# KMS254's Lawn Journal(Front Range, CO)



## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

History:
First house with a cool season grass... new to this area... 
New Construction House finished in 10/2017 only had builder installed Front Grass(500 SqFt) and a lot of rock. Back yard dirt...
Backyard:
05/01/2017 Back Yard landscaping was done. Simple design will fill in bushes and plants myself
Back yard is 3500 square feet of Kentucky Blue Grass from https://www.sunnyslopesodfarmllc.com.. I called to get more information and they just said its their own premium blend of KBG and wouldn't give much more details than that. Landscaper tilled in 15 yards of Bio-Compost, I asked for 22 to give me 2" but he insisted 15 would be enough which is roughly 1.5". He did irrigation and layed sod. He didn't roll the soil or any smoothing. I didn't know much at this stage. I followed his watering plan and the grass looked OK for the first season. 


I had a few spots that were not as green. I brought out a local high end organic company to look at them. They said the ground was compacted from the heavy watering when the sod was layed. did some more digging and just found that the sprinkler arch needed to be increased. Landscaper told me that the compost he put down had all the nutrients I would need for a year and I didn't need to do anything besides mow and water. So that is what I did, mowed at 4" per everyones instructions and left it at 4" over winter with no winterization, turned off sprinklers mid October.

Install









Early June







All cut with a 21" non self propelled EGO

Starting 2019(Started for myself in gdoc)
Yard still very much dormant
3/26/2019
Pre-Emerge applied @ bag listed rate/2 
Yard Mastery by Sunniland 0-0-7 Prodiamine .38%

3/2/2019
Cleanup mow @ 3.0", sharpened blades 
4/1/2019

4/4/2019


4/5/2019
Soil Test mysoilsavy.com

4/7/2019 
Aerate - 2x
Grass is still very dormant... maybe this was too soon/mistake


4/10/2019 
Soil Test Results:


4/12/2019
Still dormant... 
Fertilizer - Since the results showed I was low on N and K I looked for something I could get with just N and K
Front Yard: 1.64lbs of Sta-Green 29-0-5 = 0.81#/k
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Sta-Green-18-lb-5000-sq-ft-18-24-6-Lawn-Starter/1000140041
Retrospective this had very little effect...

4/13/2019
Fertilizer
Back Yard: 9.8lbs of Sta-Green 29-0-5 = 0.81#/k
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Sta-Green-18-lb-5000-sq-ft-18-24-6-Lawn-Starter/1000140041

Humic12 @ 3oz/k front and back w/ Hose end ortho @ 2oz
http://www.greenecountyfert.com/project/n-ext-humic12-liquid-humic-acid/


4/15/2019
Sold Ego and Bought a Honda HRX217
Ego worked well but wouldn't cut(stalled) anything under 2.5" and never made the cleanest of cut. I said I would try it for a year and see how I liked it. Biggest gripe with the ego is how soft of metal they used for blades...

4/19/2019
Grass still wasn't really greening up neighbors were... After reading about that other fertilizer i realized it was all slow release and wanted something faster.. 
Fertilizer 
BackYard
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-32-oz-Ready-to-Spray-Concentrate-Lawn-Fertilizer-Hg-52512-2/204706227
0.13#/K

4/23/2019
Mow - Greening up in patches but still a lot of dormant/dead grass from winter..
Front: 2.5 Probably the lowest its been cut since installed.. 
Back: 2.5 then 2.0 - lowest its been cut since installed
Fertilizer - At this point I was doing an experiment to see if this liquid had any affect by only doing a section. 
Front yard and East BackYard assuming 2500
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-32-oz-Ready-to-Spray-Concentrate-Lawn-Fertilizer-Hg-52512-2/204706227
~0.325#/K
Humic12 @ 9oz per 1k
Watered it all in...
Retrospective: I did notice more green up all over and a larger difference in the area with additional N

4/27/2019
Mow Front @ 2.0(lowest i've ever cut), Back @ 2.0 Mixed patchy green in front, growing well where neighbors dogs like to pee... growth in back is still patchy but higher % of yard.... Still a lot of what im going to assume is winter kill...
https://www.domyown.com/turfgrasspro-blade-iron-15-p-17267.html
32oz over 4k in 8 gallons of water
This gives me 8oz in 2 gallons of water per 1k 
This put down 0.14# of N per 1k

4/29-4/30
Snow and temperatures down to the low 30's

5/1/2019
Grass Today:





I think this is "Burn" from some reflective window tint we installed during the winter... I've got to figure out what to do here..



5/03/2019
Sprinkler Audit Front Yard
Sprinkler Audit Backyard 1
Sprinkler Audit Backyard 2
Sprinkler Audit Backyard 3
Sprinkler Audit Backyard 4

5/04/2019
Mowed @ 2.5"
3oz/K N-ext RSG

5/11/2019
Mowed @ 2.5"
Replaced Sprinkler Nozzles/Heads for Backyard 1 and 2.

5/15/2019
Mowed @ 2.5"
Raked a small section as a test..

5/24/2019
Mowed @ 2.5

Put down 8oz per 1k of TurfGrassPro 25 - 0 - 0 in 2 gallons of water.

6/3/2019
Mowed @ 2.5

6/10/2019
Mowed Front @ 2.5; Back @ 2.0
N, k, Fe

6/26/2019
Mowed Front & Back @ 2.5

7/3/2019
Mowed Front @ 2.5; Back @ 2.0
N

7/11/2019
Mowed Front @ 2.5; Back @ 2.0
N-ext RSG

**Future**
5/10/2019 - I may not do this if the grass hasn't greened up fully by then..
Pre-Emerge applied @ bag listed rate/2 
Yard Mastery by Sunniland 0-0-7 Prodiamine .38%


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

I'm honestly a bit nervous about how long it has taken to green up. My neighbors across the street just had sod installed and its all nice. And my neighbor directly to the north of me has greened up a lot but has done nothing to his grass yet. I am thinking he has Tall Fescue which I have read greens up earlier. I am trying to be patient.


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

I'm a warm season grass guy but your lawn and use of rock is excellent! What was the watering advise given?


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

ctrav said:


> I'm a warm season grass guy but your lawn and use of rock is excellent! What was the watering advise given?


If I remember correctly 3x a day for 7 minutes for the fixed spray heads and 15 minutes for the rotatory zones for 1 month. Then back it down to 2x a day for a week and then 1x day for a week and then start skipping to every other day for a bit and then proceed to normal. I have a Rachio and I used their flex monthly. I am trying out the flex daily now and working on getting the settings correct. During the system turn on I noticed my nozzle sizes are all over the place and mostly incorrect. 
90's having higher flows than 180's and 360's having the same or lower flow than 180's.. I'm slowly going through them and tuning them. I replaced my front fixed sprayer nozzles with mp rotator because I noticed a lot of water was blowing away..


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Here is a mid morning picture of the "Solar Burn" on a normal non overcast day on 4/27/2019
*White stuff is construction trash that blew into our yard over night.. At first I thought it was snow...
You can also see clearly the neighbor to the east of us who has nice new sod...


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Debated using this for slow release/organic fert... It seems to be a local version that offers similar performance as Milo, but judging by my soil test I don't need the P..

http://www.therichlawncompany.com/products/fertilizers/pro-rich-turf-food/


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

I agree the neighbors lawn is nice and GREEN but so was yours. Im not sure of the watering needs for KBG but seems like you could be over doing it. Im sure some cool season folks will be along shortly to help out...


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

ctrav said:


> I agree the neighbors lawn is nice and GREEN but so was yours. Im not sure of the watering needs for KBG but seems like you could be over doing it. Im sure some cool season folks will be along shortly to help out...


Those were my watering plans last year when the sod was freshly laid. Now I am just using the Rachio Flex Daily allowing 50% Depletion. I'm working on getting all the sprinklers to lower flow. I'm trying to avoid runoff it doesn't seem like this ground absorbs water very well..


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Welcome to TLF.

A couple of things stand out. First, don't apply more nitrogen. I think the lawn has enough. Second, let's do an irrigation audit. The process involves placing straight edge containers (empty tuna cans, Tupperware, etc), and run the zones. Record how long it takes to get 0.5in of water in each zone.

Post that info. It looks to me that the lawn needs water. The aeration also caused more stress.

By the way, the rock with small islands of green grass is an interesting concept. Is that typical?


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## Polarjk (Aug 16, 2018)

From what I've seen this year your right on track. Weird year for Colorado little to no rain in April. I'm in Arvada and I've had to spoon feed my yard with liquid FERT and lots of water to jump start it this year.

Yard looks a little rough cause of the heavy food traffic from taking the tree down.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

g-man said:


> Welcome to TLF.
> 
> A couple of things stand out. First, don't apply more nitrogen. I think the lawn has enough. Second, let's do an irrigation audit. The process involves placing straight edge containers (empty tuna cans, Tupperware, etc), and run the zones. Record how long it takes to get 0.5in of water in each zone.
> 
> ...


I've done an irrigation audit before but I can't find where I wrote it down. I am planning to do one once I need to water again. Probably tomorrow. We had a few inches of spring snow and then some light rain for the past few days. I actually have some measuring devices from the last time I did this. I do know if i try to put 1/2 inch of water down at one time most of it will end up in the street. Is it an equal test to let it run for 10 minutes and then measure the collection and multiply 6 for an inch/hr rate?

As for the rocks/grass.. it is pretty common for new construction in this area to add a decent amount of xeriscape to help with water shortages. You can see how much rock the builder put down on my neighbors yard. I am planning on planting some trees shrubs in the rock area.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

10min works too, just slightly less precise.

In the rachio app, change the slope of your zone to steep. That will split the total watering duration into chunks with idle time in between. This allows the water to be absorbed before running off.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Figure I would post this as a starting point of my Rachio Settings:


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

You should set root depth to 4in and eventually 6in once the sod is really established. The 1.5in/hr of irrigation seems high. What nozzles are you using? I think I saw sprays in your images.

Can you post one of the soil moisture tables?


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

g-man said:


> You should set root depth to 4in and eventually 6in once the sod is really established. The 1.5in/hr of irrigation seems high. What nozzles are you using? I think I saw sprays in your images.
> 
> Can you post one of the soil moisture tables?


I was going off root depth from what I saw when I aerated... Very likely could be wrong. I'll update it to 4" across the board.

You are right looking at that 1.5in/hr seems really high.

I just updated the front yard to use the MP Rotator nozzles. And I'll probably do the same for Backyard1 and Backyard2. They are both fixed sprays. The advertised rate for those is 0.41 in/hr.

If you have head to head coverage doe that mean you have 0.82 in/hr? or do the charts assume that you will have head to head coverage so each one does 0.205 in/hr for a total of 0.41 in/hr?

Back yard 3 & 4 are PGP rotary sprinklers with nozzles mixed between 3.0-4.0's blue. Some are 90, 180, and 360... I know this is way out of balance and was the next thing I was going to work on...


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Updated Root Depth to 4" across the board in Rachio.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

The calculated crop rate is 0.15 for a few of the days. That's ~1in/week.

The hunter mp on a square spacing design should deliver 0.4in/hr of water, but an audit will confirm based on your pressures, slopes, etc. The pgp will need a new audit without more info.

With a setting of 1.5in/hr, you are likely under applying water by 1/3 in the mp zone.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

g-man said:


> The calculated crop rate is 0.15 for a few of the days. That's ~1in/week.
> 
> The hunter mp on a square spacing design should deliver 0.4in/hr of water, but an audit will confirm based on your pressures, slopes, etc. The pgp will need a new audit without more info.
> 
> With a setting of 1.5in/hr, you are likely under applying water by 1/3 in the mp zone.


Like you originally suggested! Sprinkler audit is what I need! Thank you for your input!

I'm going for force skip the automatic irrigation tomorrow and then do an audit in the morning.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Well I had a few extra minutes so I was able to get one of the backyard zones done tonight.

Backyard 1
Rainbird 1800's

I had one sprinkler head break some time last week and I had an extra MP nozzle. The cup that is near it and near it on the downhill side is noted with MP. I plan to replace the rest of them with the MP nozzle too...

The picture before spraying is taken from #5 far end..



You can see the measuring devices placed throughout the zone.... 




Observation: 
After looking at the rates and the grass I am thinking what I am noticing is the uphill side which is getting more water looks greener... The downhill side which had lower in/hr looks less green... if you see the area just to the right of #5 it is the only uphill side that looks less green but it has a lower in/hr than the rest of the uphill side...


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Based on the image, you don't have head to head coverage. The distance between heads looks like 5ft in the side to side. But the water is thrown in an arc and the front of the head needs to be able to throw all the way across to the other head. I can draw it up to make it more clear.

Don't mix nozzles in a zone since there output is not consistent.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Front Yard Sprinkler Audit.

I ran it for 2x5min intervals with 20 minutes in between.

I recently replaced all these with MP-1000 Maroon. I think I need to adjust the throw a bit... 
Numbers were all very consistent. But the 0.6in/hr I am calculating seems high given their chart..


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Also, make sure you place a catch cup in the brown area and in the green area. Try to check for difference. The shapes of these island will make even coverage hard.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

g-man said:


> Also, make sure you place a catch cup in the brown area and in the green area. Try to check for difference. The shapes of these island will make even coverage hard.


I'm trying to vary as much as I can. To the right of the picture I have #9 which was in the brownest of the brown spot. And #4 was in a pretty brown spot too...


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Backyard Zone 2 @ 10min
So I know the issue with this zone now that I've gotten my "feet wet" / pun..

This zone mixes fixed heads with two rotors. Its pretty obvious in the results.



One of the reasons why I can't go for a full time it takes to get a 1/2 inch is you can see this run off with just 10 minutes.



And cup placement if you can see them..



So I think my plan to fix this zone is to replace all the current fixed head nozzles with the MP-100 Maroons. Then replace the two rotors with fixed head rainbirds like the others and use a MP-2000 With one black head for 180 near the fence and one Red head for >270 up near the porch column. Those two heads are 20' apart. This should get me a more consistent in/hr on this zone and slow the watering rate down some for hopefully less runoff..

Even last summer the area that the Rotors covered were my most troublesome.... The installer should have never mixed.. and should have know that.. I wish I would have known then what I know now..


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## Budstl (Apr 19, 2017)

Once you get all your heads situated, you might want to try a cycle and soak to help with the run off issue. Your property looks great by the way.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Budstl said:


> Once you get all your heads situated, you might want to try a cycle and soak to help with the run off issue. Your property looks great by the way.


Thanks! I have all the zone's set to smart cycle but I think I need to manually set the times shorter and wait period longer... I wish I could set the cycle and soak times per zone...


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Backyard Zone 3:

I had this set at 0.7 in/hr and that seems pretty close. The one corner is at 1.8 in/hr it is a nozzle 4.0 but only doing a 90 where the others are doing 180 with a 4.0. So I will probably change that nozzle out to a 2.0 to get it closer to 0.9 in/hr. Otherwise the are all very close 0.6 in/hr. There was one cup that was in an area that was only half covered by this zone. so I'm not to worried about that.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Backyard Zone 4 
Again these were fairly consistent minus the corners. I think I am getting a lot of overlap there. 
I might bump the nozzles up one, They are all 3.0's to 4.0's to try to get it to 0.6 inch/h. And I might bring the corners down by one to get them to even out a bit.




Funny that "North Section" has had one more application of N than the South section and there is what I think a fairly Visible line there.... You can also see the bright spot which is reflecting from the window...

So it doesn't look like my Rachio numbers were to far off.. but I did find some fundamental physical issues with my sprinkler system. I'll try to correct those and then redo the audit.

Finally Enjoying this great weather!



I also picked up some TurfGrassPro Phite 0 - 0 - 26 to help with my K deficiency.
https://www.domyown.com/turfgrasspro-phite-26-p-17265.html
Reading the label I could do 4oz per 1/k and mix in my tank for 2k. Which is 8oz in 512oz of water(4 gallons). That should give me a rate of 1.56% v/v solution which is under their recommended 2%... I've never applied straight K before.. anything else I should know?


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Mowed front and back today @ 2.0"

Put down 3oz/k of N-ext RSG.. Waiting on sprinkler parts.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Week of rain and light snow and its clearing now out... Grass looks like its Improving.

Still have this obvious window glare burn.... I emailed the installer to see about changing out the main window to a non reflective with a slightly lower TSER..


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

5/11/2019
Mowed Front and Back at 2.5"

Sprinkler parts were put in.

Backyard Zone 1:
These were all fixed sprayers.
Replaced all of Nozzles with MP1000-90. Looking at it the old fixed sprayers on the uphill side were distributing most of the water past the grass to the fence/rocks on the downhill side. When installing the MP nozzle I adjusted their throw and I have pretty even coverage now for Backyard Zone 1.

Hard to see the sprinkler pattern:









Backyard Zone 2:
This had mostly fixed sprayers with two rotary sprinklers on the same zone. 
I replaced the rotary sprayers(Hunter PGP) with with two Rainbird 1800-04. And put the MP2000-90 nozzle on one and MP2000-210 on the other. I replaced the rest of the fix spray nozzles with MP1000-90's. This will even out the flow rate across this zone. I was also able to adjust them to have nice even coverage without throwing all the water into the rocks.










FrontYard Zone:
All fixed spray heads. I have already replaced the nozzles with the MP1000-90's but I learned a lot adjusting the two backyard zones so I went and re-adjusted these to keep the water inside the grass and less on the sidewalk. I think I'll replace the two lower corner ones with the MP-Corner to get <90 since the landscaping is slightly acute.

still waiting to replace/balance the nozzles on Backyard 3&4 with Hunter PGP.


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

kms254 said:


> 5/11/2019
> Mowed Front and Back at 2.5"
> 
> Sprinkler parts were put in.
> ...


Looks really good...


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Remember to do a new audit once replace the heads to fine tune your irrigation duration.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

5/15/2019

Mowed @ 2.5" 
Raked a small section to see if that would help break up the old dead winter grass...

I raked the closer left hand section of this part of the yard as a test... 


Front yard is coming along


Front yard is coming along


Backyard filling back in but still thin down here and on the south east part...


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

We have had a decent amount of rain and a small amount of weird snow...

Sections of grass are looking good, some sections are still looking thin... I am thinking since I let it grow long last year that might have thinned it out and this year will just be a building year...

Mowed @ 2.5 
Sprayed some N 
8oz per 1k/sqft mixed with 2 gallons of water. 
https://www.domyown.com/turfgrasspro-25-p-17268.html

That equals 0.1466 Lbs/1k of N
10% of that is slow release.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

06/03/2019
I was out of town for a week... So I mowed today @ 2.5" 
Noticing some mushrooms... going to look into what I can do for that. 
Lot of seedheads this mow.
Rain is predicted tonight so I held off applying anything.

I'm going to probably apply N-ext Humic12 tomorrow @ 3oz/k. 
Looking through the log I am not doing a great job of consistantly putting down the N-ext products..

Front Yard is looking pretty good... 









Still thinner than I would like but improving... I noticed a big change between 5/31 and 6/1. Today's mow was a rushed job(weather) and I'm tired from traveling. I tried doing double/single for the first time(probably not the best day to try that..)


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

Very nice property and the lawn certainly compliments it!


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

It looks like the watering improved things. Good job.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

Mowed:
Front Yard @ 2.5"
Back Yard @ 2.0" 
Action Shot:









Fertilizer Application
N and Fe(TurfGrassPro Blade Iron 15 - 0 - 0)
6oz per 1k = 0.11#n per 1k

K(TurfGrassPro Phite 0 - 0 - 26)
4oz per 1k


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

6/26/2019
Mowed Front and back at 2.5"


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

7/3/2019

Mowed front @ 2.5"
Mowed Back @ 2.0"

42oz of TurfGrassPro 25 - 0 - 0 over 4k = 10.5 oz per 1k = 0.1925lbs of N per 1k grass really responded to this.


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## kms254 (May 1, 2019)

7/11/2019
We had a fairly major hailstorm come through between this mow and the last.

From that last "heavier" dose of N you can really see how the grass has thickened up and filled.

I am getting a few leafy weeds here and there. I pull them when I see them. I only put down 1/2 the listed bag rate of the Prodiamine Pre-Emerge early in the season and because I was worried about green up I didn't do the second application. I also core aerated after. I've been reading about Tenacity Herbicide and I am thinking that is what I need but am still a bit unsure of how to use it so I am going to read more.

Also getting mushrooms. More so this year than last, maybe that is due to the N-ext Products?

Mowed Front @ 2.5" 
Mowed Back @ 2.0"
32oz of N-ext RSG over 4k = 8oz per 1k


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## Scagfreedom48z+ (Oct 6, 2018)

kms254 said:


> Mowed:
> Front Yard @ 2.5"
> Back Yard @ 2.0"
> Action Shot:
> ...


Wonder turf! I can see that you applied the turf grass pro 0-0-26 Phite. How did you like it? Did you have a good defense with it against pythium blight?


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