I hope you kept up with your winter watering when conditions were dry. These here-today- gone-tomorrow snowstorms are fine, but we have had fairly minimal soil percolation. You can tell how your landscape is doing by probing with a simple moisture meter or by poking into the topsoil with your finger. Anyway, this is the time of year when gardens need an extra drink or two, because bushes, perennials and flowering bulbs are just starting to wake up.
Your lawn needs attention too, of course; start with aeration. According to my gardening guru friend (and author), John Cretti, “(Spring) aeration will increase water and air penetration, stimulate new growth into the root zone area and provide openings for fertilizer and pulverized compost to enter the soil. If you need to over-seed a thin lawn, the openings left from aeration provide lodging places for grass seed to germinate more successfully. The best results can be obtained from aerators that remove 3-inch cores, 3/4 inches in diameter and spaced at 3 to 6 inch intervals. The aerator should cross the lawn at least twice, going in two different directions.
“It is particularly important to core aerate lawns that are established on clay soils that are prone to compacting from human and pet traffic. You can leave the plugs on the lawn, and they will eventually break down after several mowings.”
Dear Ken: I’m trying to avoid another hot summer this year. I don’t have air conditioning so I was wondering, do you recommend those whole house fans, or the attic kind that hang over a vent? — Steve
Answer: I prefer the whole house fan. Why? Because it cools the living area in addition to the attic. It’s sort of air conditioning “on the cheap”; they cost about a third of regular A/C setups. The fan mounts in the central hallway near the bedrooms, and at night you can open windows to suck cool evening air through the house and out through the attic to purge the day’s heat.
For all houses — fan or no fan — it’s important to have enough attic ventilation. Most homes just barely meet the code standards, but it may not be enough in the summertime. You can add some turbines on the rear side of the roof, or better yet install a couple of gable vents in the sidewalls.
What about solar-powered vent fans? At first they sound a little pricey, but when you consider an electrician’s charges to run an extra circuit, the cost gets more justifiable. I think the typical claim that “Just one will cool a 1,200-square-foot attic” is a little optimistic. I would figure one per 800 SF or so.
Dear Ken: One of the lavatories in our master bedroom drains super-slow. We tried some Liquid Plumber with no results. Any other ideas? — Diana
Answer: It probably needs some physical — not chemical — help. The diameter of these drains is fairly narrow, so in conjunction with dental floss and dropped vitamin pills, they trap gunk partway down that you can’t see without removing the pop-up stopper.
If it won’t budge, it may be constrained by the little lift arm that makes it go up and down. If so, it’s easy to modify it so the stopper can be removed any time you want. Put a bucket under the drain and remove the arm and lever temporarily. Pull out the stopper and you’ll notice a scored line on the bottom. Use pliers to carefully snap off the bottom half of that tab. Reinstall everything and now it will pull straight up and out so you can check it for trapped material when the drainage slows down again.
Dear Ken: Every year little birds keep nesting on my ceiling fan on the patio. How can I keep them off besides running the fan all the time? — Jeanine
Answer: Apparently, birds don’t like roosting on sticky surfaces. Look for a gel product in a caulking tube at the pet or wild bird store that you can apply to the top of the fan — one brand is called Bird-B-Gone. Ultimately your little friends will get the message and go someplace else. This approach also works on hidden horizontal surfaces frequented by pigeons.
Dear readers: Here’s part two of the responses to our “Tip of the Week” callout we held a while ago on the radio show:
• Jean uses a homemade weed killer that works as well as the name brand but is virtually free to concoct. Combine 1 gallon of white vinegar, a pound of Morton salt and eight drops of dishwashing liquid. Add to a spray bottle and spritz on undesirable plants around your foundation, sidewalks and the driveway. Be careful to avoid desirable landscaping elements though, because the mixture sterilizes the soil for a while.
• Mary uses the following mixture as a window cleaner: 1/2 cup of ammonia, 1 cup white vinegar, 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a half bucket of warm water. Spray it on glass and wipe off with newsprint. She says this is her mother’s recipe, and the family swears by it (in cold weather add ½ cup of rubbing alcohol).
• Ruth had raccoons living under the porch. She soaked a towel in ammonia, threw it underneath and the family moved on. You can also use mothballs to accomplish the same thing, but they last a long time, and so might repel you for a while
• In the critter control department, Mary hangs a bar of Dial soap inside an old stocking where the squirrels hang out. Apparently, soap is anathema in squirreldom, so they go someplace else.
• Finally, one of our winners, Julie, has a simple way to get rid of ants. She sprinkles salt on apple and cucumber peelings, leaves them near the hills, and voilà, no more ants.
Ken Moon is a home inspector in the Pikes Peak region. His call-in radio show airs at 4 p.m. Saturdays on KRDO, FM 105.5 and AM 1240. Visit aroundthehouse.com
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Around the House: Time to give your lawn some attention - Colorado Springs Gazette
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