# HeyBerto's Lawn Journal



## heyberto (Jun 16, 2020)

Good morning, lawn aficionados! It's late in the season and we need to get this party started. The lawn is looking oh-so-terrible at this point due to some irrigation issues we had early on, coupled with no rain, and temps in the upper 80s to lower 90s here in sunny metro Detroit. The good news is the irrigation system is now up and running. The bad news is… well, I'll let the pics speak for themselves. I'm hoping this is heat stress and will come back to life with regular watering. I mowed yesterday evening, watered this morning, and am planning an application of Milo tonight.

I'm fairly new to the forum and still learning. Any advice is welcome and if you have questions, I'll try my best to answer them. Thanks!

_The first two pics are the side of the house.
_



_Front lawn (or lack thereof), this morning_ 




_You can see my neighbor's lawn currently dominating. He waters 3x daily and mows ~2x weekly._


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## heyberto (Jun 16, 2020)

Milo was applied today at a rate 32# per 5,200sq ft.


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

Keep pounding it with water. You should continue to see it coming out of dormancy. The Milo should give a little boost by the time it comes out of dormancy. Once you get most of it out of dormancy, keep hitting the hot spots with additional hand watering. You will get there.


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## heyberto (Jun 16, 2020)

I've been consistently watering all week, plus we got a nice thunderstorm on Friday night/Saturday morning that dropped a whopping 0.41" on us. But today was back up in the high 80s and sunny, and even with all the water the lawn looked and felt dry. I mowed with the Honda rotary, HOC at 2.5". I'm not sure that was a good idea, but I thought it would stimulate growth. I guess we'll see.

This coming week is going to be hot and dry with temps in the upper 80s and 90s; no rain in the forecast. Guess I'll keep those sprinklers sprinkling. I'll post update pics later in the week.


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## heyberto (Jun 16, 2020)

Here's a pic of the front lawn from this morning.


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## Vtx531 (Jul 1, 2019)

Looks like it is starting to come back nicely. Any idea how much water you have been putting down?


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## heyberto (Jun 16, 2020)

Vtx531 said:


> Looks like it is starting to come back nicely. Any idea how much water you have been putting down?


Thanks! It hasn't even been a week, so I'm excited to see what the next month brings.

I don't know the exact amount of water but am planning to use the tuna can method this week to get an idea. I'll be sure to report back.


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## heyberto (Jun 16, 2020)

We're moving along here... this morning at 7am:


EDIT: we're having the exterior painted. That's why the boards are down there, and the chairs and flowerpots have been moved off the porch. He pressure washed yesterday; there were paint chips and crap all over the place.


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## heyberto (Jun 16, 2020)

Here's the latest update. I'm pretty certain I'll have to reno a good portion of this lawn in the fall.


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## heyberto (Jun 16, 2020)

Just under a month in. I've been mowing ~twice a week, watering consistently, and threw down some milorganite and it's finally starting to look ok. This pic is from this morning. I mowed last night; HOC ~3". 


There are some dead spots that I'll need to address. My SunJoe scarifier and dethatcher arrived last week so I'm pretty excited about that. I'm thinking once the weather starts cooling a little I'll dethatch and overseed. I think it'll be tough to grow seed with temps in the 80s & 90s. What do you guys think?

Here's a shot of a dead area I'd like to take care of.


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