# Did I blow my chance to add lime?



## Sly Bob (May 6, 2020)

Lets go back, way back some 30 some odd years.
When I built this house back then we put the sod on mostly clay, used a little loam to level but not much. Maybe 10 years ago I did the Round-up thing and killed everything and planted a fescue mix from these guys. I planted 6,500 square feet of grass from them.
Please don't persecute me for posting a link and feel free to remove it if it's against the rules.

https://www.wildflowerfarm.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=20

The lawn looked decent, not to the pros here but it didn't look too bad. It soon got thin though and fertilizing with instructions on the bags didn't really do much. Most places when I run the mower over it, it didn't cut much.

If my dog, or a dog being walked by the house peed on the grass it grew REALLY well in that one spot. Overseeding never really seemed to do much and when I did I used a standard Scotts seed as the fescue wasn't readily available and the idea that fescues were better has faded.

A few years ago I'd pretty well given up. I'd fertilize in the spring and hope like heck everyone would walk their dog by the yard, at least a few spots would be green and lush.

I used to have a fence on the south side of the property and on the north side of where that fence is about 400 square feet of moss that I'm told will be gone if the pH is adjusted.

This year I got fed up. I just retired and want this to look better, I know SOMETHING is missing so I fertilized at a rate of 1.5 times what was on the label. It looked a little better a few weeks later and at this point I was fed up. I had bought a bag in spring of high nitrogen fertilizer that covers 17.000 square feet and I laid down the rest of the bag with a spreader. Remember that I have about 6,500 square feet of grass.

It was either going to look better or kill everything but it actually looks pretty good, you can't see where the dogs have been doing their business so THAT'S good. I'm now seeing sections growing that really haven't for years. Oh it's still a little thin in spots but it's a HUGE improvement over where it was.

I want to dump a bunch of lime as I know pH is way out of line but if I use lime now at a rate of about 11 lbs/100 square feet, is all that fertilizer going to come back to haunt me? It was maybe 3 weeks since I fertilized the begeezes out of it.

Appreciate any help you guys can give. I'm thinking that I should dump the lime now and then check pH and see where I am after the application. Just worried about all the fertilizer that is down there now.


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## Sly Bob (May 6, 2020)

Oh yeah, who makes a good homeowner grade pH meter.


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## Sly Bob (May 6, 2020)

Okay, 88 reads but no one wants to read my rambling so I will summarize.

My pH is really low, I've put nearly 3 times the fertilizer that is specified on the bag to green it up and if I lime now to raise the pH, will the excess fertilizer burn the grass?

It's been about 2 weeks since I put all that fertilizer down.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

If your soil test says to apply lime, you can apply it now. What does you soil result say? How much?


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## bernstem (Jan 16, 2018)

If you post the soil test, you will likely get more response, but without seeing the test most people are not going to give any advice on liming.

You can apply lime at the same time as Nitrogen without causing damage. If you do have very low pH, raising it to ~6.5 will free up nutrients in the soil. Again, without a soil test, though, there is no way to recommend a type or amount of lime that your soil might need.

You also have fine fescue, which is perfectly acceptable as turf grass, but much less common than Tall Turf Fescue, Bluegrass, or Perennial Ryegrass. In general, its nitrogen and management requirements are less than the more common grasses. Like everything, it has benefits and downsides.


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## Sly Bob (May 6, 2020)

Some good information, thanks for the responses guys. At least I have a starting point now...


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