Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Where to rent a tiller?
Our side/back yard is about 85% creeping charlie. I would like to till everything up and plant new grass, leaving a big chunk open for a new veggie garden. Does anyone know where you can rent a tiller, preferrably in the St. Paul area? Or, for those who have redone their own lawns, is there a better way to do this?
Re: Where to rent a tiller?
any hardware store usually rents tillers. we rent from a little hardware hank that is near our house but i bet home depot rents them too.
if you just till the creeping charlie into the ground, i'd be afraid that it would just come back. maybe look on the U of M extension website to see if they have recommendations for getting rid of it?
Thanks for the link, Strength. There's some good info there. We have a Hardware Hank not too far away. I'll give them a call.
I've also sprayed the area with roundup, which did a pretty good job of killing it. I'm hoping that going over it with a tiller will cut up the roots, too. You can't be too aggressive with creeping charlie!
I've had good luck renting from Hejny's Rentals in Maplewood. They're across the street from Aldrich Arena. http://www.hejnyrental.com/
Otherwise I think you can rent them from Total Tool off of Snelling and 94. http://www.totaltool.com/
This, absolutely x a million. I can tell you from personal experience that it will come back with a vengeance. From all the research I've done and talking to pros, even a little bit of chopped up creeping charlie will reestablish itself and get stronger.
We've done a lot of work in our yard and the areas where we got a sod remover to completely remove the top layer of dirt and sod/creeping charlie are the only areas where it's not coming back. I think it worked because the roots are shallow and it spreads by runners so removing that top layer gets rid of it all. The other areas, even the ones where we sprayed with a roundup type product, still have patches of creeping charlie.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
You're kind of depressing me.
A big chunk of the area is going to be garden (I'm enlarging my current one). I'm hoping that since that will be reworked every year, I'll have a fighting chance. I'm not nut about needing a really neat, 100% grass lawn, but I do think it should be more green than purple.
Sorry, I don't mean to depress you. I know what you mean about wanting to see more green than purple. Our lawn was pretty good when we moved in but the neighbors on 2 sides have all creeping charlie and weeds and it spread into our yard. It has been a constant battle, but we are slowly winning. We're also trying to use as little chemicals as possible because of my dog.
I were you, and you're okay with using chemicals, I would spray a total vegetation killer to kill the grass and all weeds and then add compost, till and sod/reseed. I would do a soil test to see if you need to add any nutrients. Creeping charlie supposedly thrives in soil with high calcium so you could use amendments to alter that. It also likes shade and compact, poorly drained soil so if you alter that, you could get rid of it easier.
I've heard from a few lawn care people that the best time to kill creeping charlie is when it's flowering. At that point, it's putting all of its energy into producing flowers so it's weaker.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.