DH and I completed our landscaping class through the Putnam County Master Gardeners. It was very interesting and yet a struggle for me as I did all the homework. Well, DH did help in mapping out our lot.
One of our goals is to attract birds to our front yard, beyond sparrows and robins. Sure, you can put food out, but in Tennessee, to keep them year-round you also need bushes that grow berries, and if they are evergreen in addition, you have a chance of achieving your goal. Well, most bushes that have berries grow best in the sun here. That is a challenge with our lawn, which is mostly shady. The plan is to put in a bird bath and bird feeder and hostas, which are shade loving. Then on the periphery find some place put in some nandinas that would have a chance to grow and produced some nice red berries for the birds. While we do have a few, some are dwarf and will not produce berries and we don't know if the other ones will or not. Time will tell.
However, this morning, none of that seemed to matter. While DH was outside laying nitrogen down and rimming the house with Bug Out, he was dive-bombed by some birds. Maybe they were expecting him to spread bird feed instead?
When we lived up in Michigan, we generally bought Weed n feed. Rarely we put down a preemergent to kill the crabgrass, which wasn't really much of a problem there. Last year, that is all we had until we killed it all off and reseed. The first thing you do in early March is put down Nitrogen. Then preemergent and fertilizer. You fertilize for the last time near the end of April. No point in fertilizing during the summer here as we rarely get enough rain to help it grow. To buy nitrogen though, you need to show your driver's license - thanks Timothy McVeigh!
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