[speaker001:] uh are you big into lawn and garden work
[speaker002:] well um I just bought a home so I've just now went out and purchased my brand new lawn mower and um so I've been assembling it and haven't had a chance to get out there and and test it out
[speaker001:] well do you is it a new house or
[speaker002:] no it's um uh it's an older home and uh so it already has the the yard's already been established um but there have like big oak trees in the front and so the grass is not growing out underneath the oak trees so I'm have to get out there and do something about that you know spread some seed and fertilizer and stuff
[speaker001:] um-hum okay I think one of the some of the problems with uh oak trees is their leaves tend to accumulate and they leach a lot of acid into the soil
[speaker002:] oh uh-huh
[speaker001:] so I found that when I had a uh wooded lot that I needed to put a lot of lime out
[speaker002:] oh okay okay
[speaker001:] to uh neutralize the uh the acid from the uh oak leaves
[speaker002:] um-hum uh-huh
[speaker001:] but there's still a problem that uh the shade from the trees just uh grass cannot grow
[speaker002:] right right right
[speaker001:] and uh one of the things that uh we did uh just we sort of made a little garden that uh surrounded the trees and planted uh pachysandra
[speaker002:] um-hum oh uh-huh
[speaker001:] which is a a shade plant that seems to do well underneath the trees
[speaker002:] hm that's an idea
[speaker001:] yeah so that saved the bare spots and uh you know also eliminated mowing the uh that area of the lawn
[speaker002:] um-hum yeah that's true that's true yeah I have um in between the street and the sidewalk see are two of the oak trees
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and then there's one uh sitting on the right uh facing the house on the right hand side in the middle of that whole section and then I have this whole section over there that has nothing in it at all but just just the grass so that may be an idea to do is uh because I've got that concentration of trees right there is to uh you know just do something like what you said was to put some kind of um uh little plants that does well in shade uh the shaded area and forget about you know trying to plant grass and stuff underneath that
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] the other thing too is that the oak trees have those acorns and I don't know if I'm uh going to have to go out there and if I can rake those up or if I'm going to have to pick them all up by hand or what
[speaker001:] I don't think there's it's it's an impossible task
[speaker002:] well I know but if you saw how many acorns were sitting up under there you'd see it looks like an impossible task but we have um um Texas has a lot of the um uh wooden fenced in back yards
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] for privacy fence so I did buy a a weed eater too and uh so I could get you know around uh around the wooden fences and um uh you know get all the weeds and stuff up out of there
[speaker001:] yeah well one of the things you may need come fall is a leaf blower or a leaf vacuum
[speaker002:] um-hum um-hum um-hum
[speaker001:] because I've you know my wooded lot at my previous house uh I didn't have to mow the lawn very often because it didn't grow that fast
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] but in the fall I had to spend a couple of weekends out there on you know two separate weekends just getting rid of leaves
[speaker002:] um-hum wow so what what did you did did you use do you have a blower or did you have the uh the vacuum
[speaker001:] well I had a a leaf vacuum to pick them up and uh
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] in the front yard I would uh just drive up to the curb and drop them at the curb the uh county had a pickup service for leaves dropped at the curb
[speaker002:] huh uh-huh um-hum
[speaker001:] and for the back I would uh vacuum them up and then put them on a tarp and drag the tarp out front to to dump them
[speaker002:] uh-huh wow
[speaker001:] and springtime you have to use bags to pack them
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh yeah that I've never I don't think I've ever seen um a a vacuum though for the for the lawn I know I've seen the blowers
[speaker001:] yeah well uh Craftsman put out a uh leaf vacuum a few years back craftsman Sears and Roebuck
[speaker002:] who was it oh Craftsman uh-huh
[speaker001:] and uh I think it was about two hundred dollars or something like that it was a very powerful machine
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] and it would have a tendency to pick up some of the uh acorns if they didn't get uh pressed into the ground
[speaker002:] uh-huh ooh that'd be good I think that's that's my problem is I I couldn't believe uh uh because uh I guess the other people they weren't really outdoor type people because the lawn really needs to be I have uh bushes and stuff that really need trimming and um so uh so I'm just thinking how in the world I was going to have to scrape up all those uh acorns that are sitting out there they even have some little trees growing
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] because they just left them the acorns I guess sit rather than raking them up um so you know I'm going to have to get out there and
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but it was interesting I had to go buy a hoe and a rake I mean the whole works because I've I've lived in an apartment for so long I've never had that kind of equipment so that was that was interesting to go down there and and get all that kind of stuff
[speaker001:] right yeah it's especially delightful moving from an apartment to a house so that you you can have a little piece of turf you can call your own
[speaker002:] yeah right right so this has been uh this has been an experience for me and uh uh but I I can't wait until we have uh uh some more time to get out there in the front yard and and really do uh you know a lot of landscaping
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] because I want to cut down all the the trees that they or the little shrubs that they have because some of them are like um they have the new uh green leaves I don't if it's getting green up there where you are uh but they're almost fully blossomed and but there are like sides of them where there're like whole dead uh portions of the shrubs
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and uh so I've been debating of whether or not just to cut out the dead portions or you know just to take it all out and I think I've pretty well decided just to take it all out and start all over again
[speaker001:] well you better price the new shrubs before you do that
[speaker002:] I'm just going to get the little baby shrubs the little baby ones you know take several years to grow there um
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] well it's not too bad I mean I I I thought they were pretty reasonable but I don't know I have nothing really to compare it with uh you know four or five dollars for a for a shrub
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I don't know and uh I hadn't really wanted to get that many you know to put out there I I much prefer flowers
[speaker001:] well my wife got carried away this past year and uh she cleared out a lot of the existing gardens and replanted with new things
[speaker002:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker001:] and I think she spent over a thousand dollars on plants and uh and fertilizers and mulch and everything else and it's it's not hard to go through the money doing that
[speaker002:] wow um-hum um-hum wow it's true it's true just just picking up the equipment that I have you know and and and I didn't blink an eyelash that's what got to me when the man you know said and that'll be five hundred and something dollars you know with my my big new lawn mower and stuff I was just okay you know so yeah you're right you're right you can I think you can go through quite a bit of money I think it depends too where you buy it from if you buy it from a nursery or um we have like Home Depot here I don't know if you have that there is
[speaker001:] um-hum we don't have that here we've we've got some uh local nurseries that are pretty fair on price but still in the metropolitan area they they hold a gun to your head while they while you write out your check
[speaker002:] yeah local uh-huh there you go that's right that's true I understand that well it was nice talking to you
[speaker001:] all right good luck with your new home
[speaker002:] well thank you
[speaker001:] and uh nice talking to you
[speaker002:] oh okay talk to you bye
[speaker001:] bye