen,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: they're not able to do their thing. That's right. So
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: you want to aerate, depending on how high traffic you are,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: maybe once a year where you use like one of
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: those it looks like what's the drum barrel the drumroller thing,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: but with spikes, hollow spikes and they just pull plugs
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: out of the grass that you just leave in place
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: and bam, aerraated. Yeah, and you can rent those two
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: at a hardware store. Um or they even have these
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: if you have a small yard. Um, they have aer
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: rating shoes that like, yeah, you just basically attach them.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: You just attach them to your regular shoe and strap
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: them on. And it's like just spikes that you walk
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: around in your yard. But you'd have to have a
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: pretty small onto, you know. Or kids. Yeah, that's true. Yeah,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: put them to work, attach spikes on their shoes. Yeah,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: that's probably safety. Like go run around, just don't run
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: around the same place. Um, we've talked about detaching. Uh.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: And then there's weeding. Um. Weeding is the bane of
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: my existence. And I don't really know what else to
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: say about it. It stinks I got a lot of weeds. Um.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Weeds aren't necessarily terrible for your yard if you have
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: a few, But um, no, and what are weeds besides
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: plants that we decided we didn't like. Yeah, but certain
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: types of weeds can indicate like if you have a
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: lot of dandelion, that means you're soil is too alkaline
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: or to compact, Or if you have a lot of clover,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: means it's too low in nitrogen. So it can be
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: a sign of some amendments that you need to take
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: care of. You can read the weeds. Yeah, read the weeds.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: And one thing if you, um, don't make the mistake
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I made, which is, hey, I'm gonna put a bunch
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: of weed killer on my yard and see what happens.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Because it's um. You might be surprised of how much
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: your yard is weed. And then you'll look out one
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: day and it's all brown except for a couple of
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: patches of green. Well, then you just start over right
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: with some seed. Yeah, I need to start from scratch
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: back there anyway, in the backyard. Yeah, it's just it's time.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: And then do you have pests? Yeah, I got all
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: kinds of pests. So there's UM this I guess it's
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: called biological control. UM, pest control using this stuff called
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Bacillus thuri giensis that is how you say it. And
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: it's a gram positive bacteria. It's similar to the stuff
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: that causes anthrax. Totally fine for humans, but for certain
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: kinds of long pests like flies, mosquitoes, butterflies, beetles, moths, um.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: They eat this stuff and it creates a um, a
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: crystalline protein in their guts that turns their guts to mush,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: and so the things starved to death and you can
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: just put that stuff on your soil. Basically, you're putting
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: bacteria on your soil and it will take cara pests.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: It's nice, man, that was this is informative, I think. Yeah.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: It was like, we don't do a lot of how twos,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: but we just did the mother of all how twos?
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Has you got anything else? I got nothing else, man,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: So if you want to know more about grass, you
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: can type that word into the search part how stuff
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: works dot Com. It will bring up that really helpful
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: demonstrative picture too. Oh yeah, uh, and I said demonstrative,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: which means it's time for a listener. Now, I'm gonna
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: call this fish bowl at the LaBrea tar Pits. Hey, guys,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: a huge fan of the show. Gets me through my
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: long commute. Just listen to the LaBrea tart Pits and
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the fish bowl at the Page Museum sounds similar to
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: a setup that I've worked in before at the Aquarium
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: of the Pacific and Long Beach, which I've been to.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: It's pretty nice. Is there a fish bowl? Is offich
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: bowl there? Well, there's a fish bowl where they work.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: I interned at the veterinary department which had glass wall. Also,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: visitors could check out the procedures. Turns out the glass
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: walls are really neat for the observer, but really annoying
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: for the fish inside, meaning uts. I never saw anyone
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: tap on the glass and yelled nerd, but we did
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: have a regular onslate of small children tapping and smashing
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: their faces against the glass. One day, in particular, we're
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: doing surgery on a chuck wala, a lot of people
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: were outside the glass watching a little boy started tap
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: tap tap tap tapping. Eventually, the veterinarian got fed up,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: slowly turned with a scalpel and glared and pointed at
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the little boy. Ve shook his finger at him, and
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the little boy's eyes widened in fear and he ran
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: away crying. And that was my favorite day of my internship. Anyway,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: that story always makes me chuckles. I wanted to share
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: keep being awesome, And that is from Caitlin with a K.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Nice thanks a lot, Caitlin. Yeah, you threatened a boy
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: with a scalpel and that was Caitlin was just witnessed
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: that and he cried, and that was Caitlin's favorite day.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: If you have a favorite day, oh that's a good one, Chuck.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Tell us about your every day. We want to hear
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: about it from everybody. You can tweet it to us
• 49:04
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• 49:06
  Speaker 1: K podcast. You can post it on our Facebook page
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: at Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at Discovery
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: dot com and, as always, joined us at our beautiful
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: it how Stuff Works dot com