Our backyard is horrendous....?

Replacing the fence will at least give you something nice to look at while you do the hard work of yard recovery.

Pssst - it'll be a lot easier on you if you fall out of love with the idea of a "golf course" lawn and go with a more natural, meadow-y feel! Turf grass is the hardest of all plants to maintain.

After the fence, I'd go through and cut out the biggest of the dead things. Then step 3, I would spade up all the plant matter and remove it. Then get topsoil to dump on the ground and rake it til it's sort of flat. You can save money by putting the topsoil only in spots where you want flowerbeds, leaving bare paths in between. You can buy bagged topsoil a few bags at a time as you can afford it.

After the fence is secure, the lawn is the next thing.

After a good soaking rain, attack the weeds with a "dandelion removal tool". this will cost about 2 bucks at Ace hardware, or a dollar store. It is a long metal stick thing with a handle and a divided end, (like a snake's forked short tongue). With this tool you can get at the roots of the bigger weeds. You may have 'hen bit' - a purple flowered thing that looks like mint. this will break off at a place near the ground so you think you have weeded it out. YOU HAVE NOT! It will regrow. Ssssoooooo, you need the tool and the elbow grease to get at the roots and remove them. Put your weeded-out weeds in a container for a compost pile, or for the garbage man.

With the bigger weeds out, you can mow. If you mow with the weeds there, you may just be spreading the seeds of these things. However, weed out any plant that has flowers on it, because flowers turn to seeds and weed seeds are WAY more fertile than veggie seeds! and way better at growing.

If you have dandelions, try to root out the entire long root, otherwise it will send up 3 or 4 replacement dandelions from that leftover root. NASTY things. NEVER let a dandelion go to seed. I would pay my kids a penny a flower when it was bad. One year I paid out $20.00 TWICE. (Now I do have a big lawn!!, but that was ridiculous.)

Anyway, after mowing, go again to the weeding and then to seeding with grass seed on the barest areas. Lay hay over the seed like you see the professionals do. Hay is $4.00 a bale here in Kentucky.

Enjoy this fix-up job. Once it is done there is a huge sense of accomplishment.

Be blessed.

The fence is a good place to start cuz that is the permanent part everything else can change or not as you see fit.

After you fix or replace the fence mow the lawn to see what you are dealing with and wait to se if the tree is dead. If the lawn is not gonna revive with fertilizer or it's full of weeds or too lumpy then I would suggest removing the sod. and then rototilling and then raking flat then laying sod.

The sod will be the biggest investment. You can rent a rototiller and do the rest yourself. If the tree is dead you can cut it done.

that should mke a good start then the fun part is chosing the plants to put in the garden

if you have a dog or a pool its the FENCE first!!! some states have laws and all you need is to get fined! repair it from the inside using inexpensive slats of wood... you can even look for wooden pallets behine grocery stores or even neer dumpsters and take them appart and use that to fix your fence.

the lawn you should mow it. you can purchace a bag of seed and fertilizer mixture for about 20 bucks (big bag).

get a rake and score your bald spots on the lawn and sprinkle on to your lawn that is visible from the curb( forget the back yard you can fix that another time)

take everything thats dead or dying out and dont forget to water your newly spread seeds. walk on your lawn and check to make sure birds arent feeding on your $.

so far we are at 20 bucks and a lot of hours! oh nails cost about 8 for a box but if you use short screws your fence will stay put.

there you go 28 bucks... dont fret just get off your hiney! make a day of it out side! put the radio on and have a drink!

First, mow the grass..

then chop down the tree..

then, fix the fence..