Hi all,

I just wanted to ask a yard maintenance question. I live in Houston, Tx and with the change of season, my grass is starting to grow slowly. I decided I wanted to put something down to help stimulate growth to have a healthier yard and provide some nutrients to the topsoil. My grass is green and I've seen little new growth, but there are a feel hard patches. I don't have a underground watering system, it's just me and a garden hose. Sorry, I didn't include pictures, but I didn't think it was necessary, since I only want to add some more actual care to the lawn soil itself.

I went to home depot but when I asked for fertilizer they directed me to the garden department and I found bags of mulch, garden soil, compost, hummus and manure, weed and feed, fill dirt and topsoil.

So, before you say google it. I'd rather ask here because Google doesn't provide years of trial and error (experience) on this topic. My goal is again to do more than the lawn mowing, trimming hedges, and watering. I'd like to actually attend to the grass and soil, but nothing that requires a lot of maintenance, but more than that's been done over the years. So, any suggestions on what to purchase to put down would be appreciated?

Also, if you have any additional lawn maintenance and landscaping tips I'd love to hear those. I'm a one man crew, so I need practical, simple and efficient ideas. I don't want to be that neighbor with brown grass with patches of dirt, ant mounds and weeds.

Also, never saw a bag at home depot that said just plain old "fertilizer". I'm just curious that they still make it and I just didn't see it.


Thanks in advance

-Groucho The secret word is cigars!