# thompwa's House of Neglect Journal



## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

* Intro*
I'm new to TLF and fairly new to caring about grass at all. I don't know much yet and I'm trying to learn enough to be dangerous. Figured I would start a lawn journal early on as I tackle my project since it will be a fairly large job and I doubt I could keep up if I put it off. I'm starting from scratch here in both lawn knowledge and actual lawn...so any tips I can learn here are welcome. I'm in North Alabama.

*The quick background*


Almost two years ago we bought an old house knowing that for the foreseeable future my life would be completely consumed by projects. To say it had been neglected for a long time would be an understatement. I don't just mean the lawn, or just the house, I mean the entire piece of property and everything on it. I've always been a DIY kind of person and will usually choose to do a project myself unless I can't but this was definitely my biggest undertaking to date. So since early 2018 I've spent my life, every free moment of every day, doing something on this house (for the most part solo). So now, two years later, after a complete plumbing overhaul, electrical overhaul, new kitchen, drywall, two new bathrooms, hardwood flooring, a new roof, a first kid on the way, and a few grey hairs, all while working a full time job - I've finally got a hall pass from the wife to begin working on the outside.

*Getting Started*

The only thing I did outside early on was take out the massive magnolia tree in the front yard that was destroying the right side of my yard. The primary reason I decided to do this when I did was because I needed to run a new water line from the street to the house and it was going to run nearby this magnolia tree. I opted to dig the root ball up with a mini ex rather than cut it and grind the stump because I knew at some point I'd want to have nice smooth lawn and a ground up stump would probably not make that any easier. So, I climbed that tree wielding a chain saw and topped it, then hooked a chain to the trunk and pulled with my truck while my dad pushed the trunk over with the mini ex. This probably wasn't my smartest move, but the tree was only 30ish feet tall at that point and I felt like it could be done somewhat safely.



*Fast forward a year*

There is a new front porch on the house that wasn't there before. This was the last big project I had on the house and was one I hired out. Luckily this fell toward the end of summer so I was able to parlay the workers destroying the yard into lawn renovation. I brought in 12 cubic yards of screened top soil and worked to level the yard as best I could. This will probably be an ongoing battle, but the spots that are left I can work with.



*Getting my bearings in the yard.*

So, the yard was a giant salad. It had a little bit of everything out there, but mostly crab grass. One of the neighbors who lives nearby told me that the original owner had a nice bermuda lawn 25 years ago, but that's the last time that he could remember anyone doing much with it.

There was an irrigation system installed at some point on the secondary meter and I was able to find 3 sprinkler heads, but unfortunately between digging footings for the porch and destroying the lines close to the house and not knowing the state of the system in the ground everywhere else, I just decided to go in with a fresh system.

I started by renting a sod cutter to remove the old crab crass everywhere I could and get down to bare dirt. This was a lot easier than I anticipated but still a lot of work. At first, my plan was to haul away the dirt/grass on my utility trailer but I quickly realized that was going to be way more effort and I was able to rent a dumpster and use a skid steer to remove the crabgrass rolls and haul them away






Pretty much what that left me with was a mostly smooth patch of bare dirt that was ready for irrigation. I used an online planner that I found and measured the space to try and plot out my irrigation system. I didn't have much experience with irrigation and to be honest this was a fairly daunting task to research. There was a lot to know and I struggled with the idea of trying to get this right. I solicited suggestions from a few friends (one of whom used to own an irrigation company) and got started.



*The Irrigation Project*

I decided to go with a bit of a Frankenstein system after a little bit of research. I liked the adjustability of the RVAN nozzles so I decided to go that route over a traditional rotor. I bought a hunter 4 zone timer with rain sensor from my local Ewing and got to planning. I was able to get the coverage that I needed from about 4-5 different nozzle types and throw distances. One of the most difficult parts was trying to figure out how much water I would have to work with. I knew I had about 95PSI at the street, but I really didn't have a way to measure GPM accurately since my hose bib at the house is necked down to a 0.5" PEX line and I planned to run 1" PVC to the irrigation system. Of course, I could extrapolate that out a little, but I wasn't sure how close I could get and that had me concerned that I would over estimate or under estimate my GPM. I actually ended up finding a formula online to convert PSI to GPM by taking into account pipe diameter, etc. That got me really close and I was able to more accurately plan out how many zones I would need. and what kind of throw I would be able to get away with.



I had the city come and mark all of my lines (mostly just the gas since I knew where the water line was) and I rented a trencher to lay out all of the pipe. I went ahead and rented it for a full day and got started at about 8am. I think it ended up taking me about 4 hours off and on to get the trenches dug. I found some of the old irrigation lines while I was trenching so that kept things interesting. I tried to go fairly deep with most of the trenches so I could run multiple lines through the grid without having the stacked pipes get too close to the surface. I did my best to keep the pipes at least 10" deep and more when I could so I could avoid worrying about them freezing. 




I spent the better part of two weeks digging and laying out pipe and gluing up joints. Unfortunately right in the middle of the project we got a nasty downpour and I ended up having to clean out most of my trenches from the dirt that back filled and covered my lines. The one silver lining was that it softened the soil enough to make digging a little easier. After laying everything out, I started Tee-ing in the heads and that took me the better part of 2 days for the 22 heads. With the heavy rain we got, the other issue I had was that my lines got filled with dirt that needed to be flushed. Once I got the manifolds assembled, I decided to go around to each head and remove the nozzles and blow out all of the debris. While that was necessary, it unfortunately made the yard that much muddier to work in.

Lastly (and this catches me up to where I am today as of 9/14) I turned each zone on with the bleed screw and walked around and adjusted the spray pattern to get it pointed in roughly the right direction. I'll still have more tweaking to do moving the heads up and down and I'll probably have to swap out a few nozzles but the worst of it is over.


Next up I'm planning to fill back in the trenches and smooth everything out one last time with my homemade drag harrow and get the bermuda ordered. I've called a few places in town and it sounds like the going rate is around $85-$110 per 450sq ft. for Tifway 419. I am expecting to need about 6.5 pallets as best as I can measure.

I'm going to throw down some starter fertilizer before I put the sod down and do my best to give this stuff the best chance of survival.

I'll update again when I make more progress.


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## Brackin4au (Jun 13, 2018)

Welcome to the rabbit hole bud. Nice write up!


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## HungrySoutherner (May 29, 2018)

I drove by you're house the other day and I thought I wonder if he's on TLF. Good luck with the reno. I'm going to warn you right now, if its not to late, don't buy uncertified Tif419 from the sod farms around Huntsville. Make sure its tagged and certified, otherwise you will end up with every variety of bermuda under the sun. I've battled it for 3 years , and purchased sod for other projects in my back yard and only got lucky once with 40 sqft of sod that was actually 419. The sod that was laid when my house was built was contaminated with all sorts of common and other varieties of bermuda.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

That's awesome! Stop by and say hello if you see me out there. I've spent a lot of hours out there in the last few weeks. You're 100% right about most of the farms I've called around here. Only one I've found that will stand behind the purity of their sod is a farm out in Gurley.


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## HungrySoutherner (May 29, 2018)

thompwa said:


> That's awesome! Stop by and say hello if you see me out there. I've spent a lot of hours out there in the last few weeks. You're 100% right about most of the farms I've called around here. Only one I've found that will stand behind the purity of their sod is a farm out in Gurley.


Like I said....just make sure you are buying certified. Keep up the good work.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

*Time for another update to the lawn journal.* 
I finally tackled the next big hurdle on the renovation by getting the sod down. It has been about 2 weeks since the sod went down and it is starting to green up and blend nicely.

This was obviously the most rewarding part of the lawn renovation so far, but it didn't happen without a few hurdles. It took about 2.5 days total to get everything done (it should have been no more than 2 but I'll explain below).



*Day 1:* 
I hired an independent landscape contractor with a tracked dingo and harley rake to do some of the prep work (and to help with the install). For the most part the lawn grade was close, but it did need a little smoothing. He broke up the first couple of inches of dirt with the harley rake and tried to remove as many rocks and roots as he could and cut in around the sidewalks and driveway.

*Day 2:* 
We had 7 pallets of sod dropped in the yard for what _should have been_ ~3150sqft and started to throw it down. I am at work when the sod is delivered and by the time I get home a few hours later, we have about 800sqft left to install and we're out of sod. What sod is down looks good, but somehow we came up short. So we checked our math a few times and made sure our numbers were right before we called the sod farm.



Obviously we were shorted some sod. The question was how difficult they were going to be about making it right. This is the point in the weekend where I learned a valuable lesson. Sod farms can be super sketchy. You may know your way around a tape measure, but better not question their math, sod cutter calibration, or how many pieces of sod they're stacking on a pallet or they'll tell you where you can stick it. I'll leave it there.

After a slightly heated conversation with the sod farm, we were able to secure 2 more pallets to go down the next morning and we finished up.

*Day 3:*
After we finished throwing down the last two pallets (should have been 900sqft and we got about 750 sqft) we saturated the whole lawn again with the irrigation system and rolled the entire yard from a few different angles.

*Since the install:*
About 4 days after install, I got a little worried at some of the areas showing heat and transplant stress. I was keeping the water on it 2x a day for 20 min, but I wasn't sure why this area wasn't bouncing back as quickly as the rest of the lawn. This grass was part of the 2nd order, so I had suspicions that it might have sat out or something. Either way, after about 7 days it had started to green up and fill in and after 12 days it's looking even better. I attributed most of this to 90+ degree weather and not getting rain for a month, but after we finally got about 1.5" over a couple of days it is bouncing back and I think it will be just fine.



I plan to use a weed and feed company (fairway lawns) for the first year or so to get everything established and on the right track. I had them come out and give me a price, and it sounds like they wont start treating until January. What that really means is that I'm going to have to deal with some of the weeds cropping up in the meantime until cold weather hits. I started seeing some signs of nutsedge cropping up at around 5-7 days. Primarily in the seams and thin spots.



I may try to spot spray some of these areas if I get brave, but I'm going to skip the fall treatment since it's new sod and I dont want to risk any damage.

So far, the irrigation is working like a champ and seems to be covering everything I need it to. There are a couple of areas that I may tweak eventually, but I've been super happy so far with the R-VANs.

*Bonus Update:*

About 14 days in, The grass is growing well, everything greened up nicely and the seams were starting to blend. I was anxious to throw down my first cut on the new sod. Primarily because I was able to talk the wife into an early Christmas present. I went with the Swardman Electra. So far, I've only used it once, but I'm really enjoying it. First cut I took at 1.125" That seemed like a safe place to leave it as the weather cools down and I get used to the new lawn (that still has a few lumps and bumps) and my new reel mower. That thing is insanely quiet.





Dont look too closely at the nut grass popping up. It's so tall at the first cut that the roller wasn't letting it pop up and get chopped haha.

More later.


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## HungrySoutherner (May 29, 2018)

Skip the fairway lawns thing.....you don't need it. The cost of one of their applications you can get everything you need for the whole year, it aint that hard. Better yet...I'll take your money if you're looking to hand it out for a green lawn. Congrats on the Swardman, you will love it. Also I agree the Sod Farms around Huntsville are total sketch


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Haven't made an update a while, but I've been working on accumulating and building a few things to help me this coming growing season. @Brackin4au and I went in together on a 10' drag modeled after @wardconnor's. Here's to hoping that my riding mower can drag this thing around come sand leveling time.


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## chadh (Aug 8, 2019)

Small world.. A good friend of mine made your level!


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

chadh said:


> Small world.. A good friend of mine made your level!


That's awesome! He and I used to marathon train together. I've got him in the drag making business now!


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## wardconnor (Mar 25, 2017)

thompwa said:


> Haven't made an update a while, but I've been working on accumulating and building a few things to help me this coming growing season. @Brackin4au and I went in together on a 10' drag modeled after @wardconnor's. Here's to hoping that my riding mower can drag this thing around come sand leveling time.


I approve of this message


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Finally getting around to some landscaping. Spent a few hours with my truck and a chain pulling out all of the old shrubs we wanted to get rid of, which was basically everything with the exception of three big junipers I transplanted in the back. (More on what's going on back there in the next update)





It took a few scoops of top soil to get the ground smoothed out again from all of the lumps and bumps from the demo, but I was able to throw down some landscaping fabric and cut a few plants in this weekend.

Went with fairly typical southern staples: sky pencils, encore azaleas, Japanese maple, rhododendron, hydrangeas, cleyeras, dwarf nandinas, and a few dwarf Euonomous..es? Euninomous' Eunonomi?

Pardon my side kick, Tuck. He's just "watering in" the new plants.

Still trying to figure out my mulch plan.

I'll be patching in the remaining sod here in a few days once I get a chance to get over to the sod farm.





Last thing I got done was fixing a small damaged area near my driveway. My dad was keeping some equipment over here for a few days and on one of his trips backing the trailer into the yard he ran the gooseneck trailer right over a sprinkler head with a 12k# excavator on it. Spent 30 min un-winterizing my sprinklers so I could test for damage and get the grass fixed. Luckily it was just a matter of getting the head positioned in the right place again.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Last couple of days I have been trying to put a pin in the front landscaping so I can pressure wash and get everything cleaned up before the green up.

I had one last sprinkler head that needed to be added before I could patch the sod. I stubbed the line but had been waiting to put it in until I removed the big junipers that we're in my way. I got that down and picked up a few pieces of sod to fill in the gaps.



The first batch of sod I put down has blended together pretty well. The second strip has a little ways to go. Hoping that by the end of summer It will all thicken up and blend together.

Caught a break in the rain today and picked up 3.5 yards of mulch at the local nursery and started spreading it in the beds. Gorilla cart was the MVP of the day. Took about 3 hours working solo but I put it down 2-3 inches in most places. Still need to smooth out all the high spots but the hard part is done.









Still waiting to get a couple more shrubs that we ordered in for the right side of the porch. Hope I can get around to that and maybe some annuals by the next update.

Did a little shopping for bulbs last time I was at Costco. Shocked at how much of a selection they had, but I will probably experiment with that some this summer if anyone has any suggestions on what type to put down. I would like to get some dahlias if they have any left.


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## Brackin4au (Jun 13, 2018)




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## Bmossin (May 31, 2018)

i dont think you can call this a house of neglect anymore...looks great.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Bmossin said:


> i dont think you can call this a house of neglect anymore...looks great.


Thank you! Lots of hours but I've enjoyed (*most of) it lol


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## Brackin4au (Jun 13, 2018)

Bmossin said:


> i dont think you can call this a house of neglect anymore...looks great.


+1


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

After 5-6 years of battling the ryobi 18v trimmer I bought long before I got into lawn care, I finally broke down and bought the real deal.

Went with the Stihl KM91R kombi system because of the free string trimmer attachment deal that Stihl had going recently.

I'll probably still keep my ryobi and use it to touch up spots when I mow. Just glad to finally have something with the proper power to officially edge with....and also not break the line every 3 feet.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

A couple of posts back I hinted at a project I had brewing in my back yard. It has been a wreck back there from the time we bought the house so I haven't shown it much on here... well, I've finally gotten around to doing something about it. I made a post about what I've been up to in the outdoor living thread, but I wanted to add it to my journal as well just to make it easy.
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When we bought this house several years ago, I knew I would end up needing to replace a good portion of the deck. There was a lot of rot and poorly built additions/different levels. It just needed to go.

I recently undertook a complete demo/rebuild of this deck area and in the process, created a weatherproof "dry" deck/patio area.

Figured I would capture how I did that on the cheap in case anyone else was interested in doing something similar. If you don't care about the process and just want to see the finished result, scroll to the end.

A few pics of the deck from the MLS photos when we bought the house:







I have seen several folks use the Trex Rain Escape System  and DekDrain System for a number of years and it seemed like a good solution for what I wanted to accomplish. Main problem I had with these systems was the cost for the kits. For my deck, those kits would have run me about $2000. Everything related to the waterproofing I did in this post cost me right at $235 in materials(minus the gutter which I would have had to have either way).

So, like all good projects I started with some thorough demolition. I want to say in total, I hauled just over 12000lbs of debris away spread over about 5 loads in the dump trailer with all of this.







As a part of demo, I also had to remove a small tree that was in the way of where we wanted to pour the new concrete pad. In this case, I chose to dig up the old tree with a mini-ex and remove the complete root ball as to not leave a stump to rot in the ground and create a void.





Once all of the debris was cleaned up, I had some guys come in and pour a 45'x18' concrete patio. Since there wasn't great access to back the truck up to the pad and I wouldn't have wanted them tearing up my grass anyway, we pumped the concrete from the driveway.



*Now for the deck*. We were fairly limited with the size/shape of the upstairs part of the deck. The old cantilevered deck that was there when the house was built is accessible from two upstairs bedrooms so it had to be put back much the same way it was before. We almost never use the upstairs deck, but if nothing else, I figured that it created a good "roof" to keep me cool and dry underneath. I chose to cut off the old redwood cantilever joists and go back with a ledger in this case. The joists were in marginal shape, and probably could have been reused but since everything else was going back new, I figured I might as well go back new there too.

Rebuilding took about a week. I went with 2x8x8s for the depth, 2x12x12s for the double beam, and 6x6x12s for the posts. _More on why the 2x12 beam is important later._ The overall deck dimensions ended up being about 42'x8'.





Once the deck was framed, I got going on the waterproofing. For materials I went with a 50ftx10ft roll of 40mil EPDM roofing material, a few rolls of EPDM joist tape, and Cap fasteners.

Step by step:
I started by rolling out and cutting "fan shaped" pieces out of the EPDM roofing in order to create the sloped troughs between each joist bay. The joist bays are 16" on center and I chose to do 4 joist bays at a time so I cut sections 4x16.5" on center on the high side and 4x19.5" on center on the down hill side by the length of the joists - about 8'.




I just laid the fan shaped cutout over the joists and drooped the membrane over the joists. I would tack each one with a few cap fastners once I had it in the right spot and work my way across until each "trough" was the right slope at the top and bottom.



I repeated this process, overlapping the joint by a bit at each 4th joist bay until the entire deck top was covered. and then created a 1' wide continuous strip from some of the leftover material that I used as "flashing" adhering with glue and cap fasteners to the back band against the house.



Once the membrane was down on top, I wanted to create a "backsplash" that would channel the rainwater down into the gutter below the deck. For this I cut sections that were about 21" wide by 15" long and wrapped them around the inside of the beam.



The bottom part of this flap hangs down into the gutter that gets mounted to the back side of the beam.





Next came the gutter install. I hired a guy to hang a seamless gutter because I was scared the section gutters from a bigbox store would leak like crazy. We tucked the ~40' section of 6" gutter behind the flaps and fastened it to the back side of the double 2x12 beam. The 2x12 mixed with 2x8 joists allows a gutter to nest right below the joists with enough slope to do the job. I dont have a great picture of this, but you can see how it was installed for the most part in these pics.





one of the last couple of steps on the top side (before screwing down the composite deck boards) was to close up the seams. I went with 3" wide EPDM joist tape with a plastic backer paper for this. I ran lengths of this joist tape across every joist and any exposed wood or seam. This really made all of the difference. The joist tape has a self healing quality to it so when the screws penetrate the tape into the joist, it should eliminate most if not all of the water that could drive down into those holes.



The last step up top was more precautionary than anything, but I decided to go with it at the end. I decided on the wide section of the each trough to cut a "V" shaped groove in the end of the membrane to allow any small debris that was to get between the deck boards to wash through and into the gutter without any trouble. Unfortunately I didn't take a pic of this part but each "V" cut was about 2" wide and 1" deep. This seemed to be sufficient as pollen, leaves, and other small junk collected. It washed right out with each rain.

For the under side, I chose to tap into the exterior wall mounted light to add a few waterproof LED can lights under the deck. This certainly isn't necessary, but I figured I might as well while I had it opened up. This is the kind of thing that would be significantly more difficult if I waited until later.

As you can see in the pic below I chose to just run vinyl soffit material under my deck to hide the joists and waterproofing. I figured that was the safest bet in the event that it does develop a drip or some water splashes up from the gutter. Luckily we've had quite a few big rains lately and I've been able to test this solution at each step. So far I've been really impressed. I haven't noticed any issues so far (knock on wood). Even if I do get a leak at some point in the future, it should be fairly easy to isolate and fix (or live with). Assuming that would happen drove me to use the materials I ultimately went with anyway: pressure treated lumber, EPDM, waterproof LEDs, etc.

Here's the final pic from under the deck. It turned out pretty well and I'm happy with it. Now I just need to touch up paint, clean up the patio and get it all set up for summer



I'm still working on finishing up the hand rails, so I'll update once that's done but here is a pic from a few weeks back when I was starting to put the deck boards on.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Serving up a few stripes this Mother's Day weekend. Lawn has come a long way since it was put down late last summer. Hoping the warm weather on the way will help this Bermuda to kick it in gear and fill in these last few thin spots.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Been dealing with seed heads a little bit this year with all the weird weather we've been having.

I have seen a few other lawns around me with the same issue, but it's much more noticeable with low cut turf.



Reel mower wouldn't really cut them well at .7" so I got after them with the rotary on it's lowest setting. While it removed the bulk of the seed heads, it also highlighted why I'm planning a sand leveling project this year. Scalped the crap out of a lot of areas.

Hopefully everything will fill in over the next few weeks and I can get on with the sand.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Got a few diamond stripes this weekend. They never last long on the Bermuda but they at least look good for the day.


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## Bmossin (May 31, 2018)

Looks Great!


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## NewHomeOwner (Apr 11, 2020)

I'm a little late to the party, but I was reading about your front yard sod installation. I'm fairly certain I was shorted about a pallet of sod. I was about to write it off as a miscalculation on my end, but not now.

Great journal &#128077;&#127996;


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

NewHomeOwner said:


> I'm a little late to the party, but I was reading about your front yard sod installation. I'm fairly certain I was shorted about a pallet of sod. I was about to write it off as a miscalculation on my end, but not now.
> 
> Great journal 👍🏼


Yeah, I was warned by a couple of folks around here that it was fairly common occurrence. Once you start, you're stuck and you're only option is to order more and pay another delivery fee haha. I wrote them a heck of a review online but it did me no good.


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## tcorbitt20 (Aug 31, 2018)

I got tired just reading about all of that. Great job on everything! Your lawn is about to really start popping with the summer heat.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

tcorbitt20 said:


> I got tired just reading about all of that. Great job on everything! Your lawn is about to really start popping with the summer heat.


Thanks! It has been fun to see it transform!

War Eagle BTW!


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

When I installed my irrigation system late last summer I picked up a cheap basic Hunter irrigation controller without giving it much thought. At the time I didn't have time to shop around for what I wanted...I just needed to get water down on my new sod.

Recently Amazon had an 8-zone Blossom wifi controller on their "deal of the day" for $39. Without giving it much thought I went ahead and picked one up. I think it normally retails for around $70, but for $39 I think it's probably a little less than I paid for my basic Hunter.

I've only used it for a few days but here are my first impressions:
1. Love that I can finally control my system from my phone. You don't realize how convenient that is until you can do it, especially since my controller was on the back of my house.
2. Blossom does soak cycles. My old one might have but I never figured it out if it did. Love the idea that I can prevent a little runoff and give water a little more time to soak in.
3. Any power flicker and my old system's clock would reset and screw everything up. If that happened while I was at work I wouldn't know and would come home to my sprinklers running at 5pm. The blossom is connected and can reset its own clock (this is a huge deal for me). All times are run off a +/- from sunrise so the actual "run time" adjusts as sunrise changes.
4. I haven't used this feature because I'm not brave enough yet, but since it uses up to date satellite weather - it knows when we've gotten rain and can shorten or cancel a sprinkler cycle if I forget.
5. It can be controlled with Alexa in the event that you're that kind of person.
6. It's actually nice to look at on my garage wall, the app doesn't suck to use and as a Software guy---a new feature is a software update away. If my Hunter couldn't do something the day I installed it, it never would.
So far I'm a big fan!


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

thompwa said:


> When I installed my irrigation system late last summer I picked up a cheap basic Hunter irrigation controller without giving it much thought. At the time I didn't have time to shop around for what I wanted...I just needed to get water down on my new sod.
> 
> Recently Amazon had an 8-zone Blossom wifi controller on their "deal of the day" for $39. Without giving it much thought I went ahead and picked one up. I think it normally retails for around $70, but for $39 I think it's probably a little less than I paid for my basic Hunter.
> 
> ...


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

When I installed my irrigation system late last summer I picked up a cheap basic Hunter irrigation controller without giving it much thought. At the time I didn't have time to shop around for what I wanted...I just needed to get water down on my new sod.

Recently Amazon had an 8-zone Blossom wifi controller on their "deal of the day" for $39. Without giving it much thought I went ahead and picked one up. I think it normally retails for around $70, but for $39 I think it's probably a little less than I paid for my basic Hunter.

I've only used it for a few days but here are my first impressions:
1. Love that I can finally control my system from my phone. You don't realize how convenient that is until you can do it, especially since my controller was on the back of my house.
2. Blossom does soak cycles. My old one might have but I never figured it out if it did. Love the idea that I can prevent a little runoff and give water a little more time to soak in.
3. Any power flicker and my old system's clock would reset and screw everything up. If that happened while I was at work I wouldn't know and would come home to my sprinklers running at 5pm. The blossom is connected and can reset its own clock (this is a huge deal for me). All times are run off a +/- from sunrise so the actual "run time" adjusts as sunrise changes.
4. I haven't used this feature because I'm not brave enough yet, but since it uses up to date satellite weather - it knows when we've gotten rain and can shorten or cancel a sprinkler cycle if I forget.
5. It can be controlled with Alexa in the event that you're that kind of person.
6. It's actually nice to look at on my garage wall, the app doesn't suck to use and as a Software guy---a new feature is a software update away. If my Hunter couldn't do something the day I installed it, it never would.

So far I'm a big fan!






[/quote]


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

The soil test results are in! Looks like I need to make a game plan now to get it into shape!

Interested to see what everyone thinks will be the best plan of attack.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Looking pretty good after a post vacation mow. It was 7 days since it had been cut with lots of rain, PGR burning off, and fert/iron starting to kick in. Lots of places were close to 1-1/4"

I raised the HOC a bit to 7/8". I'll drop it back down to 3/4" this week with another mow.

Few more days and I'll be burying it in sand!


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Today's progress. Been putting down 1/4# of N every week for the last month or so in addition to the normal micronutrient routine. Alternating granular one week and liquid the next. The steady iron is really helping the color!


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## DLav8r (Jun 15, 2020)

thompwa said:


> Today's progress. Been putting down 1/4# of N every week for the last month or so in addition to the normal micronutrient routine. Alternating granular one week and liquid the next. The steady iron is really helping the color!


What products are you using for Iron and Nitrogen? Looks fantastic! WDE


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

DLav8r said:


> thompwa said:
> 
> 
> > Today's progress. Been putting down 1/4# of N every week for the last month or so in addition to the normal micronutrient routine. Alternating granular one week and liquid the next. The steady iron is really helping the color!
> ...


Thanks a lot! It has been fun getting to this point.

For granular I've been using carbonX. I'm almost out so I'm probably going to switch to something else. I've been eyeing this 15-0-15 from Ewing so I will probably see if they have any here locally.

https://store.ewingirrigation.com/51132350-empro-15-0-15-45-ulexx-6-fe

For now, on liquid weeks I've been using 7-0-0
GreeneEfFect but I will probably switch to 18-0-1 Greene Punch and some Main Event or FEature if I can remember to order it.

If I get my iron from the granular 15-0-15 from Ewing I may be able to just get by with 18-0-1 greene punch


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## HungrySoutherner (May 29, 2018)

Yards looking great and we are just now getting some good weather for growing Bermuda.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

HungrySoutherner said:


> Yards looking great and we are just now getting some good weather for growing Bermuda.


Thanks! Getting ready to bury it in sand this weekend and sweat my tail off


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Let's turn this place into a beach!


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## Lawn Burgundy (Apr 27, 2020)

How did the leveling project go?


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

STRES said:


> How did the leveling project go?


Had a delay or two getting it down. I'll spare the details, but I got the sand down. The drag definitely worked well to find the low spots,

Couple of lessons learned: 
-Definitely wish I would have really worked the HOC further down first. I was keeping it around 3/4" and had worked it down to 1/2" but with the undulations in the lawn it definitely was all over the place after it got cut with the reel. Also the Electra is light and my turf was dense so it is probably Not completely accurate.
-Hard to tell how much sand to put down til it's spread. I got a little heavy handed in a couple of areas unintentionally and had to pull some back off and spend some time spreading it to lighter areas. 
-The drag is great once the piles are flattened down a little. My old riding mower pulled it fine as long as it could get traction.

These are the only pics I have right now. I'll try to post a few more once it grows in a bit. Now, to just pound it with fert and water


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## Lawn Burgundy (Apr 27, 2020)

looking good man! looks like i will need to spot level first as i cant get close to a .75 HOC without scalping dirt. First i guess is my tenacity treatment hopefully coming up soon to get this crabgrass under control.

its crazy how the sand finds all the spots you think are good and creates massive piles of sand


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Day 4 update: Grass is growing in nicely after the leveling job. Letting this bermuda get so tall is giving me anxiety. Will probably make a pass with the swardman this week at 1" to keep it out of the sand. Going to take some time to fill in, but it will all be worth it!


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

7 days post sand leveling now and it's starting to look like a lawn again. Big difference from last week. We have some rain on the way this weekend and I think that will help the rebound significantly.

Did make one pass with the swardman but it still felt a little too soon so I dropped the rotary down as low as it would go and used that. Didn't take off a ton but I wouldn't have been able to do that without scalping the crap out of it before.



I mentioned before that I should have cut everything down lower before I piled on the sand. Here is an example of why. Several little low spots like this have grass laid over underneath. I can take my hand and fluff the grass up underneath the sand. Several of the spots are just dips that will have to grow and spread but some might already be filled in if I had cut a little lower


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## Jbird95 (Jun 24, 2020)

@thompwa 
Great work. You have an impressive set of building skills as well. Well done on the Stihl- I'm a fan.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Most recent update. I'm feeling like I'll be looking at a few of the deeper spots through the end of the summer as the grass spreads and fills in but the bulk of the sand has worked in. Would be able to make a pass with the swardman here soon to re-set everything.

Pardon the drunk rotary stripes. My self propelled drive is going out.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Jbird95 said:


> @thompwa
> Great work. You have an impressive set of building skills as well. Well done on the Stihl- I'm a fan.


Thanks a lot man. Still trying to to get to the point where I feel as comfortable pushing a fertilizer spreader as I do with a circular saw and a nail gun.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

First cut with the reel tonight, 12 days after sanding. Reset the HOC back down to 5/8". I definitely lost a little color in the process but that was expected. Not really sure how low I can go yet. There are still a few heavy areas of sand that keep me from going much lower but I hope to keep it at 1/2" eventually.

Next thing to decide is whether or not to put down PGR or let it grow in more. Not sure what to do there. I suspect most of the rest of my filling in will come from spread and not vertical growth. I'm leaning toward regulating it but what do y'all think?


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## Sbcgenii (May 13, 2018)

I would wait a few more days unless you can't keep up with the mowing.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

The sand has pretty much completely disappeared now after the leveling. I have a few spots that I'm tempted to try and hit a second time with the heat I have left in the summer but I'm still undecided.

Im not really sure how many seasons of heavy sand leveling it'll take to really get this lawn as smooth as I want but I think this first round definitely improved the mowing enjoyment and took a little roughness out more than anything else. I don't think I'll see the true gains in HOC reduction until the next round but I'm looking forward to that!

In the meantime I'm really enjoying the new mow. I have kept the Growth regulator off of it for now. I'm home teleworking still so mowing every 2-3 days hasn't been an issue.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Obligatory Labor Day cut. Bermuda is already slowing down with the shorter days and cooler evenings. Won't be long now until it's perennial rye time.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Just a quick side by side to show how busy I've been in 2020. Always fun to step back and enjoy the progress that can happen in 1 year.



While the grass is looking its best, I hit it with PGR and took it down to .4" to get ready for my first PRG overseed. It sure hurt to take all the color out of the lawn but on a high note it did give me a nice indication of where I still have some leveling work to do next summer!


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## Cdub5_ (Jun 12, 2019)

Damn what a transformation!
Amazing job!!!


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## Lawn Burgundy (Apr 27, 2020)

Looking good what PRG are you going with?


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

STRES said:


> Looking good what PRG are you going with?


Thanks. I just got some birdie blend at ewing. I didn't figure there was much point in spending a bunch of money on it since I'm just going to nuke it in a couple months anyway haha.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

I cut the Bermuda down to .4" and threw down PRG seed at ~15lb/k. I saw germination at 5 days and really saw major growth at 7. Pics below are from 9 days in. I am itching to get the first mow on it!


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Expecting a couple of rainy days here coming up so I decided to go ahead with my first cut on the PRG overseed a couple of days early. I knew this first cut might be a messy one since it would likely be working the height down a little more than usual.

Got the PRG worked down to 1" this pass and I'll probably eventually take it down to 3/4" to maintain it.

First impressions are that this stuff feels wet all the time. I hope that goes away a little as I keep the height lower. I knew cutting this would be messier than my Bermuda but I also think it should get a little better once I'm maintaining it low and the plants have a little more time to mature.

Looking forward to some fun stripes this winter if nothing else!

Oh, and this was my inaugural first mow with my new 10 blade reel. I went ahead and swapped my old 6 blade out when it got dull. Looking forward to some extra smooth cuts down around 1/2" next summer!


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## rjw0283 (May 11, 2020)

@thompwa Amazing! I love the 1 year photo. PRG is looking great as well. Great work.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

rjw0283 said:


> @thompwa Amazing! I love the 1 year photo. PRG is looking great as well. Great work.


Thanks very much! PRG is going to be a fun change of pace for a while but definitely looking forward to the bermuda coming back.


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## rjw0283 (May 11, 2020)

@thompwa That back deck is awesome, did you take any pictures once it was complete?


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

rjw0283 said:


> @thompwa That back deck is awesome, did you take any pictures once it was complete?


Thanks! I forgot I never posted any updates there ha. Here are a couple. I still have to stain the handrails. Got burnt out before I finished that part haha.


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## rjw0283 (May 11, 2020)

@thompwa Nice!... I just threw some PRG down the last few days, and my neighbors thought I was crazy, my grass looked the best it has ever looked, and I dropped it to .4 and was ugly. And I too have to do some leveling. I've done one level, but I need a few more. Before level my HOC of just under an inch, with the level I was able to get at 11/16 or so nicely, but I got a lot of dips yet, from old trees and utility lines. You really notice it under .5 HOC.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

We got over 2" of slow steady rain this past weekend and it really made this PRG jump out of the ground. I felt like it was finally dry enough today to give it a cut and was impressed how much it had grown.

I'm sure as the weather cools off more it will slow down but I've considered dumping some PGR to it. Need to do a little more research before I do but I know as the days get shorter and time changes it will get harder to do any mid week mowing. Anyone done PGR on a PRG overseed and have any feedback?

These pics are from day 18. I've had a lot of fun with this so far. The color is great and it's starting to be a little less messy to cut.


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## mha2345 (Mar 30, 2019)

Mine went crazy right after Delta, too. Looking good! I'm on day 14, and it's starting to really look nice. That is a good question about PGR, I was wondering the same thing. Right now, it definitely requires more frequent mowing and PGR feels necessary until it gets colder.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Wanted to try something a little different this Halloween.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Update on the PRG overseed project. I've really been enjoying having something to cut this winter. The grass has slowed down significsntly and I'm cutting now about 1x a week at 0.75".

Got a late pre-em application down this week after waiting to let the PRG get established. I'm still not sure how much fert to give this stuff. I've kinda just been using up what I have honestly.


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## Wiley (Dec 2, 2019)

@thompwa the PRG is looking clean! I went through your journal this am and it was cool to see all of your lawn and home projects. Keep up the good work!


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Wiley said:


> @thompwa the PRG is looking clean! I went through your journal this am and it was cool to see all of your lawn and home projects. Keep up the good work!


Thanks a lot!


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

I've been using stealth flow drains since I redid my landscaping. For the first few months they were fine but as the mulch moved around and degraded they were always hard to keep covered. Decided to bite the bullet and bury my downspouts this weekend. Started with the shorter of the two runs. If this goes well I'll bury the longer (25') section. I'm a little concerned about these pop up emitters landing in the mulch but we'll see what kind of washout issues I have. Surely it can't be any worse than before.

Also no project ever seems is as easy as it should be. Dug down a trench and found a nice chunk of concrete I had to take down with my roto chisel.


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## HungrySoutherner (May 29, 2018)

I've had the same issue figuring out how to place down spouts near mulch beds. Good luck


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Figured I would write a post-mortem in the journal as I'm coming out of the PRG overseed and the Bermuda is finally starting to take off.

All in all I'm happy that I did the overseed. It looked fantastic while it lasted and definitely taught me a lot. Is it something I'll do again in the next few years? Probably not. But I'll do it again at some point. It was a nice distraction since I was mostly still working from home.

It did win me LOTM (thanks @Ware) in February so it can't be too bad.



Since this was my first time overseeding, here are a couple of thoughts from an inexperienced DIYers perspective looking back on the fall/winter

1. I probably got a little lucky with the timing of getting the seed down in the fall. We had a fairly gentle transition from the heat this year which gave the grass plenty of time to get moving.

2. Once it came up and I started cutting, I had no clue how messy PRG was for the first 3 weeks or so. It stayed sopping wet and stained everything

3. Neighbors don't trust you when you tell them the grass is real. I had people walk by and knock on the door to ask how I kept my grass from going dormant, one guy bent down and plucked a few blades sniffed it, and I got accused of using turf paint at one point.

4. All the people who say PRG stripes like no other are right. I enjoyed that and had a lot of fun changing it up week to week.

5. It really slowed down growth starting in December and picked back up just before I sprayed it out in late February.

Now the lessons learned the hard way:

6. It's actually a little harder to kill than I thought it would be. I had a dog piss spot that wiped out a 3" circle all winter, but when it came time to actually start the transition back to Bermuda, it wasn't as easy as I thought. Maybe I should have sprayed it with dog pee? I used MSM primarily because I was too cheap to buy Monument, but I regret that decision. I started the transition in late February and it was still too cold for the MSM to work well. Which leads to my next point

7. Spring weather here is unpredictable and it's hard to time when you spray this stuff out. It could be really warm by early/mid March or we could be having cold temps in the 30s well into April like we did this year. You can get lucky, however I was not.

8. Patience... I got impatient with the MSM and got my hands on some revolver. That combined with temps increasing some finally knocked out the PRG but it was a bit touch and go for a few weeks as I saw grass around me starting to green up.

9. Bermuda is slower to come back. This time last year I was going full speed with the Bermuda (granted some of that is due to the cold temps into April) but it is a noticeable difference and I can only assume part of that is due to the generous overseed.

10. Bermuda is hearty and it will come back just fine. It's a slow start, but I'm not concerned about it anymore. Every day I notice new growth and spread. I'm still looking a little patchy where the PRG probably didn't get scalped out quite as well but that will eventually recover.

First cut on the Bermuda post overseed at 3/8"



It was fun, but bottom line is I'm really anxious to get back to the Bermuda.


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## HungrySoutherner (May 29, 2018)

Dude you are spot on about how nasty PRG is to mow after it gets growing. The entire time I had it 2 years ago I hated the thought of mowing it because it was always a mess to clean up. I finally gave up reel mowing it towards Christmas that year and used the rotary because I was over the mess. I'm already having flashbacks for this fall when I renovate and put down PRG in the back, I'm picturing the robot driving around with sticky PRG all over it clumped up.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

@HungrySoutherner haha it was only bad for the first couple weeks until it got established. I didn't really water it at all after that. I did have to yank the reel out of my mower and clean it multiple times though. I think there is still green stains on my mower and concrete from early on though which is probably one of the reasons people thought I was painting my grass


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## HungrySoutherner (May 29, 2018)

thompwa said:


> @HungrySoutherner haha it was only bad for the first couple weeks until it got established. I didn't really water it at all after that. I did have to yank the reel out of my mower and clean it multiple times though. I think there is still green stains on my mower and concrete from early on though which is probably one of the reasons people thought I was painting my grass


yeah my driveway had grass stains from mowing for a long time.


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## thompwa (Aug 26, 2019)

Been a while since my last post but felt like these deserved an honorable mention. Bermuda has been doing exceptionally well this year on minimal inputs of AMS and the occasional run of the irrigation system. 5/8" HOC


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