When we updated our property four years ago our landscape architect specified about 20 blue fescues for a south-facing area.  It was a nice design but the climate and soil conditions proved too harsh for these grasses and they slowly succumbed.  At this point about two-thirds of them are dead or near dead so I decided to salvage what few I could and move them to a shadier location on the north side of my house. The next step is to amend the soil with plenty of organic matter in the hope that we can take advantage of this sunny location to grow watermelons. We had enough success with our first batch of melons last year (moon & stars, charleston) to motivate us to have another go at it this year. The only problem we had was cucumber beetles which eventually killed all our melon vines. We’ll need to find a way to keep them off our plants this year.

(photos to follow)