C l a r i M i c h e l e

It’s week 2 of the One Room Challenge, and my backyard makeover is starting to come together. After last week’s post, I sat in the garden for a few hours coming up with a plan of action. I had the beginnings of a to-do list in my head, but needed to decide how to prioritise it. As I sat there brainstorming, I finally admitted to myself that I could no longer ignore the mossy artificial grass.Ever since we moved into our English cottage nearly 2 years ago, I’ve been trying to convince myself that the moss makes the lawn look more “natural” and more “England,” but it’s actually the worst. It dies in the summer where the sun hits it, and turns brown. It sticks to everything like velcro. I would never want to lay a blanket down on it let alone sit on it. I knew that we would never be able to fully appreciate this space with the grass looking so sad, so that settled it.

The weather was nice last weekend, so I happily got to work removing 3+ years of moss growth. I started using a planting trowel to scrape away at it, but it was hard going. I’d scrape off the top layer only to find the moss was completely matted into the grass. Then I had the brilliant idea to kill the moss, and heard once that kitchen cleaner would kill it. I came back with bleach –which I know is really bad, sorry. I had better luck removing the moss once it was dead, but it was still backbreaking work.After I’d been using the bleach for about 30 minutes (on only about a sq ft of grass), Andrew came out to check on my progress. He shut that down real quick. Something about my method not being “safe,” or “efficient,” and me throwing out my back hunched over like that. The next day we went to the store and picked up actual moss killer spray, and a rake.

I used up the whole bottle of spray on the grass, and then went over it with the rake. Once the moss was dead, it basically turned to horrible dirt. I raked over it for ages and ages, and finally the grass started to fluff up a bit. I went back over the more difficult spots with the trowel.

So now let’s get a little before/after action to make me feel better about myself.

beforeAFTER!!!

Yeaaas, look at it! Now the grass looks more like dirty green carpet than velcro moss! #Progress! I’ve been using the rake to re-fluff it in the evenings after work, and I’m hoping that after a few more weeks of raking, it’ll look soooo much better. In the meantime, I’ve got a few other projects to tackle. ↓↓↓

Project List:

• Restore artificial grass
• Finalise design plan
• Purchase furniture & accessories
• Re-pot herbs
• Clean up flower beds

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