Lawn treatment

[Eddie]

Has anyone purchased earthworms as an alternative to aerorating (sp?)?

I think the soil in my yard is getting a little too compact, but I hate the way yards look after aerorating, and worms are dirt cheap (no pun intended).

As someone who has plenty of nightcrawlers in their lawn, I would vote for aerating over worms.

Our lawn is covered with little mounds from where the worms come out at night, and I HATE all of the little bumps everywhere. I don't know how to get rid of them now and I'm afraid we're just stuck with them.

I guess the one plus is that I don't think I've bought worms to go fishing for years. I don't use worms much (mostly just when there are little kids going), but it is nice to never have to buy them.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Uhh, solar lights are entirely unacceptable altogether, IMO. Low voltage, baby.

What is wrong with solar lights?

I have an outlet in my backyard by our new fountain so I could go either way. Convince me.

[Donuthole]

What is wrong with solar lights?

I have an outlet in my backyard by our new fountain so I could go either way. Convince me.

Very simply, they aren't bright enough. Another problem, every solar light gets a different amount of sunlight, so they can even vary in brightness and/or duration from one light to the next. Also, the color of the light is a much colder blue than the amber glow of a low-voltage light--it's not inviting, IMO.

My prior neighbors had solar lights in their backyard, and I have low-voltage. Looking out my bedroom window, I cansee into both backyards (creeper!) at once. My backyard looked well-lit, warm, and welcoming. Their solar-lit backyard looked dim and cold. I would snap a pic to show you, but they moved and took their solar lighting with them (so I guess that's one advantage).

My lighting took an afternoon to install (10 lights total) as opposed to the 5 minutes it would take to install solar lights. The difference is well worth the time, however.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Very simply, they aren't bright enough. Another problem, every solar light gets a different amount of sunlight, so they can even vary in brightness and/or duration from one light to the next. Also, the color of the light is a much colder blue than the amber glow of a low-voltage light--it's not inviting, IMO.

My prior neighbors had solar lights in their backyard, and I have low-voltage. Looking out my bedroom window, I cansee into both backyards (creeper!) at once. My backyard looked well-lit, warm, and welcoming. Their solar light bnackyard looked dim and cold. I would snap a pic to show you, but they moved, and they took their solar lighting with them (so I guess that's one advantage).

My lighting took an afternoon to install (10 lights total) , as opposed to the 5 minutes it would take to install solar lights. The difference is well worth the time, however.

Gotcha. Thanks.

[jay santos]

Very simply, they aren't bright enough. Another problem, every solar light gets a different amount of sunlight, so they can even vary in brightness and/or duration from one light to the next. Also, the color of the light is a much colder blue than the amber glow of a low-voltage light--it's not inviting, IMO.

My prior neighbors had solar lights in their backyard, and I have low-voltage. Looking out my bedroom window, I cansee into both backyards (creeper!) at once. My backyard looked well-lit, warm, and welcoming. Their solar-lit backyard looked dim and cold. I would snap a pic to show you, but they moved and took their solar lighting with them (so I guess that's one advantage).

My lighting took an afternoon to install (10 lights total) as opposed to the 5 minutes it would take to install solar lights. The difference is well worth the time, however.

Advantage Donuthole on the exterior lights. Solar lights never look good, IMHO.

[falafel]

Advantage Donuthole on the exterior lights. Solar lights never look good, IMHO.

+1. especially if you are mixing warm lights with the cold solars. For that reason, I really hate solar lights lining a front yard walk way b/c they are inevitably mixed with much warmer carriage lights, etc.

[ERCougar]

+1. especially if you are mixing warm lights with the cold solars. For that reason, I really hate solar lights lining a front yard walk way b/c they are inevitably mixed with much warmer carriage lights, etc.

Maybe I don't really want to invite you into my house. Maybe I'm going for the message "yes, this is a very warm and inviting home, much nicer than the cold dreary place where you dwell". Or maybe I want a sort of moat effect--"strangers beware of the cold uninviting yard you'll have to traverse to enter our warm abode."

[TripletDaddy]

I agree that low volts are brighter and more consistent. Our ward neighbors have a sweet setup that looks really striking on a winter night when the yard is covered in snow. That is what sold me on doing it this summer. Also, our house already has low voltage wire running around the yard, so it will be a pretty easy project.

Truthfully, the main reason I want to do the low voltage is because during football season, I want to change the lights to blue or white the weekend of football games :rockon1:

[mtnbiker]

Bought me a new Stihl edger today. We have always had good luck with our Stihl trimmer, but we have been wanting to try an edger for a while. This is the unit we got (FC 70):



Holy cow, I love this thing. I haven't had this much fun with a new tool in a long time. These beautiful clean edges make my little engineer heart go pitter patter.

Lebowski, how's the edger these days? Still working fine and liking it? I'm curious because every 2-cycle engine I have owned was picky about being used at least once a month or it would build up varnish and wouldn't start. Did you start this one up periodically during the winter? I'd like to get an edger, but everything I've looked at has had rotten reviews online.

BTW, what's up with the Advanced Search feature? I searched multiple times for various combinations of Stihl, edger, trimmer, and Jeff Lebowski, and couldn't generate any hits. I had to search threads manually.