# Max's 2020 Renovation Journal (KBG)



## MaxMacLaren1 (Jul 23, 2020)

Hi,

For many years I have tried and failed to grow a cool season lawn in Mallorca, Spain. At first I thought the problem was a lack of water, then grubs and only recently did I realise it was probably brown spot. I say probably because the testing available in the US is not readily available here. But I definitely know one thing, I am determined not to give in and join the warm season crew.

So it's time for a full renovation. Having read lots of advice here it seems if a jobs worth doing then do it right. This is the current (I hesitate to use the word) lawn. The greener areas are mostly nut grass...


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## MaxMacLaren1 (Jul 23, 2020)

The renovation started in September and the first job was to take out the old orange tree. Originally one of two (which was great for a hammock) the remaining one was dying and had stopped fruiting. Since I bought the house over a decade ago they have given me the most fabulous oranges and freshly squeezed juice for months each year and to be honest it was surprisingly emotional to take it down. I hope to plant a new one soon. Borrowing or hiring a chainsaw would have made the job easier but I decided to take it out manually which was certainly hard work.

The next step was killing the nut grass with Sledge Hammer and once it had died back, killing the rest of the grass with Roundup.

Then on to rotavating. There was no way I wanted to dig 120m² so I borrowed a friend's machine. What a beast! I'd never used one before and it jumped like a kangaroo when it hit a large stone. As you can see from the picture there were quite a few of them. And where the above ground pool had been the ground was really hard, much worse than I had expected. No wonder getting grass to grow was so hard!!!

A lot of levelling and raking, and racking and levelling and some more... you get the picture. I used wooden stakes to get the level flat and the slope in one corner was much greater than I expected. Once it settles I suspect there will still be a small slope but hopefully annual dressing will fix that over time.

Then a bag of sharp sand per m² was added and lightly rotavated in ready for seeding with KBG Maurader. Varieties of KBG are hard to get in Europe and Maurader is all I could find (it may be Ken Blue under a different name). Anyway after all this effort I hope it works.


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## MaxMacLaren1 (Jul 23, 2020)

October update: Well it's 6 weeks on and whilst things are not going entirely to plan there is hope!

The good news is that the grass started to sprout much more quickly than expected. The first pic is just a week after planting. It was slightly patchy and I thought, fine, the rest will come up over the next few weeks. Big mistake and I should have re-seeded the straight away because I ran into cooler autumn nights.

My second mistake was not treading the ground after adding the sand. A good downpour here does an excellent job but I'd rotavated so much sand in that I could feel my feet sinking into the soil! So it's a bit lumpy but I'm hoping it will settle over winter and a good top dressing will level things again out in spring.

Finally, as others have noted nut grass is hard to kill. Despite using sedge hammer and waiting a few weeks before weed killing the entire lawn, the nut grass is growing quite happily.


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