Long story short - we have spent the past year desperately trying to grow a meaningful lawn without forking over thousands of dollars for sod. Right now we have a lawn that some would say is nice - it still has patches of grass-less space. But if you look from far away, it does not look half bad.
According to our landscape professionals, in normal weather we would only need about 30 minutes of watering twice a week. Unfortunately this is not normal weather and the grass minimally needs about one hour's worth of water 3 times a week. Now watering for an hour is silly - the ground saturates to quickly and will not absorb the water it so desperately needs. To combat this problem and still get an hour's worth of water, we have set our cycle of zones to run twice. It runs through zone 1 - 5, and about a half hour after zone 5 finishes, the whole thing starts over again. All this is done early in the morning while it is still cool (who calls nearly 80 degree weather cool at 2 am?) so that the grass can grow deep roots and suck up as much water as possible.
Enter the only true neighbor we have. They moved in about 9 months ago. We have had our sprinkler and drainage plan going since they have moved in. This weekend though our lawn maintenance is no longer OK. Our neighbor's lot has NO grass, it barely has weeds. It is - for all intents and purposes a large mud pit. They are trying to get grass growing in their lot and now it is our issue that their dirt is "wet" and they can't get the grass to grow. Without pointing out the obvious facts, trying to get grass to germinate in 90+ degree weather is nigh impossible (we tried last summer), the fact I have no control over when it rains and your "yard" becomes a mudbath, and I can't control the wind so that it doesn''t blow some of the water onto your lot, I tried very hard to be civil. I tried to explain how I understood what was happening - we had the same issue - we live on a hill. If it rains, where is this dirt supposed to go except down the hill? I said I would check with our lawn care people about what if anything we can do.
Enter lawn care guy. He confirmed the fact that yes, we do live on a hill so any sort of water is going to drain down the hill through the neighbor's lot. There is almost nothing they can do to change that fact. He then proceeded to say - we can't not water your lawn. If we stop watering, we have dead grass, which means nothing is holding the dirt in place, which means more mud in the neighbors lot. He checked the sprinkler heads, which are in order and the program, which is appropriate for the weather we have been having. The only thing he said we could do is reduce the percentage of water coming out of the heads by 25%. So we made the adjustment and after a week I need to check back in with him.
Now, I have to inform the neighbors of what I am doing to HELP their situation. On one level, I am sympathetic. I know how hard it is to grow the grass - we are still in that process. But it isn't our fault that our neighbor's are unable to get their grass to germinate. At what point do I throw my hands up and say I've done all I have done??? Personally - being the mean person I am, I think adjusting my already minimal watering scheme (I don't even water every day of the week) is more than enough. We didn't have any neighbors come out and help our lawn situation. Neither has anyone else in the development - even the people at the bottom of the hill who bit the bullet and sodded their entire lot to stop the mud movement.
I refuse to believe that their mud issue is totally our sprinkler issue. It has been fine for the past 9 months - why now? My personal belief is that the city is sending them nasty letters, which by the way - we got and had to deal with as well. Other people in the development have as well. Their code violation is that the city requires you have a lawn in by a year of residing in your home.
If it isn't clear, this whole situation is bugging the living daylights out of me. I find it hard to be in the house and try to prepare for the next school year with this hanging over my head. I want to have the confidence that I will handle it civilly and not become a total *itch. At what point can I say I have done all I can to help your situation but there is nothing else I can do about it. Neighbors - you need to deal with your problem yourselves - we didn't have any help and we have been more than generous.
Ugh, rock and hard place. But at least yesterday and today I reorganized all the stuff in 2 closets, a desk, and 2 nightstands. Here's to hoping I can do some brain work tomorrow, if not, I'm not sure what else is left in this house to clean or organize.
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