# AHRD's 2021 Lawn Journal



## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

Figured it's about time I started a journal for my lawn's rehabilitation. I'd like to say that I inherited the mess of a lawn we had but regrettably the sad state of the yard was due to some serious neglect and poor cultural practices. The process started in July of 2020, not because I was looking for a Tier 1 lawn but simply to keep the HOA off of our backs as we'd received several notices about the state of our yard. The majority of the grass had died and we had some clover infestation, creeping charlie and heavy moss coverage. The yard felt soggy in parts and compacted in others and due to the not irrigating the yard, despite having in-ground irrigation, the tree in the yard had developed extensive surface roots.

I borrowed a Greenworks dethatcher and went to town on the lawn. There wasn't much viable grass to begin with but after dethatching and running the rotary on the lowest setting, it was practically dirt. We scratched up the surface of the dirt and threw down what looked to be decent seed coverage on the ground. Having just overseeded a few days ago and weighing my seed, I now realize I'd put down way too little seed last season which required in turn a follow up overseed in late August. Through sheer luck, we had a stand of grass and couldn't have been more excited. My mindset changed and a sense of pride had developed for that yard after seeing that grass grow. I now wanted to make sure I didn't screw it up and let die or go back to the sad state it had been in. Around this time I had just discovered TLF and read about the Fall N Blitz in September so I was able to get in about 4 weeks of spoon feeding the lawn AS at about 0.25lbs N/M. I picked up a Fiskars manual reel mower and slowly worked to bring the height down to ~1.5" and left it there at that height until Spring. The grass responded well and went into winter looking strong...by my standards at least. I was going to use the winter to start addressing some of the issues causing the moss and work on reducing the overgrown garden beds which were completely blocking the front of the house and growing into the yard.

Here's a photo a few months before we closed on the house.



And after almost 10 years of neglect.







Post/Pre 2020 seeding


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## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

Grass coming out of winter was looking pretty decent. The clover in the yard took off and I could see poa a in spots, especially around the driveway and sidewalk. My goals going into this spring were to take out a lot of the trees that were overgrown, causing excess shade, planted too close to the house or that I just plain wanted to replace. Also in the plans was to level the lawn with sand and overseed to take care of the bare spots.

First plan of attack was work on the garden bed area of the yard as I waiting for the lawn to wake up. I took out the magnolia last October with the intention of reclaiming that portion of the garden bed for the yard. Next was the two arborvitaes that were planted way too close to the house and had reached about 15' tall. They had also reached almost 5' in diameter in places so they had covered a couple of the windows of the house preventing sunlight. That side of my yard has historically been soggy and is now getting full sun. We had a maple tree that had become a bit overgrown and so that came out as well and was replaced with a snow fountain weeping cherry. Crocosmias were dug out and replaced with a fukinagashi japanese maple. The evergreen looking topiary came out and was replaced with lavender twist weeping redbud, which looks like a twig at the moment but should hopefully do well where it's planted. Took out the three bushes in the garden bed across the driveway and planted a zinfin doll, endless summer crush and strawberry sundae hydrangea along with blueberry ruffles lavender.

About a month ago I cleared the beauty bark and crap dirt from the garden bed where the magnolia was and brought in about a half yard of 90/10 sandy loam/compost. The plan was to allow the rain to help settle that area and then bring in some additional soil to bring it up to level with the rest of the yard. I did not expect it to be fully level and was ok with that knowing I was going to top dress and level the lawn with sand soon. Next was to address the clover and poa a, I did a blanket app of Tenacity and Triclopyr and that did a great job of smoking the clover and turned the Poa white which made it easier to identify and hand pull. The tenacity definitely had a bleaching effect on the yard with some sections worse than others, I'm not sure if it was a portion of the yard with creeping red fescue but it was pretty badly dinged. I worked down from 1.5" hoc to 1" and was very happy with the look at that cut but the bleaching was still driving me crazy. My new Sun Joe electric reel came in and decided that with a few weeks before I level the lawn and overseed, lets see what the 0.6" hoc looks like and cut off some of the bleached blades of grass. Unfortunately the Sun Joe has 4 settings 0.6", 1", 1.5", and 2" so I broke the 1/3 rule taking it down. I'm a bit torn now because I love the look at 1" but 0.6" hoc looked pretty damn good too, I think the sweet spot for me is somewhere in between but I'm going to need to get a greensmower here soon.

A photo after all of the tree removal/planting and of portion of reclaimed garden bed, I can see the front of my house again!



Side garden bed with hydrangeas


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## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

So the weather forecast called for a nice stretch of unusually warm weather starting on 4/15 so my plan in the two weeks leading up to that date was to try and prepare the yard for leveling and seeding/overseeding. I already had 1600 lbs of mason sand sitting in the garage ready to go, 10 lbs. of SS9000 (Slugger 3GL, Stellar 3GL, Grand Slam GLD), tenacity, Humic DG, and peat moss ready to throw down. I had previously filled holes created in the yard from pulling Poa and cutting surface roots will straight sand and some of the seed I'd be using couple weeks prior to the overseed prep and much to my surprise, there was very good germination in those spots despite the soil temperatures in the high 40s and surface temps in the 50s. This helped my nerves as I was preparing to do a heavy sand leveling, beyond the 1/4" sand cap recommended with a heavy overseed.

On 4/1 I sprayed about a 12-16" swath of glyphosate on the yard along the driveway, sidewalk and along the portion of the yard that butted up against the new portion of the yard reclaimed from the garden bed as those areas have had the most weed pressure and a fair amount of poa that I hadn't picked out yet. I followed that up with another application of gly on 4/8. I'd been cutting the lawn at 0.6" to remove some of the tenacity bleached blades of grass and decided to keep it there for the leveling. Plan was to throw two days, 14/15th, at this project which I felt would be plenty as the area is 500 sq ft. I find out the afternoon of the 9th that my kids daycare will be closed for the next two weeks as there had been several positive COVID cases, none in either of my kids home rooms thank god, so we spent the next 14 days in quarantine. The CFO was kind enough to take the 15th off of work and watch our girls so that I could still attempt this level/overseed project. So after work on the 14th I try and knock out most of the prep work. Mowed at 0.6", ran the Sun Joe scarifier attachment at -0.5mm through the yard, -0.10mm where I'd glypho'd the yard and any low spots. I ran the rotary on it's lowest setting to vacuum up all the debris and then proceeded to aerate what I could finish before it started getting dark. I went in to the garage check on the Flowzone Storm sprayer as the plan was to spray some tenacity as a pre-emergent after seeding the next day and it wouldn't turn on. It had been acting up a bit during the last time I'd sprayed where it wouldn't turn on with the lower pressure setting so I'd have to set it at the higher PSI and toggle back down but this time it wasn't turning on at all. The next morning I went through the troubleshooting steps and spoke with a gentleman from Flowzone and was able to determine that the issue was the toggle switch was wearing and would send me out a new one. Unfortunately the show must go on so I was going to seed without tenacity. The next morning I finished aerating the yard and ran a perpendicular pass with the scarifier and then one last pass with the rotary to get up any remaining debris.

After 1st round of scarify and aerate, yard was looking rough



Now time for the sand! Online calculator stated I'd need 1160 lbs of sand to create a 1/4" cap for a 500 sq ft lawn but I grabbed 1600 figuring I'd need a bit more because of the area where the lawn meets the reclaimed portion of the lawn was much lower than other spots and other parts would be getting more than 1/4". I should've purchased more. I did a heavy aeration and the lawn just swallowed up the sand. I couldn't be happier with the results though, while this will take several more top dressings before completely level, my lawn is firmer than ever and water just drains incredibly relative to before. I threw down 3 lbs of seed before the sand with some Humic DG and Propeat 7-4-14 and another 3-4 lbs of seed worked into the top. This was being overseeded into a lawn that last summer/fall was seeded with 50/30/20 Excellence Rye/Chantilly Creeping Red Fescue/Midnight KBG.


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## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

2 days after seed down with high 70's heat I decided I would throw down some peat moss to help with moisture retention. The initial plan had been to rent a peat moss spreader but we were home bound so I busted out the Groundskeeper 2 rake and distributed it throughout the yard. I had instant regret as I should of screened the peat moss first as there were twigs and chunks of bark, a lot of which I had painstakingly removed from the yard in preparation for leveling and I just threw a bunch more into it. I also probably didn't help matters by laying it on too thick in spots, lesson learned.



Had a small spot of the yard that germinated in 3 days but knew this was most certainly the exception and not the rule. I figured best case scenario I'm looking at 5 days but with it being early spring, realistically the more conservative germination estimate would be better to go with so I don't drive myself crazy watching the yard 24/7. Well, I failed in that respect, I was constantly checking to see if there was any movement. Around 8 DAS (4/23) was what I deemed widespread germination.

I pulled these from the garden bed yesterday which is exactly 10 DAS. Already some nice tillering and roots.



2 DAG



3 DAG


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## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

Sitting at 10 DAG and the yard is starting to show some signs of being whole again. Definitely itching to get back to mowing the entire lawn and feeding it but will hold off till 14 DAG provided it's dry. Pretty happy with the germination thus far, some spots definitely need some touching up and spots that previously had a bit of washout are starting to show signs of germination. Had a little bit of what looked like pythium blight in one spot in the overseeded portion of the lawn so I threw down the curative rate of Disease Ex at 5 DAG. Germination is coming in waves it seems with the spots getting the most sunlight naturally germinating quicker. The couple of trouble spots are frustrating as there was plenty of seed/soil contact whereas I have seed germinating in the garden bed in full shade under the Japanese maple, behind the large rock and in the relief cuts of the driveway, go figure. I threw down some extra seed and will give it a week before I get too concerned. The worms are going nuts in the yard but there are a pair of crows and other assorted birds feasting on them daily and have no interest in the seed. I'm anxious to core aerate in the fall and top dress again as the new area of the yard did not receive core aeration, just top dress with sand and lags behind the rest of yard in drainage. I will just periodically top dress it with sand until it gets aerated as that section also has to come up to level with everything else. I also have about 90 lbs of AXIS DE in my garage that I want to incorporate into the yard in the fall. Took advantage of some down time and planted 2 white and 2 pink gumpo azaleas along the side and a bowl of beautiful peony near the house.

6 DAG:



9 DAG:





10 DAG:







Hydrangeas and lavender are starting to come along with the endless summer crush a bit quicker than the paniculata hydrangeas to develop.


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## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

Sitting at 12 DAG most sections are growing in strong and about ready to be mowed but I want to give the lawn a few more days as the second wave of germination is coming along and don't want to step on it yet. Hand pulled some clover and broadleaf weeds but nothing too crazy, yet. I will put down some Propeat 13-5-8 at 14 DAG but with rain in the forecast, mowing will have to wait until next week.


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## amartin003 (Apr 30, 2021)

I'm so jealous - my KBG is going to take an eternity to sprout!

Looking good!


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## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

amartin003 said:


> I'm so jealous - my KBG is going to take an eternity to sprout!
> 
> Looking good!


Thanks amartin003! Ironically enough I would prefer to be seeding with KBG but unfortunately it's a bit difficult on this side of the Cascades. If I can get the soil dialed in over the next few seasons I may give it a go, seeing as I'm a glutton for punishment. I'm planning on doing a Pangea GLR monostand reno for the back yard in the fall. Best of luck with your seeding!


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## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

Was fortunate to have enough of a dry spell on 14 DAG so I got in the first mow on the entire yard and threw down some Propeat 13-5-8. Still have some trouble spots that were weak in germination that I will reseed here soon, mostly along the sidewalk where the earthworms got crazy. I need to bring down the level in that section to be closer to the sidewalk so I'm going to try and run over that section with the scarifier at the lowest setting in hopes of grinding that area down. If I'm not at able to get it down where I need it I'll break out the Pro Plugger. Got a second mow in yesterday and with sunshine in the forecast, hopefully I'll be mowing more frequently, working in the yard has become incredibly relaxing and therapeutic for me.

14 DAG, first mow



17 DAG


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## AHRD (Apr 9, 2021)

At the 21 DAG mark now and have gotten in 3 mows. Lawn density seems to be improving from the increased mowing and fertilizer. Nice sunny weather in the forecast should help things as well. Spoon fed the lawn some Propeat 17-0-4 and sprayed some RGS. I ended up throwing down some seed in bare spots a week ago with some Milo and completely spaced on the Iron and now have some nice dark green spots in the yard. The dark green has me looking forward to applying the first foliar N and Fe application on the lawn. Most of the garden beds are done as far as planting, outside of some bare root hostas that should be here any day now. Added some dwarf mondo grass and a drinking gourd hosta to the mix.

20 DAG



Snapped this morning trying to get a photo with the dew, section along the sidewalk needs some extra seed soon.


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