# patrck17's Lawn Journal, Allen Texas, Bermuda



## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Hey guys,

First year with a yard. Figure I would start a journal to document the progress. Will start with a before after, will keep these updated:



*Back to Orig Post:*

*Lawn Size:* 4600 square feet.
*Grass: *Bermuda
*Location: *Allen, Texas
*Experience Level: *Beginner.

I don't know the history of this lawn. For sure was SOD put down around 2011 based on neighborhood. Front yard is in worse shape then backyard. I'd say weeds in front are on the high side.

I'll start with what I have done on the lawn so far:

Early March: The Anderson's Barricade Pre-Emergent, PFG Balanced (10-10-10)
Late March: Scalped with rotary at lowest setting.
Early April: Heavy hit of Dimension.
Mid April: PFG Complete (16-4-8), IMAGE Herbicide
4/21: Revolver Herbicide
4/22: Another Scalping with rotary at lowest setting.

Weeds Identified:
Poa
Rescuegrass 
Various broadleaf

So my thoughts so far is that I probably did the first scalping too early. I also think I hit it with too much dimension and I probably shouldn't have done it right after scalping. I have a Baroness LM56GC on the way which will be here Monday and I intend to scalp down to about half an inch if I can manage it. Looking for a .8 inch HOC this season. Might not be able to go this low, I've never used a reel mower and my guess is that I need to level out this lawn before I can get cut too low. Here are some pics:







Here is a pretty good pic of this grassy weed. Not sure what it is but it has taken on in the shadier area. It grows in clumps and is darker than the grass around it. Guessing it is some kind of different grass. 






















Will see what happens Monday when I get the Baroness.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

So a few notes. I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago I bought one of those  Sun Joe  dethatchers and ran it with the pronged dethatcher head, not the scarifier head. A few notes about the experience:

* I pulled up probably 4-5 bags of those large paper lawn bags of loose clippings. This was mostly brown stolons, in general it was not dense, the bags could probably have been packed down a lot if needed.

* Yesterday when I mowed with the bagger on I had a TON of brown clippings, about 6 bags worth of mostly brown dead clippings heavily packed. I suspect this was the bulk of the dead stuff that was riled up when I dethatched. So my take away here I think is if you use one of these Sun Joe's on your law you should go back over it with a rotary with the bagger on to clear out the bulk of the clippings.

I didn't figure I would need the Sun Joe again for a while so I sold it for 80 bucks. Paid 130. Little bit of a waste but keeps me from having to store it for the year.


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## Sbcgenii (May 13, 2018)

Looks like you are off to a good start. It should be looking awesome come summer.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Quick update. I hit the front with Revolver, Celsius and Certainty. Put down the bag rate of PFG Complete. Scalped the lawn down to 0.5".

Lawn is pretty thin still, the few areas that are thick look great though. Once it starts to take off plan will be to aerate and level. Maybe in that order, haven't decided yet.

Lastly I am still lacking a solution to get into the tight spaces and edges. The baroness is very much a beast but it isn't winning any contest for it's maneuverability. I use the Ryobi 40V flavor of electric tools so I may grab trimmer, but ultimately I am hoping I can get a service to come by and do the clean up weekly. So far the mow and blow guys don't seem to interested in abbreviating the price for the abbreviated service.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

One thing that is annoying is that in the spots where the lawn is weakest in the front (under the trees) there is a nylon mesh netting that covers the soil. I am assuming this is from the sod. I have to rip it all up but when I do I pull up a lot of good stolons, so these spots will be slowest to recover. The dethatcher on my baroness does not like this stuff, rips it right up and then clogs the attachment. I have to cut it off with a knife.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Still off to a slow start. Posting a few pictures.

So we got some pretty heavy rain yesterday. A lot of missed dethatch debris was building up in the piles as the water ran off so I went out and raked them out so they didn't start to choke out the grass underneath. This resulted in many spots in the lawn looking really weak still. Not panicking yet, hopefully when the temps rise it will take off.

Can any of those out there from the DFW area comment on the weather this season? I don't have anything for comparison but it seems like my lawn at least has been slow to wake up. Am I behind or is this cooler weather having an impact on others?


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Can anyone check my math here. I have a 30:1 hose sprayer. With the nozzle and my pace I can cover my entire lawn with about half a gallon of mix. So for whatever I am putting down I add enough of what I am using for the whole lawn into this 64oz mix. For example liquid iron I put down yesterday it says 4oz per 1000ft so I added about 20 oz.

My question is with the surfactant. The bottle says 1pt per 100 gal of mix. My assumption is that this is the mix on the output of the spray head right not inside the bottle? So at 30:1 it would be 15 gallons so 15/100*16oz = 2.4 oz into the mix. Is this the right assumption?


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## Redtwin (Feb 9, 2019)

I don't usually stress out about the surfactant rate. You really just need enough to break the water tension but not so much that you create a bubble bath. For 20 fl ozs of mix I would just add a fl oz of surfactant. Full disclosure: I'm not a hose-end sprayer fan so others may be able to provide better information.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Quick update:

So grass has finally started to take off and is filling in nicely. I've tried to keep up with mowing in between all the rain we've been having which has been frustrating. The baroness is pretty bulky and in the harder to navigate areas I get a bit of scuffing in areas where the roller catches. Not too big of a deal.

Starting to notice some places in the yard where the water seems to drain the slowest. Grass is thinner in these areas but I think once things get a little dryer they will not be an issue. It usually doesn't rain this much in N. Texas.

I guess I was a little wreckless with the Baroness and managed to warp/bend one edge of a blade. Currently makes contact with the bedknife unevenly on that edge. In process of grinding it down while trying to keep as clean of an edge as I can. Also looks like I've already bent the front roller bracket. Nothing too concerning, I'll probably leave it for now and replace them later.


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## dubyadubya87 (Mar 10, 2020)

Patrck17 said:


> Here is a pretty good pic of this grassy weed. Not sure what it is but it has taken on in the shadier area. It grows in clumps and is darker than the grass around it. Guessing it is some kind of different grass.


Pretty sure that is kyllinga, a member of the sedge family. One of those: next to impossible to kill, be happy to control it, weeds. Sedgehammer or Vexis has worked for me in the past.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Been a while so I decided I would post a couple updates. I got tired of getting stuck on every fence, stone, or driveway with the travel wheel axles and went ahead and cut them off. On the left side with the reel bolt I left the axle a little longer and moved out and reversed the wheel gear. The goal being that it would be more forgiving since it would spread the impact out over a larger area.





I also drafted up and printed some knobs for my Baroness bedknife height adjustment nuts. You can see them in this video:





Made that video because my mower was making a strange knocking noise when the reel was engaged. I ended up swapping out the spark plug, carb, air filter, ignition coil (simple tune up kit), and adding some extra grease to the gearbox. One of those things fixed the problem.

Lastly I had 6 square ft or so bare spot in my front yard that just wouldn't grow any grass. I decided to dig out the soil there to what ended up being about 3inches. Just did this yesterday so the results are TBD.







Put this over it to stop erosion while the roots take.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

A quick before after shot of this one spot in the lawn. It is the best spot in the yard, but the rest is getting there.


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## Nrkstudio (Dec 11, 2020)

What tune up kit did you use when you first purchase the baroness? I have a 56G coming in next week and have never owned a mower. Thanks for help man


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Nrkstudio said:


> What tune up kit did you use when you first purchase the baroness? I have a 56G coming in next week and have never owned a mower. Thanks for help man


Hey sorry for the late response. Here is a link to the kit that I bought. I installed the entire thing. No issues with the motor since but the air filter is outright too high (vertically) for the cover that my mower has. I cannot reinstall it. I've used it for weeks without it but bought another filter literally today to (attempt) to fix it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q5MYW33/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

EDIT:

Note I had to go to HD and get a OEM spark plug. I think I messed up the one that came when I installed it, so really can't comment either way. But if you do get this kit, and your motor isn't doing so hot. Go get a new spark plug.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

A lot has happened in the last few weeks. I purchased 5 yards of sand to attempt to level. A few comments about the experience:
[*]Scalped a little too low and with the detacher on for a little bit. This ripped a lot of grass up. Not ideal.
[*]I core aerated just before leveling. No real issues there but I made the mistake of raking up the grass a lot trying to get up the cores. Combined with the scalping I ended up with a lot of lose pulled up grass.
[*]Started the process without a landscaping rake. Big mistake. Also didn't put down enough sand at first. I ended up having to redo the first two sections I leveled. Once I started putting down the sand a lot thicker, the leveling become a lot easier.
[*] I ran out of sand so I ended up not being able to level a large section. It is the portion of the lawn that looks best. I am debating if I want to bother leveling this season or just do it next spring. It cuts well enough with the reel, could be better but think I will just wait.

At this point I am pretty much done with spraying for weeds, insects, aerating and leveling. So my focus moving forward is on plugging weak spots in the front and pushing the lawn to spread. Will update in a few weeks.

Scalped lawn down (ended up not leveling this area):


Aerated:




Sand Arrived:












Two weeks later:


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Posting a few more pictures that I took throughout the summer. I have a couple ongoing issues which you can see in the pics.

1. Lawn doesn't really want to fill into the bare spots. I started a more aggressive approach by taking a lot of plugs and transplanting, but I don't think I will get great results with this before the end of the seasons.
2. The rabbits are absolutely relentless on my yard. They are chewing up and disrupting the grass at the roots, in places faster than it can grow back.


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## Patrck17 (Apr 19, 2021)

Figure I'd capture some lessons I learned the hard way this season:
1. Sand is great for leveling but I should have used soil for attempting to fill in bare spots. My grass didn't do a great job spreading into the bare sandy areas. 
2. Next year I will aerate and level as early as possible. 
3. I ripped up a lot of grass last year when I dethatched and mowed early on. I also think I mas mowing too low in the bare regions. I was pulling up too much grass and not letting it spread effectively. I started mowing at about 1inch and it started filling in better. Will still take another season I think to get where it needs to be. 
4. I'll need to be proactive keeping the rabbits out of my yard, They became pretty destructive when left unchecked.


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