Marj Baker

Trim up the trees neatly, don't leave big stumps, put down a thick mulch in the tree area, rent a heavy duty mower and take off the ivy, over seed the lawn with a good brand shade mix grass seed with clover in it. keep it damp. or buy the seed with the mulch built into, but it is expensive and needs less watering, you could also have a company come hydroseed it.

I will look into the mini clover at my local store, that looks fantastic, thanks for the suggestion.

Yes there is white clover in the mix I bought, I love clover, my lawn is doing great, and the flowers are doing wonderfully.

I found 2 tablespoons borax with a half cup of sugar mixed together works great, I scuff up the ant hill and pour it right in, cover with soil to keep the birds and critters out, ant hill gone quickly. I have a friend who put the mixture in an old plastic peanut butter jar with a small hole in it near the top, set in the soil near the ant hill, keeps other critters out.

Violets are one of my favorite woodland plants, wherever I live there are violets, if they are in the path of the mower they get cut, but other than that they live in my yard, they would be great for your bees, I couldnt imagine how nice violet honey would smell, also violets are edible and make nice fragrant little bouquets.

I recently rebuilt my entire yard, the house I bought was owned by a very old man who did a lot of damage including rototilling the entire yard, he left it all lumps and bumps, his composter contained his nitro medication, his dentures and a set of silverware, so he wasn't quite right. half the yard was moss due to his using the wrong chemicals, and walnut trees growing all over. quite the disaster, I killed off the moss and what grass was here with vinegar and iron, leveled the lawn, moved all the good plants, reseeded the grass, spread myke and blood meal as suggested by my soil test and 3 weeks later have cut my new grass, I plan on staying organic. We bought a farm once that had been sprayed so many times with atrazine by the previous owners that nothing would grow and all the beneficial creatures were gone., no more chemicals for me, after seeing the damage they do.

Does anyone else use mycorrhizal fungi as a soil amendment and what is your opinion?

looks like quack grass to me, hard to kill without chemicals, but you could try covering the area with black plastic and leave until it's all dead, reseed with a grass mixture
that works for your area, but don't stir up the soil in case some weed seed is lurking below the surface, just seed and water. A soil test is always suggested, if the soil
has the right nutrient balance for grass, the weeds will not get a start. And remember grass seed can take 2 weeks to sprout, just keep the soil damp. Seeding is best done in late
August - early September.

I gave up after several different readings from several kits, I sent my soil out for a test to an accredited lab , cost $20.00 but very accurate, I now have grass and flowers growing
were nothing grew before.

I bought a sharpening kit for my reel mower, the hardest part was getting a wheel off to crank the reel, I still have all my digits and the mower is sharp.
I love my reel mower for my small lawn, quiet, low maintenance, no fossil fuel.

a video showing how to sharpen is here:

http://youtu.be/ABLKMt_QyOE

http://youtu.be/1XlsQNITgX8