# MQ's Lawn Journal



## Mightyquinn

I am going to start this thread to chronicle all my doings in the lawn this year and my goal to get the lawn back to where it once was and beyond.

My goals so far this year will be to keep the HOC at or below .500" and to make the lawn FLAT. It's already relatively smooth but I have a lot of undulations that need to be fixed and some high spots, especially around the driveway and sidewalks. I plan on taking down all the high spots with my verticutter and letting the rhizomes regrow the area. I may have to take it down steps instead of all at once but we will see when I get there.

Feel free to ask questions or comment in this thread as I will be more than happy to answer or discuss anything.


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## Mightyquinn

* I copied and pasted this from the other thread just to keep all this together*

Well it's the morning and I'm drinking my coffee so here it goes!!

Started my Spring scalp yesterday, since I took last year off due to my job, the lawn had gotten to around 2-3" long since I and my wife (touchofgrass) were cutting the lawn with the rotary about once a week. I think I ended on the #4 slot on the JD JS45 that I have. So I started on the #3 notch and it was just barely taking off anything but it was enough to start filling the bag every so often. After that was done, I dropped it down to the #2 setting and that's when it started to really get to work. I was filling the bag on the mower with every 2-4 passes of the yard. It took me about 3 hours to get the whole yard (8K sq/ft) done with minimal breaks. I will say that the work wasn't too bad since what you are mowing off is dry and dead so it wasn't heavy at all just very tedious since you have to stop and take the bag off the mower and empty it so often. I was only able to mow down to the #2 notch but it did thin out the canopy considerably and hopefully the Baroness will be able to take out the rest of it. After I made the cut at #2, I was able to see a lot green grass underneath that wasn't visible before.

I think this is the earliest I have ever scalped before as I usually wait until March 1st at least but I think there is very little to worry about even if we due have a cold spell or something. It would take a very long cold spell to effect the soil temperature that much.

*BEFORE*













































*Difference between #3 and #2 notch*










*After*


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## Mightyquinn

I was able to get the Baroness out and finally put her back to work. I adjusted the HOC to .900" and backed the reel off the bedknife A LOT, I could probably fit a dime between the space. I also set the groomer at .750 since that was about as low as it would go. I ended up doing 2 passes over the lawn at .900" just due to the fact that I was cutting of a lot of material in this pass. I also didn't use the grass catcher as it was just too difficult to use with all material I had to pick up. I'm either going to go lower tomorrow or suck up what I cut today with the rotary. The lawn is considerably thinner than yesterday and I can finally feel like I am making progress. Just can't wait to get to the point that I can get the dethatcher out!!!


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## Ware

Awesome. This thread reads better with this playing in the background. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIPS4LyveJs


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## touchofgrass

MQ, did you tell 'em about the poop flinging all over?


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## Mightyquinn

touchofgrass said:


> MQ, did you tell 'em about the poop flinging all over?


No I did not. I forgot to mention that while I was mowing the backyard with the Baroness, all the matted down and petrified poop from our 100 lb German Shepard from over the Winter was getting flung up in the air from the groomer on the front of the mower. I was just laughing while mowing as it was a sight to see. Wish I could have recorded it!!!!


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## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> MQ, did you tell 'em about the poop flinging all over?
> 
> 
> 
> No I did not. I forgot to mention that while I was mowing the backyard with the Baroness, all the matted down and petrified poop from our 100 lb German Shepard from over the Winter was getting flung up in the air from the groomer on the front of the mower. I was just laughing while mowing as it was a sight to see. Wish I could have recorded it!!!!
Click to expand...

Well, if the boy would pooper scoop, you would not have had to dodge the doggie poo while mowing. Better you than me. At least it was flinging it outward forwardly instead of back at you. It must have been a lot as that yard was like a land mine.


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## Redtenchu

Hahaha, that's hilarious!

Can't wait to see your yard this year!


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## Ware

Mightyquinn said:


> ...Wish I could have recorded it!!!!


Maybe the next trend should be greens mower mounted GoPro's? :lol:


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## touchofgrass

Ware said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...Wish I could have recorded it!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe the next trend should be greens mower mounted GoPro's? :lol:
Click to expand...

ah jeez... don't give him ideas... I can tell you he's already thought of buying a GoPro and mounting it on the mower


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## Wes

touchofgrass said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> MQ, did you tell 'em about the poop flinging all over?
> 
> 
> 
> No I did not. I forgot to mention that while I was mowing the backyard with the Baroness, all the matted down and petrified poop from our 100 lb German Shepard from over the Winter was getting flung up in the air from the groomer on the front of the mower. I was just laughing while mowing as it was a sight to see. Wish I could have recorded it!!!!
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Well, if the boy would pooper scoop, you would not have had to dodge the doggie poo while mowing. Better you than me. At least it was flinging it outward forwardly instead of back at you. It must have been a lot as that yard was like a land mine.
Click to expand...

This is my exact method of "cleaning up" after the dog in my own backyard. I just use a TruCut. I consider it a mechanical method of speeding up the decomposition process.


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## Mightyquinn

Wes said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> No I did not. I forgot to mention that while I was mowing the backyard with the Baroness, all the matted down and petrified poop from our 100 lb German Shepard from over the Winter was getting flung up in the air from the groomer on the front of the mower. I was just laughing while mowing as it was a sight to see. Wish I could have recorded it!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> Well, if the boy would pooper scoop, you would not have had to dodge the doggie poo while mowing. Better you than me. At least it was flinging it outward forwardly instead of back at you. It must have been a lot as that yard was like a land mine.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> This is my exact method of "cleaning up" after the dog in my own backyard. I just use a TruCut. I consider it a mechanical method of speeding up the decomposition process.
Click to expand...

I usually let the poop build up over the dormant season and then collect most of it during the scalp after that I make my 10 year old boy go out and pick it up every couple of days before I mow.


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## Redtenchu

Mightyquinn said:


> I make my 10 year old boy go out and pick it up every couple of days before I mow.


Basically the reason we all have children, right?


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## dfw_pilot

I was born as a TV remote control.


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## Wes

Along with being the remote control, I was also a cigarette pack retriever. "Wesley, can you go get my cigarettes from in the living room?"

That said, I feel bad. We've totally hijacked MQ's lawn journal.


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## Mightyquinn

Wes said:


> Along with being the remote control, I was also a cigarette pack retriever. "Wesley, can you go get my cigarettes from in the living room?"
> 
> That said, I feel bad. We've totally hijacked MQ's lawn journal.


It's all good Wes!!! I don't mind the friendly banter!!!


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## touchofgrass

dfw_pilot said:


> I was born as a TV remote control.


lol


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## Mightyquinn

Well I did some more scalping today after church. I knocked the Baroness down to .600" and the groomer was about .475". I just went over the lawn once with the Baroness and then back over it again with the JD rotary to suck all the clippings up. It's definitely getting a lot thinner and I can see that progress is being made. After I was done with collecting all the clippings, I got the string trimmer out and went around the perimeter to knock down all the grass I couldn't get at with the mower. I ended up with 17 55 gallon bags of clippings that are sitting by the curb waiting for the city to come by and pick them up tomorrow.


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## Mightyquinn

One more thing I forgot to add was that my lawn is REALLY soft right now. I don't know if it is because of the temperatures, which are not allowing the moisture to evaporate or something else but it hasn't rained here in several days. So hopefully by opening the canopy up, it will let more sun get down to the soil and dry and firm things up. One of my goals this year is to add more sand to the soil profile to help firm things up and allow water and nutrients to get down to the roots. I have 2-3" of organic matter built up at the top of the soil and I believe it is causing more harm than good at this point. So 1 or 2 aerations will be in my future for sure.


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## Redtenchu

I love the picture of your trash bags all lined up! Lol, you're going to ruin some guys day tomorrow!!!


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## touchofgrass

Redtenchu said:


> I love the picture of your trash bags all lined up! Lol, you're going to ruin some guys day tomorrow!!!


I cracked up when I saw that picture too...I thought he purposely lined them up all pretty due to his (our) OCD but he said that's just how they laid out.. haha... he said moving all of them was quite the workout.. haha.

It's just yard waste pickup so they shouldn't have too much stuff to get and hopefully won't hate him too much... :lol:


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## Mightyquinn

Well, it was about 0745, Monday morning and look what I heard outside!!


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## Redtenchu

Nice! I can't help but notice the top picture of the worker looking back at your house. I wonder what's on his mind :x :evil: ? LOL


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## Wes

He's obviously thinking, "I can't wait to see this guy's lawn later this year!"


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## Redtenchu

Wes said:


> He's obviously thinking, "I can't wait to see this guy's lawn later this year!"


 :lol: So True :lol:


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## Mightyquinn

I'm saying the same thing!!!  :lol:


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## Mightyquinn

I just tried to mow at .500" and the mower kept bogging down into the soil. After further inspection, there appears to be a layer of sand/dirt just below the canopy and it's really soft. I am thinking of taking the verticutter to the lawn now and the raking up the debris and also using my Stihl Power Sweep attachment to remove all the "dirt" from the top layer. Hopefully giving me a firmer canvas to continue my progression down to around .250". It's amazing what neglecting the lawn for a year can do. Last time I scalped it was so thick under there with all the stolons. I only fertilized once last year so the lawn didn't have the energy to spread like it did in years past.


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## Iriasj2009

Hey mighty, can you pull out a plug so we can see what you are dealing with? Or dig in with a showel? Just beingcurious lol


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## Mightyquinn

Iriasj2009 said:


> Hey mighty, can you pull out a plug so we can see what you are dealing with? Or dig in with a showel? Just beingcurious lol


Good idea!! I was thinking the same thing. I'll take one when I get home and post it.


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## MrMeaner

OMG, now you know what I have to deal with but on a much larger scale, I buy 95 gallon trash bags and end up with about 35-40 of them after a scalp on my 28k sq ft. - totally an *** kickin!! This year I'm planning to hire out some of the yard maintenance stuff, I like and don't mind doing it, its just too much work for me alone. Here is what I am dealing with on a 1 acre lot


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## Redtenchu

Wow, that would be a lot to deal with MM!


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## Mightyquinn

I don't blame you a bit MM!! I am thankful for the lawn I have and really wouldn't want any more than what I got.


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## Mightyquinn

I initially went to mow at .500" this morning but the mower was having none of it. So after deliberating about it, I decided to take the verticutter to it and see what would happen. Well, I ended up doing 2 passes on the lawn at 90°. The first one was kind of deep but not as deep as I was wanting so when I set up to do the next pass I dropped it down even lower and was finally in the dirt like I wanted. It brought up a lot of material and thinned everything out. I also want to go over it again in the near future at the diagonal to make sure I got everything that I can get. I also wouldn't mind aerating too before everything greens up. Right now I am just trying to figure out my next plan of attack after I do the Front yard tomorrow.

This is what I used to do the damage. I will do a short write up on it later.



















Here are some during and after pics.


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## SGrabs33

Looks great, and has to make your Baroness happier when taking it down to .250". I have to imagine that verticutting, aerating, and then sanding would be great for the lawn. I'm wondering how many bags you are going to have next week for the yard waste crew???


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## Mightyquinn

SGrabs33 said:


> Looks great, and has to make your Baroness happier when taking it down to .250". I have to imagine that verticutting, aerating, and then sanding would be great for the lawn. I'm wondering how many bags you are going to have next week for the yard waste crew???


I'm going to try to keep it under 17, otherwise they might start hating me. :lol:


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## Wes

MrMeaner said:


> OMG, now you know what I have to deal with but on a much larger scale, I buy 95 gallon trash bags and end up with about 35-40 of them after a scalp on my 28k sq ft. - totally an @ss kickin!! This year I'm planning to hire out some of the yard maintenance stuff, I like and don't mind doing it, its just too much work for me alone. Here is what I am dealing with on a 1 acre lot


I can relate. My lot is only .70 acres, but I have a little less concrete and don't have the building in the back. Front yard is 9.6k square feet. I don't care as much about he back so I haven't measured.










What's interesting about this photo is the line across the back yard. That's not an illusion. The area immediately behind the house was also originally sodded with Tiff 419 with leftovers from sodding the front yard. In an effort to help the Tiff grow further back last year I cut grass below common bermuda's comfort zone.

The bottom half of the back yard (brownish area) was cut at 3/8" for a while and the top half was maintained at 1.25". This picture must have been taken around April or May because the grass hadn't really filled in. The greenish area right behind the house is the Tiff. Unfortunately I did nothing more for it than mow it.


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## Iriasj2009

MQ, looking great! I'm very curious to see what's your next plan of attack. Fertilizer? Preemergent? Sand? Aeration? I'm gonna start my own thread and will be needing some advise.


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## Mightyquinn

I am going to wait on fertilizing for the moment and I'm on the fence with adding more sand. I do want to aerate before it all greens up, I will probably remove all the cores. I'm in a conundrum right now since I verticut the backyard and went pretty deep, so it loosened up a good .5-1" of topsoil. Trying to decide on whether to keep it or try to remove it. I may spray some of the Lesco Moisture Manager that I still have to help get things going south towards the roots. I'm in no rush to do PreM right now as the verticutter takes out a lot of the weeds. I have noticed in years past that when I do a deep verticut on the lawn in the Spring, I get very few weeds germinating in the lawn even if I don't use any PreM and I always have Celsius as a back up just in case. I'm not a big believer in the whole "weed seeds can lay dormant for years in the soil" kind of person. If that was true than grass seed would be able to lay dormant for years too!


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## touchofgrass

He's hard at work already


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## touchofgrass

I think he's around the side there bagging up more.. can we beat 17?!!! We shall see


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## Iriasj2009

I think he killed he's lawn :lol:


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## Mightyquinn

Iriasj2009 said:


> I think he killed he's lawn :lol:


I'm sure that's what everyone is thinking in the neighborhood right now!!! :lol:

I think I have devised a plan of action but I will go more in-depth later on it.


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## Iriasj2009

"He's" lol oops.. I meant his :roll: 
Please let us know!!


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## jbrown

Those trash guys are going to pissed!!! LOL!!! 
MQ, are you and your neighbor going to battle out who is going to have the best lawn on the street?

JB


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## J_nick

jbrown said:


> Those trash guys are going to pissed!!! LOL!!!
> MQ, are you and your neighbor going to battle out who is going to have the best lawn on the street?
> 
> JB


I don't think the neighbor has a chance


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## Mightyquinn

jbrown said:


> Those trash guys are going to pissed!!! LOL!!!
> MQ, are you and your neighbor going to battle out who is going to have the best lawn on the street?
> 
> JB


Which neighbor are you speaking of???  I have nothing but weed farms around me


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## jbrown

[/quote]

Which neighbor are you speaking of???  I have nothing but weed farms around me
[/quote]

Awesome! 
All my neighbors have well maintain yards, they all have tifway419 and cut with a rotary mower once a week. It's more like a scalp once a week :lol:


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## Mightyquinn

Well this morning, I got after the front lawn with the verticutter as some of you may know from TOG posting pics from high above . I only did one pass this time as it was bringing up a lot of dirt and plant material, I was going pretty deep. After raking it all up into piles, I discovered that there was a lot of dirt in those piles since it was early morning and the ground was still damp so the dirt kind of clung to the clippings. I ended up having to rake the clippings around the yard to work the dirt out of them so the garbage bags wouldn't be so heavy. That ended up taking longer than expected but I think it helped overall as I would make sure I raked them over low spots for the extra dirt to fall into. After all that was done, I was/am worn out as I have been going at the lawn since Friday basically but I think I have come a long way so far and I am way ahead of pace from any other year. At this point I am just going to pause and let Mother Nature do her thing for a week or two and then reassess after that. I think a good rain or two will help settle a lot of the dirt I kicked up and smooth things out a bit.

As for my plan going forward, I plan on buying a drag mat off Amazon and borrowing my friends JD riding mower to go over the lawn to help smooth it out. It's about half grass and half dirt right now. Before I do that, I am going to hit the front and back yard at least once more with the verticutter going diagonally, there are also some high spots I want to knock down too, as my gold it to have a FLAT lawn. It may take another year or two to get there but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. As for adding anything to the soil, I am going to hold off on that too as it's still early in the season. I definitely need to get some Wetting Agent, Pesticide and PreM/Celsius down with in the next few weeks.

If you have any questions or suggestions to add to my plan, please feel free!!!!


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## Redtenchu

What is your HOC going to be?


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## Mightyquinn

Redtenchu said:


> What is your HOC going to be?


I would like to get it down to around .250" but I am going to wait until everything settles down a bit before I take the Baroness back out to get the rest of it.


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## touchofgrass

jbrown said:


> Those trash guys are going to pissed!!! LOL!!!
> MQ, are you and your neighbor going to battle out who is going to have the best lawn on the street?
> 
> JB


oh God no... no one around us even tries to do anything to their lawn. We call it a win if they even mow every other week. There are a few people around the neighborhood that do a fairly decent job and we can tell they at least care ** yes, we DO drive around and check out other people's lawns...don't you? :lol: **


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## touchofgrass

Blowing all the dirt and such out... or trying to anyway... looks like we have a lot


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## Mightyquinn

touchofgrass said:


> Blowing all the dirt and such out... or trying to anyway... looks like we have a lot


Just FYI, I was using my Stihl Kombi Power Sweep attachment to move some of the loose dirt from the high spots into the lower areas and I was testing to see how it did. I have to say I am REALLY impressed with this thing. I haven't really ever used it extensively since I got it, only for small jobs here and there. It did a great job of pushing the dirt and all the remaining clippings. One of the cool things was that since the paddles are spinning in the opposite direction in kind of separates the dirt from the clippings so when you get to the end of your run, all you have is a nice lite pile of clipping to pick up. It also does an awesome job of standing the grass up. Might have to do an equipment review for this!!!


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## Redtenchu

I really enjoy these creepy pictures of MQ! Keep it up ToG!


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## Ware

Redtenchu said:


> I really enjoy these creepy pictures of MQ! Keep it up ToG!


Same here. It's like MQ has his own publicist.


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## Wes

Ware said:


> Redtenchu said:
> 
> 
> 
> I really enjoy these creepy pictures of MQ! Keep it up ToG!
> 
> 
> 
> Same here. It's like MQ has his own publicist.
Click to expand...

...or live-in stalker. I enjoy it too!


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## touchofgrass

Wes said:


> Ware said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Redtenchu said:
> 
> 
> 
> I really enjoy these creepy pictures of MQ! Keep it up ToG!
> 
> 
> 
> Same here. It's like MQ has his own publicist.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> ...or live-in stalker. I enjoy it too!
Click to expand...

I'll keep that in mind, guys...happy to oblige 🏡


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## Mightyquinn

After using the Stihl Power Sweep yesterday, it inspired me to use it on the rest of the lawn today. I ended up using it to push all the debris into a few piles which was amazing how much was still on the lawn. I filled up 4 more trash bags between the Power Sweep and mowing the lawn. I ended up putting the brush attachment on the Baroness and setting it at just below the HOC. It did a great job at picking up the remaining big stuff that was still in the lawn and I was able to mow it down to .500". The front yard was a little more challenging to do since it's not as thin as the backyard. I only went over the front once with the verticutter. I "think" I'm done for now as it seems like I need a good rain to help settle all the dirt and dust down. It was a dusty mess mowing the front yard but it looks so much cleaner now that I'm done.


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## Iriasj2009

Loving the pics!!! Looks great MQ!


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## Redtenchu

Great job so far!


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## touchofgrass

Good 'ole MQ forgot to bring the bin and bags out from the back yard so young AQB and TOG got to do it... lucky us... now that my old lady lungs aren't working.. man those things are heavy


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## touchofgrass

Oh my God guys... the lawn is getting so long... I cannot wait for MQ to come home and mow it three times.... haha


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## Mightyquinn

touchofgrass said:


> Oh my God guys... the lawn is getting so long... I cannot wait for MQ to come home and mow it three times.... haha


Sorry, my wife is a DORK!! :lol:


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## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> Oh my God guys... the lawn is getting so long... I cannot wait for MQ to come home and mow it three times.... haha
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, my wife is a DORK!! :lol:
Click to expand...

Hurtful words!!!!!


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## Redtenchu

touchofgrass said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> Oh my God guys... the lawn is getting so long... I cannot wait for MQ to come home and mow it three times.... haha
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, my wife is a DORK!! :lol:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Hurtful words!!!!!
Click to expand...

 :rofl:


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## touchofgrass

Here comes the rain ... better get the boats ready... woooo, she's really coming down out there

Taken when I began typing this post


Taken when I finished typing this post


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## Mightyquinn

I would like to say that the lawn did look longer when I got home yesterday. I think all the rain we got helped wash down a lot of the loose dirt from all the verticutting I did which makes it "look" longer but it did help a lot. I plan on getting back out there today with the verticutter and take down some more high spots. I got 200 lbs of play sand that I want to apply but may wait till later once I get everything almost to where I want it and may go pick up some more as I would like to incorporate it into the soil profile.


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## touchofgrass

Daddy's got a brand new toy


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## Ware

touchofgrass said:


> Daddy's got a brand new toy


Looks like mine! I ended up taking up some of the slack in the chain with a small d-ring shackle so that it tracks a little closer to the back of my mower. To hook it to the mower I use a larger d-ring shackle with a pin that fits the hole on my mower hitch.


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## Mightyquinn

Ware said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> Daddy's got a brand new toy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Looks like mine! I ended up taking up some of the slack in the chain with a small d-ring shackle so that it tracks a little closer to the back of my mower. To hook it to the mower I use a larger d-ring shackle with a pin that fits the hole on my mower hitch.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip!!


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## Ware

I think J_nick has the same drag mat. We should take our lawn leveling show on the road:


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## J_nick

Ware said:


> I think J_nick has the same drag mat. We should take our lawn leveling show on the road:


I sure do. As for taking them on the road, everyone who has one is welcome to my house around the end of May!


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## Mightyquinn

I will say after getting my hands on one of these drag mats, you can really tell the difference in a "real" drag mat apposed to the one I made when I leveled my lawn several years ago. I wish I would have gone ahead and bought one at that time, I think it would have made a big difference in the final product.


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## dfw_pilot

Glad to hear that - buying the right tool for the job is always best. Sometimes, though, it's hard to know what tool is best for a job. Good thing there is TLF for that.


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## Mightyquinn

Now that I should be home everyday from here on out, the weather isn't cooperating!!! I still need to scalp a few more times and run the verticutter over the lawn to loosen everything up and run my new drag mat over everything!! I'm itching to get back out in the lawn as it's been 2 weeks since I've done anything.


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## Ware

Mightyquinn said:


> Now that I should be home everyday from here on out, the weather isn't cooperating!!! I still need to scalp a few more times and run the verticutter over the lawn to loosen everything up and run my new drag mat over everything!! I'm itching to get back out in the lawn as it's been 2 weeks since I've done anything.


Man, same here. I wanted to give the lawn a once-over with the extra hour of daylight this afternoon, but it was in the mid-40's all day!


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## Mightyquinn

Yeah, we had mid 40's and rain all day and we are suppose to get some more tomorrow. Just hoping this weekend is half way decent so I can get something done. I still have 2 irrigation zones to install and clean out the flower beds.


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## tbdh20

Mightyquinn said:


> Now that I should be home everyday from here on out, the weather isn't cooperating!!! I still need to scalp a few more times and run the verticutter over the lawn to loosen everything up and run my new drag mat over everything!! I'm itching to get back out in the lawn as it's been 2 weeks since I've done anything.


MQ, It has been rough this week with the rain/colder temps but the wind has been brutal.


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## touchofgrass

MQ is being mean to me, you guys... he's gonna post later and make fun of me for my little hands :-( he tried to 'teach' me how to use the greens mower but laughed at me and was mean.

On another note: Happy St Patrick's Day.. may all your lawns green up with the luck of the Irish


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## Mightyquinn

I got off from work early yesterday and it was nice outside for once so I decided to give the lawn another hair cut. I dropped the Baroness down to .400" and put the groomer attachment on and set it at .250". After making the first pass on the lawn, I could really tell a difference after I cut. As of right now I plan on taking the verticutter to the lawn in 2 passes to help break up the top layer of soil, rake up any debris that I may have, borrow our friends JD riding mower and use my drag mat over the lawn to help smooth out any rough spots and give it a final grading. I will then water it all in to help settle the soil. After all of that I will spray the lawn with a Prodiamine/Celsius mix to get all the weeds that are left over and then just wait for it to start filling back in. I feel like the end is near finally for getting the lawn ready for the upcoming season.


----------



## Ware

^^^ I read nothing in that post about greens mower driving lessons. Pray tell.


----------



## touchofgrass

Ware said:


> ^^^ I read nothing in that post about greens mower driving lessons. Pray tell.


It was an impromptu lesson... you can BARELY see me in one of his pics (facing back of house) wearing my REEL LOW BERMUDA shirt, of course 

I went out for who knows what reason and he said, "Do you want to try a pass" so I said sure (cuz my alternative was going back to work, so um, yeah)

He said to push this in tip it engages and pull this back and don't push this all the way or it'll fly away from you... so again...UMMMMMMMM

So I went to try it with my little hands and he's all no, use your palms.. My entire hand is like 6 in from base of palm to finger tip... my palms won't work... I was trying to elongate from thumb to finger tip to press this and pull that and I got her moving but he said I was doing it wrong so I left and went back to work.. hah

So there you have it.. my 'lesson' ... I feel for my poor babies when it comes time to teach driving the cars  :shock:


----------



## touchofgrass

tbdh20 said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now that I should be home everyday from here on out, the weather isn't cooperating!!! I still need to scalp a few more times and run the verticutter over the lawn to loosen everything up and run my new drag mat over everything!! I'm itching to get back out in the lawn as it's been 2 weeks since I've done anything.
> 
> 
> 
> MQ, It has been rough this week with the rain/colder temps but the wind has been brutal.
Click to expand...


----------



## Iriasj2009

Wow, looks great mighty!! :thumbup:


----------



## Mightyquinn

I didn't take any pictures yesterday but I will try to today. Yesterday, I took the verticutter to the lawn one more time and went diagonal in both directions to break up the top 1/2-1" of soil so I could run my drag mat over it to help smooth and level everything out on last time. Before doing that I used the verticutter on all the high spots in an effort to take them down a bit and even everything out. I used my landscape rake to get all the stolons and rhizomes out and my Stihl Powersweep to move all the dirt to lower spots.

Today I plan on getting our neighbors JD riding mower and use the drag mat to get everything as smooth as possible and then start the irrigation system up for the first time. I am going to need to check the heads as I think I broke 1 or 2 while verticutting yesterday and plus it will help settle all the dirt. I think I am pretty much done for now with the lawn until it starts greening up and filling in. I still need to spray Prodiamine, Celsius, Wetting Agent and insecticide and put down some fertilizer to help give it a boost. I plan on doing all of that during the week as time permits. Now it's time to just clean all my equipment up and get ready for the season ahead!!


----------



## tbdh20

Wow! I'm tired reading this. Looking forward to the pics of the end result, or maybe shame for my inefficiency and stamina. :thumbup:


----------



## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> I didn't take any pictures yesterday but I will try to today. Yesterday, I took the verticutter to the lawn one more time and went diagonal in both directions to break up the top 1/2-1" of soil so I could run my drag mat over it to help smooth and level everything out on last time. Before doing that I used the verticutter on all the high spots in an effort to take them down a bit and even everything out. I used my landscape rake to get all the stolons and rhizomes out and my Stihl Powersweep to move all the dirt to lower spots.
> 
> Today I plan on getting our neighbors JD riding mower and use the drag mat to get everything as smooth as possible and then start the irrigation system up for the first time. I am going to need to check the heads as I think I broke 1 or 2 while verticutting yesterday and plus it will help settle all the dirt. I think I am pretty much done for now with the lawn until it starts greening up and filling in. I still need to spray Prodiamine, Celsius, Wetting Agent and insecticide and put down some fertilizer to help give it a boost. I plan on doing all of that during the week as time permits. Now it's time to just clean all my equipment up and get ready for the season ahead!!


I have heard the 'I am pretty much done...' part numerous times now yet here we are.

I took some pictures today

Man at work here - Amanda and I were raking up the loosened 'stuff' (stolen and rhizomes???) and putting it in a trash bag (our poor Monday trash pick up folks)









Bestie's JD mower (good ole MQ is going to clean it all up for him too)









VERY DUSTY









Getting close to the fence there, huh MQ?









Taking a rest and evaluating his handiwork


----------



## dfw_pilot

touchofgrass said:


>


This pic says a lot.


----------



## touchofgrass

dfw_pilot said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This pic says a lot.
Click to expand...

Hahahahahahahahha


----------



## dfw_pilot

Good lawns take a lot of hard work and dedication. When you get to MQ's level of lawn, every increase in quality is a huge step up in input.


----------



## Ware

Hey, I know that guy! Looks great! :thumbup:


----------



## touchofgrass

Ware said:


> Hey, I know that guy! Looks great! :thumbup:


I think the guy looks great too !!


----------



## Mightyquinn

Well since the wife already posted some pics and I didn't take any that is what you are going to get for now  After getting our friends riding mower, I took the drag mat out on it's maiden voyage and I have to say I am very impressed with it. After the initial pass over the lawn there was still some "debris" left in the yard that needed raked up and bagged. I then went over the lawn several more times to make sure it was as smooth as I could get it. The lawn still isn't perfect in terms of smoothness but I think it will take a few more years of doing this to get there. It's definitely better than when I started earlier this year.

I also ran the irrigation system for the first time today just to make sure everything was working correctly and if anything needed adjusting. I have 3 heads I'm going to need to replace as I ripped the caps off while verticutting. I already replaced one of them since it was froze up and wouldn't even move at all. I always keep 1 or 2 spares laying around for reasons just like this. Only a couple of the heads needed adjusted and I will be doing some more fine tuning as the season progresses. I still want to do another irrigation audit to verify what I did 2 years ago.

So now I'm basically in a wait and hold pattern until I start getting some significant green up. I still have to spray Wetting Agent and bug stuff and spray Prodiamine and Celsius. The plan going forward for now is to irrigate often and get the soil nice and moist and get all the dirt settled down and then I will spray later on this week or this coming weekend. I also need to fertilize since I haven't put anything on the lawn since last Spring, so that will probably happen this week too.


----------



## Iriasj2009

It's looking great! So would u say the drag mat is a must for a short cut bermuda lawn?! My wish list just keeps growing and growing thanks to you guys... lol


----------



## Mightyquinn

Iriasj2009 said:


> It's looking great! So would u say the drag mat is a must for a short cut bermuda lawn?! My wish list just keeps growing and growing thanks to you guys... lol


I think it all depends on how big your lawn is and weather you have the ability or equipment to pull it around. I think if you have a smaller lawn you could get away with a Levelawn rake like you have or maybe get a smaller drag mat that you could hand pull.


----------



## Iriasj2009

Mightyquinn said:


> Iriasj2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's looking great! So would u say the drag mat is a must for a short cut bermuda lawn?! My wish list just keeps growing and growing thanks to you guys... lol
> 
> 
> 
> I think it all depends on how big your lawn is and weather you have the ability or equipment to pull it around. I think if you have a smaller lawn you could get away with a Levelawn rake like you have or maybe get a smaller drag mat that you could hand pull.
Click to expand...

Gotcha! Yea I think I could use a drag mat for finishing purposes. My level rake works great but I could still use a drag mat to finish things off.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Got home from work and blew all the leaves off the front lawn from the Bradford Pear(I think the freeze we had last week put a hurting on it and it's shedding leaves. Hopefully it will bounce back with the warm temperatures we are going to have.) I fertilized for the first time with some cheap 24-0-11 that I got from Lowe's last year, it has 50% slow release so it isn't too bad. I applied about .5 lb of Nitrogen/K. That should hopefully give it a boost to start waking the lawn up.


----------



## southernguy311

Looking good MQ. Come May, you'll be reaping the rewards.


----------



## MarkV

touchofgrass said:


> you can BARELY see me in one of his pics (facing back of house) wearing my REEL LOW BERMUDA shirt, of course


I know this is a little off topic but... Where does one find a shirt like this? Google is failing me.


----------



## Ware

MarkV said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> you can BARELY see me in one of his pics (facing back of house) wearing my REEL LOW BERMUDA shirt, of course
> 
> 
> 
> I know this is a little off topic but... Where does one find a shirt like this? Google is failing me.
Click to expand...

"Reel Low Bermuda" was a boutique line of apparel launched back in 2016. It didn't get picked up by Macy's, but there are a few floating around. The logo looked something like this:

​


----------



## Redtenchu

Ware said:


> MarkV said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> you can BARELY see me in one of his pics (facing back of house) wearing my REEL LOW BERMUDA shirt, of course
> 
> 
> 
> I know this is a little off topic but... Where does one find a shirt like this? Google is failing me.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> "Reel Low Bermuda" was a boutique line of apparel launched back in 2016. It didn't get picked up by Macy's, but there are a few floating around. The logo looked something like this:
> 
> ​
Click to expand...

Looks expensive!


----------



## jbrown

Redtenchu said:


> Ware said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MarkV said:
> 
> 
> 
> I know this is a little off topic but... Where does one find a shirt like this? Google is failing me.
> 
> 
> 
> "Reel Low Bermuda" was a boutique line of apparel launched back in 2016. It didn't get picked up by Macy's, but there are a few floating around. The logo looked something like this:
> 
> ​
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Looks expensive!
Click to expand...

I added info about t-shirts in General Discussion, check it out.

JB


----------



## Mightyquinn

Didn't really do anything to the lawn per se but I did clean the Baroness up and set it to .250" HOC and .125" for the groomer. I was also going to backlap it but after adjusting the reel to bedknife and getting light contact, it was cutting paper cleanly. I still want to change the oil and blow out the air filter but other than that I'm just waiting for it to green up. Between me watering and the temps we have had it's starting to show signs of life, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to have full green by the end of April.

I also set up the EZ FLO as I had to replace a PVC fitting that injects into the irrigation system. I added some Miracle-Gro Turf food and some liquid Yuccah that I have had sitting around since that day when I tried the whole "organic" approach. Yuccah is suppose to be a wetting agent so it can't hurt any I suppose.

*EDIT* I forgot to add that I also spot sprayed all the weeds basically around the perimeter of my lawn(and the neighbors too!!) with some Bayer Broadleaf Weed spray and Image for Nutgrass stuff that I have had sitting around forever. Figured now is the best time to get rid of it!!


----------



## Mightyquinn

Got home from work just before dark so I had to rush out and spray Lesco Moisture Manager, Talstar P and ImidaPro 2SC on the lawn before we get the rain that is forecasted for tonight and tomorrow. All 3 products recommend watering it in after application so I was trying to time it just right. Still need to apply Prodiamine and Celsius but I figure that can wait for now.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Got back out in the lawn today after church and decided to give it a mow at .250" as it was starting to green up in some spots and it was looking kind of fuzzy. I'm still on the fence on whether I should have gone that low as I was shaving dirt in some places and the grass catcher was filling up fast. I was amazed at all the debris that I was picking up. I guess time will tell if my aggressive approach to the lawn this year will pay off or not. I do feel like it was helpful to go over the lawn as low as I did as it helped smooth it out some more but it is REALLY thin right now from the aggressive verticutting I did. I also see some heavy aerating and sanding in my future, especially on the front yard as it is a lot softer than the back right now. Hopefully with higher temps it will start drying out more. I definitely need to get more sand into the upper profile of the lawn to help firm it up a bit. I also will probably need to fertilize again here soon as I probably removed a lot of the stuff I put down recently. I think I'm going to go with the 46-0-0 as it is water soluble and will melt with the first good rain or irrigation cycle. I will probably mow the lawn again next weekend in a different direction to shave off all the high spots.

Just in case you see it in the pictures, I know my lines are off and I didn't overlap very well but it was kicking up a lot of dust so it was hard to see and plus I plan on going over it again anyway. The mower was getting stuck occasionally, especially on the front as it was a little thicker than the back.

*BEFORE*










































*During (Taken by TOG)*


















*AFTER*


----------



## GrassDaddy

So level! I could never do that here, every winter it gets bumpier.


----------



## touchofgrass

GrassDaddy said:


> So level! I could never do that here, every winter it gets bumpier.


We use to literally be afraid to run in the backyard for fear of twisting an ankle. When we laid the sod, they were all different thicknesses and we just plopped each piece down without leveling. Hindsight, right? Flash forward 11 years and here we are. It's so much nicer walking back there.


----------



## jbrown

MQ or touchofgrass, when you sanded your lawn, did you let it grow high? I want to sand a large section of my front lawn (its also on a slight slope), but I already cut reel low. I am going to aerate and sand sometime next month after it all greens up, should I let is grow tall?

JB


----------



## gijoe4500

Sanding is easier when the grass is cut low. I didn't some leveling last year. When I did, I cut as low as I could and spread the sand over the top of it. Bermuda will pop up through it in no time.


----------



## Ware

gijoe4500 said:


> Sanding is easier when the grass is cut low. I didn't some leveling last year. When I did, I cut as low as I could and spread the sand over the top of it. Bermuda will pop up through it in no time.


+1. You'll want it as low as you can get it. :thumbup:


----------



## MrMeaner

gijoe4500 said:


> Sanding is easier when the grass is cut low. I didn't some leveling last year. When I did, I cut as low as I could and spread the sand over the top of it. Bermuda will pop up through it in no time.


Agreed, do the leveling now while its low, It will take less sand and its easier to spread and drag flat.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I haven't sanded my lawn in years but when I did, you want it as low as you can get it as it makes leveling a lot easier like everyone else has said.


----------



## jbrown

awesome! thanks guys!

JB


----------



## Mightyquinn

I cut down the tree that was growing between my back fence and my neighbors fence. There is like a 1'x3' area in my backyard between our fences and somehow a tree began to grow back there. At first I didn't mind it as it blocked the view of my neighbors shed but now it was just getting too big and starting to shade out the grass in the back corner (You can see it in some of the pics I posted), so I had to cut it down. The trunk of the tree is still back there but I will get to that as I need to fix the fence in that area anyway.

The lawn is starting to green up nicely but is still far away from being 100% as it needs to fill in some more and the high areas that I attacked with the verticutter still need to fill in. I may hit those areas with some 46-0-0 to give them a boost. I plan on mowing again today to get all the piles of debris that got washed down from the 1.5" of rain we got this week. I don't think I am going to see full green up until May at least, from looking at pictures from the past it looks like the end of May is when the lawn is at it's peak but hopefully I can keep it there longer this year!!


----------



## Mightyquinn

I know I missed last week with an update and I took pictures of it "before" but not after as I ended up taking a nice chunk out of my bedknife as I ran over a good sized screw that was hidden in the lawn but it was towards the end so I was able to finish without much of an issue. I mowed at .250" and I was removing a lot of debris still. I was amazed at all the stuff I was picking up with the grass catcher.

*4-09-2017*










































I mowed again today at .250" with the groomer set at .125" but I didn't realize that I hadn't turned the groomer on until I was almost finished with the lawn. As you will see in the pictures that the lawn is greening up nicely but the backyard is still a little behind the front lawn. It's starting to thicken up and fill in from all the verticutting but it may take a couple more weeks before that happens but it's looking very promising right now. I was removing more green than brown today but mostly in the front lawn. The back still had a lot of dead grass(debris) that I was picking up but hopefully I got most of it today. If the grass grows like it did this week, I may start with some Primo(PGR) next week to help it to start spreading and filling in the thin areas. I think I am going to need to add some sand in some areas of the lawn to get it to smooth out a little more but overall it is looking good right now for what it is. I'm still on the fence on whether to mow with the grass catcher or not once it's all greened up as it is harder to maneuver and get into some areas with it on but I will figure that out as the season progresses. I do have some weeds but mostly in the front but I am going to wait until it fills in before spraying any Celsius but I may just do a spot spray to get the majority of them.

*BEFORE 4-15-2017*










































*AFTER 4-15-2017*


----------



## Iriasj2009

Looking great! It's filling in quick! I'm using the groomer every time I mow. Keeps things clean. Oh and I really like how deep green the color is. I'm not liking celebrations color so far when mowing at .3" but it still has lots of filling in.


----------



## wardconnor

Looking good. Hard work paying off


----------



## Mightyquinn

Iriasj2009 said:


> Looking great! It's filling in quick! I'm using the groomer every time I mow. Keeps things clean. Oh and I really like how deep green the color is. I'm not liking celebrations color so far when mowing at .3" but it still has lots of filling in.


I too plan to use the groomer every time I mow this year, what do you have your groomer set at?

I think the color will come in time as the grass fills in and thickens up. Have you sprayed any Primo yet?


----------



## Iriasj2009

Mightyquinn said:


> Iriasj2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Looking great! It's filling in quick! I'm using the groomer every time I mow. Keeps things clean. Oh and I really like how deep green the color is. I'm not liking celebrations color so far when mowing at .3" but it still has lots of filling in.
> 
> 
> 
> I too plan to use the groomer every time I mow this year, what do you have your groomer set at?
> 
> I think the color will come in time as the grass fills in and thickens up. Have you sprayed any Primo yet?
Click to expand...

I have mine set at 50% below HOC, and It's working out great. 
No primo, yet. I was tempted too but I don't want to slow things down. my plan is to just mow for now, let it fill in and once I i have 100%fill (1st week of may hopefully) aerate heavily and sand. Again, I don't have much experience with pgrs so I'm curious on what y'all have to say about them when using it on turf that's is still filling in.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Iriasj2009 said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Iriasj2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Looking great! It's filling in quick! I'm using the groomer every time I mow. Keeps things clean. Oh and I really like how deep green the color is. I'm not liking celebrations color so far when mowing at .3" but it still has lots of filling in.
> 
> 
> 
> I too plan to use the groomer every time I mow this year, what do you have your groomer set at?
> 
> I think the color will come in time as the grass fills in and thickens up. Have you sprayed any Primo yet?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I have mine set at 50% below HOC, and It's working out great.
> No primo, yet. I was tempted too but I don't want to slow things down. my plan is to just mow for now, let it fill in and once I i have 100%fill (1st week of may hopefully) aerate heavily and sand. Again, I don't have much experience with pgrs so I'm curious on what y'all have to say about them when using it on turf that's is still filling in.
Click to expand...

PGR's just slow down the top growth and redirect that energy to the roots and rhizomes which would theoretically help the lawn spread faster and fill in, that why I am thinking about putting an application down too!


----------



## southernguy311

Mightyquinn said:


> Iriasj2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> I too plan to use the groomer every time I mow this year, what do you have your groomer set at?
> 
> I think the color will come in time as the grass fills in and thickens up. Have you sprayed any Primo yet?
> 
> 
> 
> I have mine set at 50% below HOC, and It's working out great.
> No primo, yet. I was tempted too but I don't want to slow things down. my plan is to just mow for now, let it fill in and once I i have 100%fill (1st week of may hopefully) aerate heavily and sand. Again, I don't have much experience with pgrs so I'm curious on what y'all have to say about them when using it on turf that's is still filling in.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> PGR's just slow down the top growth and redirect that energy to the roots and rhizomes which would theoretically help the lawn spread faster and fill in, that why I am thinking about putting an application down too!
Click to expand...

Please report if you have luck with this


----------



## Topcat

Ditto on the report your results. I've never used PGR but bought some so when at the peak of the summer, I can scale back and not have to mow three - four times per week. I bought some, but holding off on use until the one area that is lagging on green up finally gives me a full green lawn.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I will definitely let you guys know what happens. If it grows this week like it did last week, I will be spraying some PGR for sure!


----------



## tbdh20

Mightyquinn said:


> I will definitely let you guys know what happens. If it grows this week like it did last week, I will be spraying some PGR for sure!


Have you been irrigating or working off rain to this point? My green is maybe 70 but having to cut every 3 to 4 days? 
Thanks


----------



## Mightyquinn

I've been letting the Rachio take over watering which has been about twice a week.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I just sprayed some PGR with NIS at .5oz/K tonight. Hopefully that will help the lawn spread and fill in the bare areas.

*EDIT* I didn't add any Ferrous Ammonium Sulfate because the lawn is still growing in and I want to wait for it to be around 100% green before adding that to the mix!


----------



## SGrabs33

Mightyquinn said:


> I just sprayed some PGR with NIS at .5oz/K tonight. Hopefully that will help the lawn spread and fill in the bare areas.


Interested to sear/see the results! Hope to get my first primo app down sometime next week.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I know it's been almost 2 weeks without an update or pictures, so here is an update at least. I don't have any recent pictures but will try to get some up this weekend.

A few days after I applied the PGR, I applied some 46-0-0 at 1lb/K and we got about 4-5 inches of rain that I'm pretty sure washed most of that away. The PGR has definitely kicked in and my growth has slowed down considerably but I've also had a few cool days in the 70's which hasn't helped. It seems like the lawn wants to fill in the rest of the way but without consistent temps in the 80's it just hasn't taken off. I'm planning on fertilizing here again soon with 22-0-16 that I have, it also has Iron and Micro's.

I also have some weeds popping up after the rain we got so I'm going to be applying some Prodiamine/Celsius to take care of that for now. I was wanting to wait until it all filled in before spraying but I don't think I can wait any longer. I'm hoping it gets all filled in by the end of May.

I've also been busy adding another zone to my irrigation system to water the bushes and flowers on the East side of my house, I finally got that done last Sunday. I still have to do the West side too but there is A LOT of trimming that needs to get done first.

Taking a year off from lawn care has really put me behind but I feel like I'm finally getting caught up a little and I know the lawn will eventually fill in and then it will be time to level again!


----------



## Iriasj2009

I hate flower beds haha. I just finished rebuilding mine but in need of plants. Not sure what I'm gonna go with. Can't wait for pics!


----------



## Mightyquinn

Iriasj2009 said:


> I hate flower beds haha. I just finished rebuilding mine but in need of plants. Not sure what I'm gonna go with. Can't wait for pics!


I'm about to tear a few bushes out today and replace them with some other varieties. I will try to get some pics up when I finish today.


----------



## Mightyquinn

The wife and I tore out some of the old overgrown bushes today and replace them with some smaller and different varieties. The ones we had were just getting too big and really weren't growing all that well, also wanted to change it up a bit too.

I adjusted all the new sprinkler heads in the new zone to make sure everything was getting some water and then laid some new rubber mulch down. Only got enough to do about half the bed, need to go back and get some more this week. This is what I used.....

Brown Shredded Rubber Mulch










I'll try to post a picture of the product tomorrow as Postimage isn't working right now. I'll get some real pictures up of it too after I mow tomorrow also.

So far I really like the rubber mulch as it looks like the real stuff and got great reviews on Lowes.com. It has a 12 year color guarantee and I won't have to replace it every year, which is where the savings(time and money) will come in. It's a little expensive upfront but hopefully will pay for itself in the long run.


----------



## Mightyquinn

One more thing to add, I will be surprised if I mow anything off tomorrow as the lawn seems to have really slowed down in growth. Between the PGR app and the cool temps we have been having, the lawn is just hanging out and not growing right now.


----------



## Iriasj2009

Mightyquinn said:


> One more thing to add, I will be surprised if I mow anything off tomorrow as the lawn seems to have really slowed down in growth. Between the PGR app and the cool temps we have been having, the lawn is just hanging out and not growing right now.


Yea weather cooled off a bit. Hopefully we can post pics soon. Curious to see what you used in your flower beds


----------



## Ware

+1. It looks like postimage is down. Although the links to pics I have stored there are still live. Hope they get it sorted out quickly.

ETA: Looks like it is back now!


----------



## Mightyquinn

The plants I added today were:

Regal Calla Lily- for the wife 








Sky Pencil Japanese Holly








Daisy Gardenia 








Kaleidoscope Abelia









Plants that are already there:
Encore Azalea x2(One of them is barely holding on as it was being blocked by one of the shrubs I removed)
Hydrangeas x2
Hostas x2
Rhododendron 
Dianthus x10


----------



## Mightyquinn

It was a fairly light day today as all I did was spray some Prodiamine/Celsius and planted 4 Lavance Lavender plants on the East side of the house with the other new plants. I also started taking apart a rose bush on the other side of the house as that is my next project :thumbup:

I decided not to mow today as the lawn really hasn't grown a whole lot in the last week and I also didn't want to because I was spraying the Celsius and I also bought some 8-10-10 at Lowe's to put down on the lawn to give it a little bit of everything since it hasn't really been fed in about a year.

Later this evening I plan on spraying some Lesco Moisture Manager and some Talstar P and maybe put the fertilizer out too as the irrigation is set to go off tomorrow.

I installed 6 Hunter PRS-30 Spray Heads with 4 ft. adjustable spray arc nozzles for the flower/shrub bed and so far they seem to do the job.

Here are some pictures










































Shots of the Flower Bed


























Current grass height with Prism Gauge


----------



## Iriasj2009

Looks great! Thanks for the pics and names. I'll be planting something soon. My bed area faces south and will be getting lots of sun so I'll have to consider that.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I mowed when I got home from work today as it seemed to need a mow and I also wanted to mow before fertilizing as we are due to get some rain this week but I'm not holding my breath. The Rachio is not watering enough so I may need to go mess with the settings a bit to get more water down as I think that is one area that is holding my lawn back.

When I mowed tonight, I didn't use the grass catcher as I wasn't mowing a whole lot off and was just curious how it would mow without it. Everything went fine and then I applied some 8-10-10 that I picked up from Lowe's the other day. I applied about 6.25 lbs/K so the lawn should get a little bit of everything to help it get going. I haven't had much luck in the fertilizer dept. this year as this is the 3rd app I have applied but the other two didn't really do anything. The first app was some 24-0-11 I had left over from last year but I ended up having to mow with the catcher on so I am assuming I collected some of that back up and then I applied some 46-0-0 right before we got 5 inches of rain over the weekend, so most of that probably got washed away. Keeping my fingers crossed to getting this lawn to fill back in so I can start planning the leveling project.

After mowing tonight, I can definitely tell that I need to level now more than ever and may need to do it for the next few years too before it's where I want it.


----------



## Iriasj2009

Mightyquinn said:


> I mowed when I got home from work today as it seemed to need a mow and I also wanted to mow before fertilizing as we are due to get some rain this week but I'm not holding my breath. The Rachio is not watering enough so I may need to go mess with the settings a bit to get more water down as I think that is one area that is holding my lawn back.
> 
> When I mowed tonight, I didn't use the grass catcher as I wasn't mowing a whole lot off and was just curious how it would mow without it. Everything went fine and then I applied some 8-10-10 that I picked up from Lowe's the other day. I applied about 6.25 lbs/K so the lawn should get a little bit of everything to help it get going. I haven't had much luck in the fertilizer dept. this year as this is the 3rd app I have applied but the other two didn't really do anything. The first app was some 24-0-11 I had left over from last year but I ended up having to mow with the catcher on so I am assuming I collected some of that back up and then I applied some 46-0-0 right before we got 5 inches of rain over the weekend, so most of that probably got washed away. Keeping my fingers crossed to getting this lawn to fill back in so I can start planning the leveling project.
> 
> After mowing tonight, I can definitely tell that I need to level now more than ever and may need to do it for the next few years too before it's where I want it.


Yea I just laid some slow release fertilizer (nitro-phos superturf 19-4-10) when I aerated so we'll see how the lawn responds. 
I definitely need some more leveling too. Luckily the reel does a good job at smoothing things out and preventing any scalping. I'm sure with constant verticutting and toodressing we will achieve that table top look. From the picture tho, yours is looking quite smooth already. I'm anxious for you to use your verticutter attachment on your sweet reel. I'm sure a verticutter on rollers will help smooth things out even more vs one on wheels, which is why I'm contemplating in turning my toro 1000 into a dedicated verticutter.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Iriasj2009 said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> I mowed when I got home from work today as it seemed to need a mow and I also wanted to mow before fertilizing as we are due to get some rain this week but I'm not holding my breath. The Rachio is not watering enough so I may need to go mess with the settings a bit to get more water down as I think that is one area that is holding my lawn back.
> 
> When I mowed tonight, I didn't use the grass catcher as I wasn't mowing a whole lot off and was just curious how it would mow without it. Everything went fine and then I applied some 8-10-10 that I picked up from Lowe's the other day. I applied about 6.25 lbs/K so the lawn should get a little bit of everything to help it get going. I haven't had much luck in the fertilizer dept. this year as this is the 3rd app I have applied but the other two didn't really do anything. The first app was some 24-0-11 I had left over from last year but I ended up having to mow with the catcher on so I am assuming I collected some of that back up and then I applied some 46-0-0 right before we got 5 inches of rain over the weekend, so most of that probably got washed away. Keeping my fingers crossed to getting this lawn to fill back in so I can start planning the leveling project.
> 
> After mowing tonight, I can definitely tell that I need to level now more than ever and may need to do it for the next few years too before it's where I want it.
> 
> 
> 
> Yea I just laid some slow release fertilizer (nitro-phos superturf 19-4-10) when I aerated so we'll see how the lawn responds.
> I definitely need some more leveling too. Luckily the reel does a good job at smoothing things out and preventing any scalping. I'm sure with constant verticutting and toodressing we will achieve that table top look. From the picture tho, yours is looking quite smooth already. I'm anxious for you to use your verticutter attachment on your sweet reel. I'm sure a verticutter on rollers will help smooth things out even more vs one on wheels, which is why I'm contemplating in turning my toro 1000 into a dedicated verticutter.
Click to expand...

I too am curious to see how it works but I'm not wanting to test it out until it thickens up some more, so at least another month or so. I have also thought about doing a light topdressing after using the Baroness Verticutter to see how that could help. I have decided to no longer hold back on the lawn since it doesn't seem to want to hold back for me come July/August :lol:

My lawn is fairly smooth as there are not an ankle twitters or anything major but there are a lot of slopes and dips that keep it from looking it's best and I haven't done any significant leveling in over 5 years so I think it's time to get back at it. I am better equipped this time also with knowledge and tools :thumbup: My yard is also very soft which leads to the mower sinking in a bit so I need to fix that before I can take it to the next level.


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## Mightyquinn

Yesterday I replaced 3 sprinkler heads that I damaged while verticutting earlier this year, they were still working ok but I just can't stand having them there and knowing that the caps had been busted off. 

Laid 15 more bags of shredded rubber mulch to the shrub/flower bed, I think a few more bags and I should be good on that side.

I also called around to get prices on sand and I can get 6 yds for $145 delivered or 12 yds for $180.


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## wardconnor

Mightyquinn said:


> Yesterday I replaced 3 sprinkler heads that I damaged while verticutting earlier this year, they were still working ok but I just can't stand having them there and knowing that the caps had been busted off.


This is the OCD in you. I can understand. I did the same thing a week ago.



Mightyquinn said:


> .... I can get 6 yds for $145 delivered or 12 yds for $180.


You suck. Wish I could get sand for that cheap.


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## Mightyquinn

wardconnor said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yesterday I replaced 3 sprinkler heads that I damaged while verticutting earlier this year, they were still working ok but I just can't stand having them there and knowing that the caps had been busted off.
> 
> 
> 
> This is the OCD in you. I can understand. I did the same thing a week ago.
Click to expand...

At least I'm not the only one! :lol: 


wardconnor said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... I can get 6 yds for $145 delivered or 12 yds for $180.
> 
> 
> 
> You suck. Wish I could get sand for that cheap.
Click to expand...

I live in an area called the Sand Hills, so it's relatively abundant here and I'm only 5-10 miles down the road from the place that sells it. :thumbup:


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## Mightyquinn

I mowed again at .250" on Sunday without the groomer and grass catcher. My thinking was that I didn't want to pick up any of the fertilizer I applied about a week ago so I just mowed it regularly. I wasn't really cutting off a whole lot since we haven't had a lot of rain and the temps had been cool for the past week for the most part. Going to cut again later this week or weekend with the groomer and catcher as I like to keep it as clean as possible and reduce the amount of OM going back into the lawn.

I plan on spraying PGR with the FAS this time as I'm hoping to give it a little green up and it's time again. The lawn is starting to fill in some more and I think once that happens the color will come back. I am noticing that I have a really fine leaf in ALL of my lawn right now. I don't remember it ever being this fine all over the lawn. I'm hoping it's the result of the groomer on the Baroness creating this. If I remember, I will try to take a picture with a ruler to see how fine they really are.

On Sunday, I also removed a Rose bush and a Gardenia from the West side of the house as they were getting too over grown and the Gardenia would die off every Winter and then come back. I still have one more Rose bush to remove and then I can start digging for the new irrigation zone and plant some new bushes.

I did check after my last mow that my AHOC is .250" with my Prism Gauge. I would post pictures of it in use but I need to find a way for it to show up better on camera.


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## Iriasj2009

Nice pics mighty! I'm having the opposite affect/effect right now. Celebration is filling in but it's throwing thick runners and I'm tempted to raise the height of cut to 1/2 until it's all filled it and more mature. I'm curious to see some pics of your tif close up. How are your temps looking like?! Oh and I really like that tree, it isn't causing any issues is it?!


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## Mightyquinn

I'll try to take some pics tonight when I get home of the turf close up. We are in the 80's and 90's all week here so hopefully it will start spreading more.

It a Bradford Pear and it was causing some issues last year as it had got over grown with me taking last year off. I trimmed it back some this Winter so I can walk underneath it now and let more sun in. There are a few more branches I want to trim off to let more light in. So far this year the grass seems to be doing pretty well around it.

I haven't seen too many runners in my lawn, most of the growth is coming from the rhizomes I think. Sorry to hear about your thick runners, I know that can be a PIA&#128512;


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## Iriasj2009

Some great weather I see! Temps have been great here but no rain in last 2 weeks.

I have a few areas with 419 and I noticed that it doesn't throw many runners/or at least you can't see them, it's all leaf. I wish celebration would spread the same way.. anywho that's just the way celebration spreads and once mature, it will adapt to the lower height. I guess I'm also not sure what I'm getting my self into mowing at .3" :? :lol: going into summer, although I didn't have any issues maintaining at ~ .45" Year long last season. June 9th i will lightly verticut and topdress but with a lot less sand (1yard of sand)


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## Mightyquinn

Alright, I took a few pics like Iriasj suggested and it looks like most of my grass blades are between 1-2 mm wide which is pretty fine textured for bermuda. I just hope I can keep them like this. Here are some pics of the lawn close up like what was requested :thumbup:


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## Iriasj2009

Whoa, that leaf is fine! That lawn is gonna fil in in no time. Here's a close up of my celebration mixed with 419. Not so pretty up close haha. It was late and color in pic looks horrible.


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## Mightyquinn

It's been 2 weeks since I made an update to this thread but there isn't a whole lot to report on and plus this has dropped back to Page 3 on the Warm Season forum 

Last week I sprayed my 2nd app of PGR but with FAS this time and I added 2 TBS of NIS instead of tsp's but NO harm was done and that stuff is pretty benign with PGR and FAS. I had applied it after several days of rain that we got so the lawn was coming out of PGR control and was pretty long at the time but I did that in order to get good leaf contact with the PGR and FAS.

Tonight I added the rest of my LMM(Lesco Moisture Manager)@11.5oz/K and some Talstar [email protected] 1oz/K and I also added in some Micros(Copper, Zinc and Manganese sulfate)@ 2 TBS/K, I figured that I had them sitting around from the days I worried about soil test and probably should add them to the soil every so often. I even pre measured them like I do with the FAS so I just had to dump them into the mix.

I have decided to raise my HOC to .500" for the time being until I can aerate and sand the lawn. It's just too soft and uneven right now to maintain it at .250" plus I think it may help it fill in a little faster at this HOC. I am keeping the groomer set low at .125" so that I can keep it growing tightly to the ground. I haven't mowed it yet at the new HOC since we haven't had much rain and irrigation can only do so much as I am still zeroing in the Rachio to water optimally, which I think may take the whole year to get it just right. I am looking at this year as a rebuilding year anyway and don't expect perfection just yet. Once I aerate and sand and see how things turn out after that, I may reevaluate my direction for the year and the HOC.

I am also in the process of adding a 6th zone to the flower/shrub bed on my West side of the house and hopefully should have that done on Sunday. I will try to add some pics of the lawn after I mow which will probably be Saturday or Sunday at this point.


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## GaryCinChicago

Mightyquinn said:


> undulations


The only way you know that word is from reading Penthouse Forum!


----------



## dfw_pilot

GaryCinChicago said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> undulations
> 
> 
> 
> The only way you know that word is from reading Penthouse Forum!
Click to expand...

LOL :lol:


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## Mightyquinn

I've been horrible about updating this thread but I have been very busy every weekend and even after work completing other tasks that need to get done around the yard and I will try my best to give you an update on everything that has been done so far.

Since the last update, I planned on mowing at .500" but that just didn't work out as when I went to mow, I was literally cutting nothing off after not mowing for about a week, so I decided to move the HOC down to .400" and kept the groomer at .125" and this yielded a very nice cut. I am still thinking of moving the groomer down even further as I don't seem to be cutting that many runners. As much as I would like to keep it cut at .250", I just don't think it's in the cards this year as my lawn is still recovering from the aggressive scalp/verticut I did in the Spring. I still believe that once I aerate and topdress the lawn that it will have some positive effects. Just looking at the lawn you can see that there isn't even growth across the whole thing so my hope is that by doing that will help even things out a bit above and below the soil.

Earlier this week I applied 1lb/K of 46-0-0 but like a fool didn't water it in so now I have little brown dots all over the lawn from where it burnt it after the dew dissolved it over night. I also applied another app of PGR and FAS yesterday and watered it in this morning and I have noticed a darker green in the lawn.

Going forward, I just plan on keeping it simple for now and plan on doing the aerating and leveling once this round of PGR wears off, so in about 3-4 weeks. I still haven't given the lawn the good stuff yet (22-0-16) as I have been holding it back until I aerated and leveled. I plan on putting that down in about 2 weeks once the 46-0-0 wears off and then I will put down some Lime after I aerate to help bring my pH up a bit as I know I have to be in the LOW 6 or High 5's right now.

Here is how the lawn currently looks as I just mowed today at .400"










































Here are a few of the things the wife (TOG) and I have been working on the last few weeks and have finally gotten finished.

Last weekend I was able to finish up the 6th zone of my irrigation system that will water the bushes on the West side of the house and we tore out 2 overgrown rose bushes and a Gardenia that would die every winter and then come back during the summer and I trimmed back a lot of the other bushes on that side as they had gotten way out of hand. I still have a little more trimming to do to them but they are at least manageable now. We did all that before digging the trenches for the new zone and then added 4 new plants to that side ( Dwarf Crepe Myrtle, Encore Azalea, Lavender and Phylox) and topped it all off with some shredded rubber mulch.










































The next day we fixed the gate to the fence on the West side of the house. When we originally built the fence, we had a double gate on that side but rarely every used the "other" gate. So since it was starting to become a PIA to use it we decided to get rid of one gate and upgrade the other one to make it more user friendly. We tore down both gates and added a 6x6x8 post to secure the new gate. I bought an Adjust-A-Gate from Home Depot as this was a major upgrade from the homemade one we had before. It was fairly easy to use and set up and just required a little adjustment afterwards. Here are some pics.

*BEFORE*









*AFTER*

















So today after I mowed, the wife and I tackled the last of the "big" projects and fixed the fence in the back left of the yard. This part of the fence has always been a PIA as it terminates in "no man's land". It's basically a part of our property where 4 houses meet up at but it's all off set so there is a 1 foot deep by 5-6 foot long section that belongs to no one( I actually set my fence in about 6" from my property line just to be safe). Well, my fence originally hooked into the neighbors fence before they put the white vinyl fence up so once that was done, I didn't really have anything to tie the fence into. I didn't have a post in that section for some reason and I can't remember why as it was over 9 years ago. Well, somehow in that small little area a tree started to grow in there and at first I didn't really care too much but early on this year once I started to care for my lawn again it was really starting to aggravate me so I got a ladder and my Dewalt reciprocating saw and went to town on that tree early this spring and cut down as much as I could reach over the top of the fence, I felt I put a good dent in it and it would take several years to grow back. Low and behold a few weeks ago I started seeing it growing over the top of the fence again so I new it had to come down. Since we were fixing that part of the fence ( adding a 4x4x8 post for the fence to attach to) I was going to make sure it wouldn't come back. After removing that section of the fence I was able to get in there and go at it with the saw again and cut it down to the stump. I also poured some concentrated(not diluted) Round Up all over the stump in hopes to kill it or at least severely damage it. I will definitely keep an eye on it for now on and be sure to peak over the fence to see how it NOT doing :lol:


















After it's all been fixed up










One last thing I forgot to mention is that while we were putting all the mulch in the beds my wife notice a very soft spot in the lawn so I decided to take a look at it after we were finished. I took the ProPlugger and took out a 6" core in the middle of the soft spot to see what was going on down below. I took a metal rod that I had laying around and started probing around the hole I just made. Well, there seemed to be a lot of space down there so I had an open bag of Play Sand already which still had about 40 lbs left in it, so I proceeded to pour it down the whole and chased it with some water and it just kept taking it and taking it so after all the sand was gone I decided to leave it for another day. The next day I got the shovel out and cut the area out to see what was really going on and from the looks of things I had pretty much filled the hole up with the 40 lbs of sand the day before so I just filled the hole back in making sure to compact it as much as I could doing it in layers and I needed another 50 lb bag to get it to where it is now which should be ok once everything grows back in. Sorry I don't have any before pictures but this what it looks like now.










The only reasonable explanation I could come up with is it was in the area where the electrical line from the box runs into the house so maybe some settling over the years happened which caused the mini sink hole.


----------



## touchofgrass

And after all that, TOG no longer likes MQ very much.


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## Ware

Looking good, MQ/TOG!


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## wardconnor

Looks like a lot of work you've put in. That's OK because work is what makes it look as nice as it does.


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## Redtenchu

Nice Job!


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## SGrabs33

Everything is looking great, as usual! :thumbup:


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## Mightyquinn

SGrabs33 said:


> Everything is looking great, as usual! :thumbup:


I think great is an overstatement but I do appreciate the kind words :thumbup:

It is slowly getting there though


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## Mightyquinn

I decided to try to level the lawn some more this weekend and it started off with me aerating the lawn on July 5th as I was able to get off work at a decent hour and had time to go rent the aerator at Home Depot. It took me less than an hour to do the whole lawn and I went in concentric circles around the lawn so I wouldn't have to keep turning the aerator around like you do with a mower as it is a much heavier and cumbersome machine.










































The next day on July the 6th, I went back out and blew all the cores into small piles with my Stihl BR600 Blower and then picked them all up with a shovel to send off to the city's yard waste disposal center. After I cleaned everything up I then mowed the lawn at .400" with the Baroness and after all that was done I went and applied some Pennington Fast Acting lime to the lawn so it can get down in the holes I just made. I applied it at 11.25 pounds per K, I know my lawn is low in pH and Calcium so I figured why not do it now since I will be watering the lawn a lot for the next week or two and I have the holes in the lawn to help it get down where it can do some work.


































Yesterday, July 7th, I had 8 yds of Masonry Sand delivered for $155, so when I got home, I was able to put a small dent in it before I called it a night. TOG and I were able to get most of the backyard done before dark and I hope to finish up today but only time will tell.









https://s5.postimg.cc/gwpnhd74n/IMG_1393.jpg[img]
[img]https://s5.postimg.cc/3mk66ta3b/IMG_7022.jpg

*BEFORE*

















































*DURING*

























*AFTER*

























I would say at this point that the backyard is about 60-70% done as I still need to add some more sand to a few spots back there but all in all it already a lot better. I'm hoping for a lot of sun today to help dry out the sand so that it will spread a lot easier and not build up on the drag mat.


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## wardconnor

This is fantastic. I love sand on the lawn.


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## Iriasj2009

Nice!!! I need to invest in a good blower


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## Mightyquinn

Got started today about 9AM and finished up the lawn with the rest of the sand. I think it turned out pretty good but I definitely will be doing some spot leveling in the near future and may invest in a Level Lawn Rake to help facilitate that project. I'm probably still 2-3 years away before getting the lawn where I really want it but it's a start and I can already tell it is a lot firmer than before I started.

My plan going forward will be to fertilize here in the next few days as I want to make sure I don't need to drag anymore areas of the lawn before applying it. I'm probably going to go with 5lbs/K of the 22-0-16 that I have and any areas that need a little help will get a handful of 46-0-0. I also plan on spraying some Talstar P and Imida Pro 2SC for the bugs and once everything is growing again, I will apply some Tournament Ready to help the lawn through the dog days of Summer. I will also be switching out the groomer on the Baroness and using the brush attachment to help keep the sand out of the reel and maybe it will help smooth some more with each mow. I'm also going to be running the irrigation every other day until most of it has grown through the sand. I'm at 3 weeks with my last PGR app so hopefully it will be taking off here soon


----------



## Ware

It looks really great! Did you drag it at all with the mat rolled up like that? I have folded mine up on top of itself from the back a couple times and it helped make it a little "heavier" (per square inch), helped keep the sand from building up on top of the mat, and also made it a little more maneuverable in my small back yard.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Ware said:


> It looks really great! Did you drag it at all with the mat rolled up like that? I have folded mine up on top of itself from the back a couple times and it helped make it a little "heavier" (per square inch), helped keep the sand from building up on top of the mat, and also made it a little more maneuverable in my small back yard.


No, that is just in the storage position. I just used it fully extended the whole day and when the damp sand would build up on it, I would stop in an area that needed a little sand and TOG or me would just shake the sand off.


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## wardconnor

What a beaut!


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## Mightyquinn

wardconnor said:


> What a beaut!


I sure hope so  We'll see in a few weeks :thumbup:

I forgot to add that I do have some weed issues that were popping up right before I started this leveling but I figure with all the water it will be getting they will start to show up faster and then I can hit them with some Celsius/Certainty mix and I will also be spraying down another application of Prodiamine since I am due for that also as I only put down a 3 month supply earlier this year.


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## SGrabs33

Looks great Andy! I wish I had sanded right after my aeration but I never got around to it.


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## touchofgrass

SGrabs33 said:


> Looks great Andy! I wish I had sanded right after my aeration but I never got around to it.


Maybe you didn't have a TOG of your own to help you out 

ps. my back is KILLING me from that damn shoveling... haha


----------



## SGrabs33

touchofgrass said:


> SGrabs33 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Looks great Andy! I wish I had sanded right after my aeration but I never got around to it.
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe you didn't have a TOG of your own to help you out
> 
> ps. my back is KILLING me from that damn shoveling... haha
Click to expand...

Haha, very true. I assume the kids help out too. My little helper is only 2.5 so not too much of a helper yet. I'm sure Andy very much appreciates your help :thumbup:


----------



## touchofgrass

SGrabs33 said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SGrabs33 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Looks great Andy! I wish I had sanded right after my aeration but I never got around to it.
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe you didn't have a TOG of your own to help you out
> 
> ps. my back is KILLING me from that damn shoveling... haha
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Haha, very true. I assume the kids help out too. My little helper is only 2.5 so not too much of a helper yet. I'm sure Andy very much appreciates your help :thumbup:
Click to expand...

Which kids are you assuming? Ours? heck no... those bums didn't even wake up until about 11am or so and sat here in the AC all day... our 10 yo did fill up my water for me ONCE after I begged him and he came back, threw it at me and said, "No ice for you" and sure enough, there was no ice in it.

I would venture to guess your 2 yo would be much more helpful than our kids.. haha


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## Movingshrub

Had you all considered using a top dressing machine to spread the sand?


----------



## Ware

Movingshrub said:


> Had you all considered using a top dressing machine to spread the sand?


That would be ideal, but I don't know anyone who owns one.


----------



## Movingshrub

Ware said:


> Movingshrub said:
> 
> 
> 
> Had you all considered using a top dressing machine to spread the sand?
> 
> 
> 
> That would be ideal, but I don't know anyone who owns one.
Click to expand...

Understood. My local equipment rental place has one in their inventory. I was making the assumption that MQ had the option of renting one locally and opted to spread by hand instead.


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## Mightyquinn

Movingshrub said:


> Ware said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Movingshrub said:
> 
> 
> 
> Had you all considered using a top dressing machine to spread the sand?
> 
> 
> 
> That would be ideal, but I don't know anyone who owns one.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Understood. My local equipment rental place has one in their inventory. I was making the assumption that MQ had the option of renting one locally and opted to spread by hand instead.
Click to expand...

Hell NO!!  If I could find a local place to rent one, I would be all over it like stink on $hit :lol:


----------



## Jericho574

Mightyquinn said:


> I think it turned out pretty good but I definitely will be doing some spot leveling in the near future and may invest in a Level Lawn Rake to help facilitate that project.


For a small yard, would you recommend a small drag mat or a level lawn rake?


----------



## SGrabs33

Mightyquinn said:


> Movingshrub said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ware said:
> 
> 
> 
> That would be ideal, but I don't know anyone who owns one.
> 
> 
> 
> Understood. My local equipment rental place has one in their inventory. I was making the assumption that MQ had the option of renting one locally and opted to spread by hand instead.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Hell NO!!  If I could find a local place to rent one, I would be all over it like stink on $hit :lol:
Click to expand...

If you ever feel like a little drive I know that the local SuperSod rents out their compost spreader. I inquired once and they said that they only rent it with purchase of a big bag of their compost. The previously didnt require that but someone put rocks through their spreader :roll: its an option if you have a big sanding project in mind. You can just use the compost for your plants!


----------



## Ware

It would be a game changer, for sure.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Jericho574 said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think it turned out pretty good but I definitely will be doing some spot leveling in the near future and may invest in a Level Lawn Rake to help facilitate that project.
> 
> 
> 
> For a small yard, would you recommend a small drag mat or a level lawn rake?
Click to expand...

How small are we talking about here?


----------



## Mightyquinn

SGrabs33 said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Movingshrub said:
> 
> 
> 
> Understood. My local equipment rental place has one in their inventory. I was making the assumption that MQ had the option of renting one locally and opted to spread by hand instead.
> 
> 
> 
> Hell NO!!  If I could find a local place to rent one, I would be all over it like stink on $hit :lol:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> If you ever feel like a little drive I know that the local SuperSod rents out their compost spreader. I inquired once and they said that they only rent it with purchase of a big bag of their compost. The previously didnt require that but someone put rocks through their spreader :roll: its an option if you have a big sanding project in mind. You can just use the compost for your plants!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up Scott. I will keep that in mind for next year.


----------



## Ware

Jericho574 said:


> For a small yard, would you recommend a small drag mat or a level lawn rake?


I have both, and I would recommend a drag mat for major "whole lawn" leveling where a fair amount of sand is applied and a level lawn rake for spot leveling or light topdressing. I think the level lawn rake really shines when it can be used as plane to glide across the turf and move sand to low spots; however, if you are applying a layer of sand that covers (or nearly covers) all of the existing turf, the level lawn rake will tend to "dig in" because it doesn't have anything to reference itself against. The drag mat does a better job in that instance because it floats across/smooths the thick(er) layer of sand. Hopefully that makes sense.

An alternative to a drag mat for a small lawn would be a drag broom (available in various widths). I also have one of these and it produces a _very_ nice finish.


----------



## slomo

Lawn is looking nice MQ. Now it's time for fence replacement. I dislike fences. One neighbor has cheap looking white vinyl, one has brittle aged pine falling down. One has a couple new pickets here and there, rest falling down LOL. Gotta love it.

slomo


----------



## Mightyquinn

slomo said:


> Lawn is looking nice MQ. Now it's time for fence replacement. I dislike fences. One neighbor has cheap looking white vinyl, one has brittle aged pine falling down. One has a couple new pickets here and there, rest falling down LOL. Gotta love it.
> 
> slomo


Thanks slomo, I still have some spot leveling to do and may have to invest in a Level Lawn Rake to accomplish that.

As for the fence, ALL the wood fence you see is mine and I have gone through it this year to fix some spots that my son destroyed using the fence as a soccer goal . Some of the other parts you see with new panels is from us fixing/strengthening the fence. It's well over 8 years old and I regret using nails instead of screws originally but now whenever I have to fix anything it gets screws. I can say the fence is pretty solid for what it is. The vinyl fence is the neighbors and is WAY better than the old wood fence they had up that they used finishing nails to hold it all together. It's actually held up pretty well. I love fences as it provides privacy and keeps my dog from roaming the neighborhood and helps keep the rift raft out of the back of the house :thumbup:

Good fences make good neighbors :lol:


----------



## Redtenchu

Mightyquinn said:


> Good fences make good neighbors :lol:


So True!


----------



## jayhawk

I'm working at PPG ...they own several great stains


----------



## Mightyquinn

jayhawk said:


> I'm working at PPG ...they own several great stains


I think that's on the agenda for next year :thumbup:


----------



## Ware

Mightyquinn said:


> jayhawk said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm working at PPG ...they own several great stains
> 
> 
> 
> I think that's on the agenda for next year :thumbup:
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you washed the gray out of that fence and stained it (with PPG of course :lol: ), it would look like a million bucks. :thumbup:


----------



## Mightyquinn

Since I sanded last weekend, I have applied Talstar P and ImidaPro 2SC to the lawn and I fertilized with some 22-0-16 at 5lbs/K so I'm getting a little over 1lb/K of Nitrogen down. I normally don't like applying this much Nitrogen at one time but I figure it will use up the majority of the fast release growing through the sand and then I will have all the nice slow release stuff left over for the next 6-8 weeks.

I also mowed the lawn on Friday at .400" with the brush attachment on and had it set at ground level to help knock down any high spots of sand. The mower was still picking up some sand while I was mowing but only in a few spots. I figure I will just have to backlap it after most of the sand has settled down in a week or two. It seems to appear to be filling in pretty nice so far but I could really use a good rain storm (+/- 1") to really help settle everything down. I've been running my irrigation every other day to help the lawn so that's about .5" each time. We have been having afternoon thunderstorms here but they like to always miss my house  . I'll get like .10"-.25" while everyone around me is getting pounded. It's been over 3 weeks since I have had any significant rainfall 

I still plan on spraying some Tournament Ready and Prodiamine and I need to do a good spot spraying with some Celsius/Certainty to get all the weeds that have popped up over the last month or so. I am also thinking of dropping the HOC to .350" for the rest of the season!


----------



## tbdh20

Amazing! Looks great only one week after sanding!


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## wardconnor

I love sand. Great job


----------



## Iriasj2009

Mightyquinn said:


> Since I sanded last weekend, I have applied Talstar P and ImidaPro 2SC to the lawn and I fertilized with some 22-0-16 at 5lbs/K so I'm getting a little over 1lb/K of Nitrogen down. I normally don't like applying this much Nitrogen at one time but I figure it will use up the majority of the fast release growing through the sand and then I will have all the nice slow release stuff left over for the next 6-8 weeks.
> 
> I also mowed the lawn on Friday at .400" with the brush attachment on and had it set at ground level to help knock down any high spots of sand. The mower was still picking up some sand while I was mowing but only in a few spots. I figure I will just have to backlap it after most of the sand has settled down in a week or two. It seems to appear to be filling in pretty nice so far but I could really use a good rain storm (+/- 1") to really help settle everything down. I've been running my irrigation every other day to help the lawn so that's about .5" each time. We have been having afternoon thunderstorms here but they like to always miss my house  . I'll get like .10"-.25" while everyone around me is getting pounded. It's been over 3 weeks since I have had any significant rainfall
> 
> I still plan on spraying some Tournament Ready and Prodiamine and I need to do a good spot spraying with some Celsius/Certainty to get all the weeds that have popped up over the last month or so. I am also thinking of dropping the HOC to .350" for the rest of the season!


Hey mighty, any updates?!!!!


----------



## Ware

Iriasj2009 said:


> Hey mighty, any updates?!!!!


Bump.


----------



## J_nick

Ware said:


> Iriasj2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hey mighty, any updates?!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> Bump.
Click to expand...

I fear the lack of updates and suspicions are true. MQ gave up and now hires a lawn service to take care of his lawn


----------



## Jericho574

J_nick said:


> Ware said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Iriasj2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hey mighty, any updates?!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> Bump.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I fear the lack of updates and suspicions are true. MQ gave up and now hires a lawn service to take care of his lawn
Click to expand...

Thats ridiculous, I seriously doubt he would stoop that low. Personally, I'm thinking he sold the Baroness and got a rotary :shocked:


----------



## Iriasj2009

Jericho574 said:


> J_nick said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ware said:
> 
> 
> 
> Bump.
> 
> 
> 
> I fear the lack of updates and suspicions are true. MQ gave up and now hires a lawn service to take care of his lawn
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Thats ridiculous, I seriously doubt he would stoop that low. Personally, I'm thinking he sold the Baroness and got a rotary :shocked:
Click to expand...

I have the feeling he has something big for us... maybe installed some dwarf Bermuda haha


----------



## wardconnor

I'm with J Nick on this one. I am betting hes had enough and hired trugreen.


----------



## J_nick

wardconnor said:


> I'm with J Nick on this one. I am betting hes had enough and hired trugreen.


I checked his profile and he has been on this afternoon as hasn't disputed these allegations against him. Looks like the suspicions were correct :crying: either that or he was updateing his equipment list, have you see it?


----------



## Ware

MQ is having trouble uploading pictures, so he asked me to put this here...









(I kid, he totally hired Tru Green :lol: )


----------



## SGrabs33

The anticipation is killing me!


----------



## Mightyquinn

I know that I have been neglecting this thread for too long and I will try to be as informative as I can on everything that I have done over the last 2 months. I have enjoyed all the recent post on giving me crap for not posting BTW :thumbup: I have nothing big to announce and NO, TruGreen has not or will EVER take over doing my lawn for me.

Since the last update I had gotten busy at work and just didn't have the time or the motivation to update the thread as I was just barely keeping up with the lawn for about a month after I sanded. It was something I was wanting to do but just never got around to doing it. So here I am now :lol:

After watching a few videos of the Grass Factor and him talking about the N-Ext RGS, I decided to give them a try and see what they were all about, so I called them up and ended up talking with the COO, Brad Huff. He was real friendly and we discussed what my goals were with the lawn so he recommended the N-Ext RGS,  Air-8,D-Thatch and some  4-0-2 FloraGreene  for my tree and bushes. I have sprayed it all and used it some of it over the last 2 months. Personally I haven't really seen any effects from using it at all yet and I'm still keeping an optimistic eye on it but most likely will not be purchasing anymore, but I guess that will all depend as I still have some left over that I will use at the beginning of next year.

About a month after I sanded the lawn, it became clear to me that I was going to be needing A LOT more sand to get the lawn where I want it to be, so I purchased a Leveling Rake 48" from R&R Products and a  Garden Weasel Core Aerator to help get some of the smaller spots that will need smoothing out in the future. I really like to aerate before adding sand as I believe it helps create channels for nutrients to get down to the roots and create a kind of "pillar effect" for the sand that I am adding in hopes to firm up the soil which is currently too soft. I know that I have discussed this before about my soil being too soft and I have a good 1-2" of this black, sticky layer in the very top of my soil that I believe is causing more harm than good and so my goal is to remove as much of that as possible over the next few years.

My plan as far as sanding goes for next year is to get 12 yards of sand as soon as the lawn is fully greened up and hit the lawn with it and then probably sand again 4-6 weeks later until all the imperfections are gone. By doing the heavy sanding of the lawn it will hopefully fix the 2 major problems that I have with the lawn, which is the smoothness(I have humps and bumps in the lawn as well as some grading issues that cause the mower to scalp when mowing in certain directions) and softness/sponginess of the lawn which I discussed in the paragraph above. I have only used the Leveling Rake once so far and it seemed to do a great job at leveling the spots I did but I can see it really being an asset when doing the whole lawn also. I have also considered using a 2x4 to screed the lawn like you would with concrete as this would also allow you to see all the low and high spots in the lawn and hopefully give you a better finished product but I will reevaluate all of that next year when it gets closer to sanding the lawn. I also plan on "folding" the drag mat over on itself as it seems having a long tail on the mat tends to pull sand from the lower areas and you don't get as smooth as a finish as you would expect, I am also planning on attaching the Leveling Rake behind the Drag Mat to help facilitate the smoothing of the lawn. I know Ware has discussed before about the Leveling Rake "digging" in to thicker sand but hopefully I can come up with a fix for that.

My lawn has become "puffy" in about the last month or so and I believe that it is from over fertilizing. I applied 1lb on Nitrogen/K shortly after I sanded and then again about a month later. After the second application is when I noticed the lawn getting puffy, I also applied an 8 month long application of Prodiamine about a month and a half ago to carry me through the Winter. I'm wondering if the Prodiamine may have contributed to the puffiness as it may prevent some of the bermuda from setting roots in the lawn. After the sanding, I had a pretty bad weed infestation and had to do 2 spot treatments of Celsius/Certainty which ended up lightly bleaching the spots I sprayed. I need to definitely plan on spraying some Prodiamine down after each sanding in order prevent these weeds from sprouting next time.

After the sanding, I also experimented with not using the groomer and not catching the clippings. The after cut appearance seemed to improve a little bit for a short while but I think this when the lawn started to get puffy and I went back to using the groomer and have been collecting all the clippings for the last few weeks. My goal now is to just finish the season up right where I'm at and help "clean" the lawn out so there will be less material to remove come next Spring. After the grass grew back in after the sanding I was mowing at .350" but I was not getting the results I was wanting so I bumped it up to .450" and now I am at .550" with the groomer set at .200". When I mow, I am collecting about 30-40% of brown material from down below so that makes me feel like it's actually doing something. I have also noticed that with the aggressive grooming that I have been doing this year, I have A LOT of upright growth and very fine leaf blades in my lawn which I see as a positive and something I will tinker with going forward.

On a side note, I am planning on going totally liquid fertilizer next year and I am currently hashing out all the details on that end as we speak and as soon as I have something substantial to report, I will be sure to share it with everyone here. The main reason I am wanting to go the liquid route is that I like to collect the clippings and use my groomer regularly so I end up picking up some of the fertilizer that I apply to the lawn with my mowing. It will also allow me a lot more flexibility when feeding the lawn and control the amount of Nitrogen it is getting to help reduce the puffiness. And hopefully be cheaper in the long run too!!

Well here are some pics from earlier in the week that I took right after mowing and the sun was going down. I know I need to edge and trim, which I plan on doing later today after football. I will also try and update this thread a little more often now that I am caught up with everything(I think ).


----------



## dfw_pilot

Lookin' good, bro!


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## Mightyquinn

dfw_pilot said:


> Lookin' good, bro!


Thanks, but I forgot to preface the pictures with that it looks better in the pictures than it does in person. Plus the lighting wasn't all that great


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## Redtenchu

Now that's an update!


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## pennstater2005

Damn MQ! That looks good!!!


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## Ware

Good stuff, MQ. Looks like you have a good plan. :thumbup:


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## Colonel K0rn

MQ, I too have spoken with Brad Huff at Greene County Fert. I haven't seen the "kapow" factor with the applications of their product that I've seen on my lawns when I have added fast-release N in the past, but there's something going on with everything in the lawn. I'm going to give it one or two seasons before I say, "Nah that's not working." My $0.02. Your yard is looking good bro.


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## Mightyquinn

Colonel K0rn said:


> MQ, I too have spoken with Brad Huff at Greene County Fert. I haven't seen the "kapow" factor with the applications of their product that I've seen on my lawns when I have added fast-release N in the past, but there's something going on with everything in the lawn. I'm going to give it one or two seasons before I say, "Nah that's not working." My $0.02. Your yard is looking good bro.


Yeah, I'm going to give it a wait and see attitude also and maybe reevaluate next Spring.


----------



## TC2

Not sure you'll see impressive visual results with the n-ext stuff. From what I've read it's more of a health maintenance thing, especially under stress conditions. I'd probably expect to see less brown grass rather than greener grass.

If you're thinking of putting down herbicide, or something like primo, it could be good stuff to help your grass avoid side effects.


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## gatormac2112

Will leveling with yards of sand without soil over and over cause Turf to get "spongy"?


----------



## Mightyquinn

gatormac2112 said:


> Will leveling with yards of sand without soil over and over cause Turf to get "spongy"?


I believe it will have the opposite effect as that is what I am hoping for. The "sponginess" comes from OM build up in the soil, by applying the sand, it combats the build up of OM and gives you a more firm surface.

*at least this is my belief from everything that I have read about it and the reason behind golf courses topdressing their greens with sand on a regular basis.


----------



## gatormac2112

Mightyquinn said:


> gatormac2112 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Will leveling with yards of sand without soil over and over cause Turf to get "spongy"?
> 
> 
> 
> I believe it will have the opposite effect as that is what I am hoping for. The "sponginess" comes from OM build up in the soil, by applying the sand, it combats the build up of OM and gives you a more firm surface.
> 
> *at least this is my belief from everything that I have read about it and the reason behind golf courses topdressing their greens with sand on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me, I was just curious :thumbup:


----------



## wardconnor

Mightyquinn said:


> gatormac2112 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Will leveling with yards of sand without soil over and over cause Turf to get "spongy"?
> 
> 
> 
> I believe it will have the opposite effect as that is what I am hoping for. The "sponginess" comes from OM build up in the soil, by applying the sand, it combats the build up of OM and gives you a more firm surface.
> 
> *at least this is my belief from everything that I have read about it and the reason behind golf courses topdressing their greens with sand on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

Yeah. It will make it hard over time like a golf green. I've top dressed 3 times with sand and mine is not hard yet. It would take a while with multiple rounds of sand. Core aerating with sand after would speed it up.

When in doubt... Add sand.. Even ask Ware


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## gatormac2112

How does so much sand affect things like pH? Does the sand mix with the soil below or just sit on top pushing the soil down?


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## Mightyquinn

gatormac2112 said:


> How does so much sand affect things like pH? Does the sand mix with the soil below or just sit on top pushing the soil down?


I don't think in the grand scheme of things the amount of sand you add will effect the pH a great deal since most of it is on top of the soil and the roots are far down below.


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## Mightyquinn

Just incase anyone was interested I made some video's this past weekend and posted them on YouTube. I figured I would try my hand at this whole YouTube thing since all the cool kids were doing it :lol:

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KarLqDoTujY&t=12s[/media]

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkitAAkkbdA&t=242s[/media]


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## Colonel K0rn

Man, that landscape blade is a marvel! That looked like some sort of animal going through the ground, uprooting all the material above it. I just showed the wife and said, "That's going to be the next piece of equipment I purchase." She was like this -> :roll:


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## Ware

Great videos MQ. :thumbsup:


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## Fishnugget

Thanks for the videos MQ! I haven't seen a whole lot of videos on the landscaping blade. I actually need something like that. You are motivating me to purchase a similar system.


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## Mightyquinn

Well, I started the season at about the exact same time as I did last year. The only difference is that I am now starting at .550" HOC instead of 3+" of last year :thumbup:

It's been warm here all week so that grass is starting to send up little shoots all over the lawn so I knew it was time to start scalping again and even though the weather was overcast and cool yesterday, I decided to hit it hard today as it was in the 60's and sunshine with a little breeze.

I set the Baroness at .500" HOC and the Groomer @ .200" for the first scalp and I was removing a decent amount of material but it was like I was just cleaning up almost so after I was done with that I took it down to .400" HOC and the Verticutter attachment to .100". I went over the lawn in two directions and I was removing a generous amount of clippings with both passes.

I got greedy and tried to set it at .300" HOC and Verticutter @ .050" but that proved to be too much and I decided to call it quits for the day and plan on using the JD Verticutter next weekend to help thin it out and then keep attacking it with the Baroness until I can't get down any lower.

Here are some pics from after I was done today.


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## dfw_pilot

Nice work!


----------



## Ridgerunner

Does that need to be done just at the beginning of the year with Bermuda, or do you have to do that sporadically through the growing season?


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## Mightyquinn

Ridgerunner said:


> Does that need to be done just at the beginning of the year with Bermuda, or do you have to do that sporadically through the growing season?


I generally just do it at the beginning of the season but depending on your HOC and care of the lawn it may need to be done again later in the Summer but probably not to the extent of the Spring scalp.


----------



## Mightyquinn

With the great weather we were suppose to have today I decided it was a perfect time to verticut the lawn. Going in to the day I was planning on going in 2 directions but after doing the first pass, I felt like I had done enough damage . I set the verticutter pretty deep into the soil so I was bringing up a lot of dirt with each pass. I definitely didn't have as much material as I did last year but that could be because I did 4 passes over the lawn last year too. Here are some pics of the lawn during and right after the verticut.










































After I was done, I raked everything into piles so that I could dispose of the material. All I use is a 36" Landscape Rake as it does a great job of getting all the big stuff without getting too much dirt, it doesn't take a lot of effort to rake it up either.










































Finally, when it was all done and picked up, I got the neighbors lawn tractor and hooked up my drag mat but I folded it over on itself once and then attached my leveling rake to the back of it and ran it over the lawn a few times to help settle the dirt back down and to fluff up the grass so it would be easier to cut. The combo did a great job and I can't wait to use it later this year to level the lawn again. I initially used zip ties to secure the rake and it work OK but once I hit the lip of the grass just right it popped it off. So I reattached it with 550 cord(paracord) and that seemed to do the trick.


















































I got the backpack blower out and blew everything off and cleaned up for the day and plan on going out after church tomorrow and mowing hopefully at least 2 passes to knock some of the fuzziness off the lawn and start getting it ready for Spring. I already set the Baroness up @ .400" HOC and the Brush set @ .100", so she is already to go. I think I ended up collecting around 12 bags of debris that will go out on Monday for the city to pick up and whatever I collect tomorrow.


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## Ware

Lookin' good! :thumbsup:


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## g-man

What is the PVC structure for?

We have the same wicker chair set.


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## Mightyquinn

g-man said:


> What is the PVC structure for?
> 
> We have the same wicker chair set.


The PVC structure is to hold trash bags so I can put all the lawn debris/clippings into them. Once it's full, you take the bag off, tie it up and pull the PVC over the bag and then put another one on and go again. I have it set up to fit 55 gal drum liners so all I have to is stretch the corners of the bag over the edges and it keeps it in place. It also breaks down for easy storage too :thumbup:

Yeah we got the Wicker chair set at Lowe's last year.


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## wardconnor

Looks great.


----------



## Movingshrub

Mightyquinn said:


> g-man said:
> 
> 
> 
> What is the PVC structure for?
> 
> We have the same wicker chair set.
> 
> 
> 
> The PVC structure is to hold trash bags so I can put all the lawn debris/clippings into them. Once it's full, you take the bag off, tie it up and pull the PVC over the bag and then put another one on and go again. I have it set up to fit 55 gal drum liners so all I have to is stretch the corners of the bag over the edges and it keeps it in place. It also breaks down for easy storage too :thumbup:
> 
> Yeah we got the Wicker chair set at Lowe's last year.
Click to expand...

I want to see how your PVC thing works. Video or slide show possible? I've been using a trash can, with a trash bag inside it, secured with bungee cords, which works okay but it isn't the best.


----------



## WarEagle26

Movingshrub said:


> I want to see how your PVC thing works.


+1 :thumbup:


----------



## Mightyquinn

WarEagle26 said:


> Movingshrub said:
> 
> 
> 
> I want to see how your PVC thing works.
> 
> 
> 
> +1 :thumbup:
Click to expand...

I'll try to take some photos today of it when I'm scalping. It's pretty straight forward and easy :thumbup:


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## Colonel K0rn

@Mightyquinn do I spy a 2nd water meter box, for irrigation? Yard looks great BTW.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Colonel K0rn said:


> @Mightyquinn do I spy a 2nd water meter box, for irrigation? Yard looks great BTW.


Thanks! You are correct :thumbup: It is a second meter just for irrigation.


----------



## Mightyquinn

On Sunday, I mowed it down to .400" with the brush set @ .100", I was pretty worn out from the day before from verticutting so I decided to call it quits for the day plus I think we had rain coming in too. Well today I got off from work early and it had stopped raining and the radar didn't look like there was any coming anytime soon so I decided to see how far I could get with scalping. I did an initial pass @ .350" and that went fairly uneventful so I decided to take it down to .250" to see what would happen. Well, I hit some rough patches where the Baroness wanted to bog down but it seemed to power through it and kept going. I was able to finish just as the rain started to come in and felt very satisfied that I got my first pass done @.250". The plan going forward is to mow at this HOC for a few more times in different directions to make sure it's good and even and then I'm wanting to take it down even further to .200".

I will have to say that it's amazing how much material you remove when only going down .100" at a time. I also plan on keeping the rotary brush attachment on the Baroness set @ .100" for now and may switch the the verticutting attachment once I have gotten everything all cleaned up. I think I have also reached a point where I no long need a rotary mower as the Baroness does an excellent job at collecting all the material in the lawn without sucking up a lot of sand and dirt.

Here are some more pics of the lawn after I was done @ .250"


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## Redtenchu

Looking great MQ


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## ahartzell

Ok this makes me feel better....your scalp in initial post looked pretty good: low but not "torn up"...this one looks a little more aggressive (close to dirt) and it's what mine looks like after a scalp at 0.4"...phew thought I screwed up from the word go this season :lol:


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## J_nick

Looking good MQ. Getting a nice low clean surface to start the season with :thumbup:


----------



## Mightyquinn

ahartzell said:


> Ok this makes me feel better....your scalp in initial post looked pretty good: low but not "torn up"...this one looks a little more aggressive (close to dirt) and it's what mine looks like after a scalp at 0.4"...phew thought I screwed up from the word go this season :lol:


That's the goal is to get it down to dirt as close as possible. Also, when I verticut last weekend, I went pretty deep with it and it kicked up a lot of soil, which to me is the only way to go :thumbup:


----------



## Mightyquinn

J_nick said:


> Looking good MQ. Getting a nice low clean surface to start the season with :thumbup:


Thanks! I will try to take some close up picks this weekend after I go over it again to show how clean it really is.

I also forgot to add that when I mowed today, the lawn was still damp but that helped A LOT with keeping the dust down, it's definitely something to consider when scalping.


----------



## J_nick

Was that only one direction with the verticutter?


----------



## Mightyquinn

J_nick said:


> Was that only one direction with the verticutter?


Yes, I felt like it had thinned it out good enough with one pass as I didn't have much build up from last year when I did 4 passes and used my groomer all year.


----------



## Colonel K0rn

Man, you got a nice looking lot there MQ. Nice work!


----------



## J_nick

How's the lawn recovering MQ?


----------



## Mightyquinn

Well J_Nick, the lawn hasn't really "recovered" as we have had a cold snap the last week or two, it's been nice for a few days but not enough to really make a difference. Next weekend it's suppose to start getting really nice so I expect some more greening up to come then.

Last weekend I mowed the lawn in two different directions @.250" with the brush set @.100". On the last pass I was removing a lot of material but was also getting a lot dirt in the basket too, so I decided that was enough for now and I will just move my HOC up to .350" and start the season there. I am still amazed and how well the Baroness removed all the material I was mowing and it did a great job as the lawn is a lot cleaner then when I was using the rotary mower to suck up all the material. I think it's about time to sell my rotary mower and free up space in the garage .

Yesterday, I was just in the lawn to do some cleaning up since I didn't need to mow. I edged everything and trimmed up the "trench" around my curbing and cleaned the trench out too as there are still some leaves and debris that collects in it during the Winter. I also ran a string line down the property line of the houses on my left and right to help straighten up the "domination" line. Last year I kind of just eyeballed it and it wasn't very straight so I felt like I needed to remedy that. I ran the string line and then took the landscape blade to trim the grass down to the dirt along the boarders of the property.

After cleaning everything up, I decided it was time to put some Prodiamine down since we have rain in the forecast for today and tomorrow. I also added some Talstar P, ImidaPro 2SC and some NeXT D-Thatch that I had left over from last year. This was the first time I had actually sprayed any product with my new Franken Sprayer-Mate set up with the larger pump and nozzles(3 gal/K). I walked a little too slow for the first round on the back lawn so some areas didn't get everything but I'm not too worried about it as I am sure after a few more uses I will get it down. I just need to walk at a normal(to me) pace and I should be just fine.

Here are some pictures after I cleaned up but before I sprayed.










































Here are some close up pics of the lawn to show how clean and thin the lawn is.


















With the lawn not needing to be mowed next weekend most likely, my plan is to just trim the bushes and clean out the flower/shrub beds and I may be adding my soil moisture/temp probes to my Davis VP2 and fire up the irrigation system for the first time to check all the heads and make sure everything is in good working order.


----------



## SGrabs33

Looks very nice MQ! I need to take a few extra passes of my rotary to get mine as clean as you have it. I definitely think that is key to an early green up!

I always contemplate getting rid of my rotary but the clean up it does for me is worth keeping it around. I was actually donated an extra one last week. I will have to test to see which does a better pick up job and get rid of the other. Garage space always comes at a premium unless you can build your own compound like @MrMeaner :nod:


----------



## Mightyquinn

Well, it's been a long time since I posted any updates here but that has been more to do with the weather than anything else. Shortly after my last post, we went through a cold snap here and temperatures were lucky to get out of the 50's most days. For the last week or so we have been having some great weather with temps in the 60's and 70's and a few days in the 80's. The lawn is definitely waking up now and even more so since I took these pictures.

Here are some pictures from Saturday March 31st that I took before I mowed the lawn at .350" w/brush @ .100".










































After mowing the lawn, I got busy with doing some more things around the house and by the time I remembered to take some "after" pictures it was getting late and the sun was setting so I figured I would do it the next day. Well, that didn't happen either as I got busy trimming the bushes and cleaning up and then I waited until later in the evening for the wind to die down since I was wanting to give the lawn a light spraying of fertilizer. I ended up spraying .5lb/K of Urea and Ammonium Sulfate w/[email protected] .4oz/lb(about .33lbs of Nitrogen/K) I also added some NeXT [email protected] 6oz/K to the mix which I sprayed @ 3 gallons/K. My thinking is that the lawn was starting to fill in and we were forecasted to have some good temps the next few days, so it would help give the lawn a good boost to fill in even more. I also ran the irrigation for the first time after applying the fertilizer and found 2 heads that are going to need replaced.

Here are some pictures of the lawn the next day after spraying on Monday April 2nd.










































If you noticed in some of the pictures that there were trenches in the lawn with sand in them like this:










They are from installing this:


















It's a Davis 6345CS Complete Soil Moisture and Temperature Station. I installed this a few weeks ago and plan to use it to help calibrate and zero in the Rachio Gen 2 that I have. You have to install a temperature and moisture probe together at each site and it has a total of 8 sensors(4 temp and 4 moisture). Since I have 4 zones for my irrigation, I put one set in each zone so I can monitor the soil moisture this year and adjust the sprinkler heads/Rachio accordingly. Since they have been installed, I have yet to have them read totally dry yet as we have been getting some needed rain every few days and the temps haven't been crazy high yet.

I will try to snap a few pics tomorrow after work to show how much the grass has greened up in the last few days from the awesome weather we have been having here. A cool snap with rain is suppose to come through this weekend but looks like warmer temps will be back the next weekend :thumbup:


----------



## SGrabs33

That's a huge difference in one day! I'm not excited about the cold temps this weekend either but it looks like we will avoid more snow thank goodness :thumbup:


----------



## Colonel K0rn

Very cool! I'm interested to see how your moisture meters will reduce your water bill. I'm sure you have some baseline figures from months prior.


----------



## Redtenchu

Looks amazing (as always) MQ!


----------



## Mightyquinn

Had some great weather this week that really helped the lawn wake up even more. I mowed the lawn again today after work @.350". Here are some before and after pictures.

*BEFORE- Taken Yesterday*










































*AFTER-Taken Today*










































I still need to trim and edge but will probably wait until Sunday as it suppose to rain all day tomorrow.


----------



## Colonel K0rn

Not gonna lie, I'm envious of the almost full green front yard.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Colonel K0rn said:


> Not gonna lie, I'm envious of the almost full green front yard.


I'm surprised too, even the trenches from the moisture/temp probes are starting to fill in too :thumbup:


----------



## Iriasj2009

Looking good man!


----------



## gpbrown60

MQ,

You are the standard for Tifway 419! I always glean nuggets of info from your posts. What I learned with this 2018 Journal is that I should be more aggressive with my scalp and scarifying/verticutting. In November of last year I purchased a used Eliet Scarifier with 16 fixed blades (3mm kerf). I obviously read and viewed your pics after the fact. Keep up the informative posts!

gpbrown60


----------



## Mightyquinn

gpbrown60 said:


> MQ,
> 
> You are the standard for Tifway 419! I always glean nuggets of info from your posts. What I learned with this 2018 Journal is that I should be more aggressive with my scalp and scarifying/verticutting. In November of last year I purchased a used Eliet Scarifier with 16 fixed blades (3mm kerf). I obviously read and viewed your pics after the fact. Keep up the informative posts!
> 
> gpbrown60


Thanks for the compliments :thumbup: I too am learning that the more you beat it up the more it will reward you down the road. When verticutting 419, you almost can't go deep enough when verticutting


----------



## gpbrown60

MQ,

I also agree that the Baroness with the brush/basket does a much better job collecting dead material than the honda rotary. I need to be more aggressive with the brush setting. Which direction are you running the brush?

gpbrown60


----------



## Mightyquinn

gpbrown60 said:


> MQ,
> 
> I also agree that the Baroness with the brush/basket does a much better job collecting dead material than the honda rotary. I need to be more aggressive with the brush setting. Which direction are you running the brush?
> 
> gpbrown60


I just saw that you are fellow Baroness owner :thumbup: I almost always run all the attachments in the Reverse direction as I think it helps lift up the debris/grass and if there happens to be any foreign objects in the lawn it will kick them away from the reel/bedknife.

I haven't really used the Verticutter attachment much but I plan on putting it through it's paces this year. I REALLY love the groomer attachment as it does a great job at keeping the 419 in check


----------



## gpbrown60

Yes, we communicated in the Around the Yard Forum before I purchased the Baroness a few years back. So far I have been pleased with it's performance. It is my first and only greens mower. Running the brush in reverse makes sense for multiple reasons. I need to adjust it lower to dredge out more dead material. I think you are exactly right in that the more you beat up the Tifway 419 the better it will look. Thanks for the feedback!

gpbrown60


----------



## Mightyquinn

I know I'm late to updating this thread but I have been crazy busy at work and on the weekend getting stuff done around the house and yard. Well on Saturday, I mowed, edged and trimmed up the lawn planted a few flowers in the beds and replaced a few sprinkler heads with some Hunter I-20(SS)'s. I think I am going to be upgrading all my rotors with these over time as they are more robustly built than the PGP's I have now and have a wider selection of nozzles to meet my needs. I plan on doing another irrigation audit on my system to make sure everything is still working correctly as it's been over 2 years since my last one. I don't have any pictures of the new heads but will try to take some pics of them this weekend as the winds are suppose to be light so I want to make sure the irrigation system is all dialed in as I have yet to run a full cycle yet this year.

I also sprayed some GCF Air-8 on the lawn on Sunday that I had left over from last year and at this point I am just trying to use what I have up and wait and see how others who are using their products fair with it. While I was spraying it my Franken Sprayer-Mate died on my with about 2 gallons left to spray. The battery just up and quit on me, so I ordered a new from Amazon and it should be here tomorrow. The current battery is about 3 years old and I bought it off eBay so who knows how good of quality it is. Thinking of buying another one just to have for back up in case this ever happens again. I ended up putting the rest of the solution in my Solo 2 gallon sprayer and finished up the lawn. I was thankful that it was just the Air-8 that I was spraying and not any fertilizer as that could have made the lawn look funny for a week or two  .

Here are some pics of the lawn after I mowed @ .350" and the Groomer set @ .175. I'm thinking of changing up the picture angles to show off the stripes better too :thumbup:










































I also added a new sticker to the Baroness grass catcher!!!










This weekend I plan on spraying some more fertilizer and maybe some PGR too and the lawn is really starting to fill in nicely and thickening up.


----------



## wardconnor

Looking good.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Just to give an update, there will probably be a little bit of time before the next update as the Baroness had a run in with my backyard concrete patio which bent the bedknife and reel. So until I can order and install new ones I won't be able to mow the lawn. I am glad that it happened now instead of during the heat of Summer. I plan on spraying the lawn tomorrow with PGR and iron to help slow it down while the Baroness is down. Thinking of going with the 9 blade reel they offer over the 11 blade that came with it since I'm not cutting ultra low . I'll try to keep this updated with progress on the repair.


----------



## touchofgrass

Sorry your favorite toy broke @Mightyquinn :-(


----------



## Colonel K0rn

Well that's a terrible update! Hope you get the parts soon, and get that PGR down before the rain comes, because we're due to get it tomorrow evening.


----------



## Ridgerunner

Ouch.


----------



## MasterMech

Mightyquinn said:


> Just to give an update, there will probably be a little bit of time before the next update as the Baroness had a run in with my backyard concrete patio which bent the bedknife and reel. So until I can order and install new ones I won't be able to mow the lawn. I am glad that it happened now instead of during the heat of Summer. I plan on spraying the lawn tomorrow with PGR and iron to help slow it down while the Baroness is down. Thinking of going with the 9 blade reel they offer over the 11 blade that came with it since I'm not cutting ultra low . I'll try to keep this updated with progress on the repair.


Bummer MQ! I destroyed my Jake on Thursday evening, bounced the corner of the knife on my water meter cover and trashed the reel and bedknife. I say go for that 9-blade. We used to mow tee's at .500" with 8-blade Toro's and they cut great. The walk-mower's (Jake 522) had 11-blades in them and when used for tee's, had to double cut to get the same after-cut look.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Well after a good nights sleep, I decided to give it a go this afternoon after church and try to fix the Baroness since I had nothing to lose and the lawn needed cut. I figured if I could at least bend the one bad blade back to where the reel would rotate I could backlap the rest of the reel to the new bedknife and get a decent cut until I can order the new parts and get them in. I was lucky that the bent blade was on the far left side of the reel as you are looking at it. After some failed attempts at bending the blade back I decided WTH, I'll just grind it down so it will pass over the bedknife. Took about 5-10 minutes with my Dremel to shave it down enough to work. Got everything else backlapping and cutting paper really good and took it out to finish up the lawn. I got to say I was feeling pretty good about everything once I got the mower back on the lawn and she was cutting and laying down stripes again. From the mow, you couldn't tell I had a bad blade on the reel. I still plan on ordering the parts and replacing it with a 9 blade reel as just knowing it's there still bugs me .

I also added some sand to the low area where the reel hit the patio so I don't have to worry about this happening again hopefully. After doing a few more things, I decided to go ahead and fertilize and apply PGR to the lawn since we are suppose to get some good rain tomorrow and Tuesday. I went with a pound of 46-0-0(Urea) and 21-0-0(AS) each/K with some DPTA Iron at 4oz/K on the back and 2oz/K on the front and added some nitrogen stabilizer too. I also applied some PGR at .25oz/K. I was meaning to also add in some Potassium Sulfate but totally forgot about it until I was done and cleaning the sprayer out


----------



## Iriasj2009

Mightyquinn said:


> Well after a good nights sleep, I decided to give it a go this afternoon after church and try to fix the Baroness since I had nothing to lose and the lawn needed cut. I figured if I could at least bend the one bad blade back to where the reel would rotate I could backlap the rest of the reel to the new bedknife and get a decent cut until I can order the new parts and get them in. I was lucky that the bent blade was on the far left side of the reel as you are looking at it. After some failed attempts at bending the blade back I decided WTH, I'll just grind it down so it will pass over the bedknife. Took about 5-10 minutes with my Dremel to shave it down enough to work. Got everything else backlapping and cutting paper really good and took it out to finish up the lawn. I got to say I was feeling pretty good about everything once I got the mower back on the lawn and she was cutting and laying down stripes again. From the mow, you couldn't tell I had a bad blade on the reel. I still plan on ordering the parts and replacing it with a 9 blade reel as just knowing it's there still bugs me .
> 
> I also added some sand to the low area where the reel hit the patio so I don't have to worry about this happening again hopefully. After doing a few more things, I decided to go ahead and fertilize and apply PGR to the lawn since we are suppose to get some good rain tomorrow and Tuesday. I went with a pound of 46-0-0(Urea) and 21-0-0(AS) each/K with some DPTA Iron at 4oz/K on the back and 2oz/K on the front and added some nitrogen stabilizer too. I also applied some PGR at .25oz/K. I was meaning to also add in some Potassium Sulfate but totally forgot about it until I was done and cleaning the sprayer out


Sucks that you bent your reel MQ! 
But the same thing happened to me with my jake and I did exactly that, grinded the reel down to where the reel would spin. Mower is working like a champ and you would never know I have a bent blade on my reel ha.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Went to the Baroness dealer in town here and ordered the parts needed to fix the mower. I did order the 9-Blade reel but I got to say that parts are VERY expensive for this mower  They should be here no later than early next week since they are coming from California. So the following weekend I will be installing them. I will try to take a lot of pictures of the replacement :thumbup:

On a side note, I was talking to the parts guy that was helping me out and he said they have quite a few Baroness Greens mowers there at the store that have been sitting there since last year. Supposedly Baroness sent them a bunch of mowers to deliver to a PGA event that was held last year near Wilmington,NC and they were used for one week and have been sitting there ever since. I asked if they were for sale and he said no as they still belong to Baroness so I couldn't get a price on them. I was hoping it could get a good deal on one of them


----------



## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> Went to the Baroness dealer in town here and ordered the parts needed to fix the mower. I did order the 9-Blade reel but I got to say that parts are VERY expensive for this mower  They should be here no later than early next week since they are coming from California. So the following weekend I will be installing them. I will try to take a lot of pictures of the replacement :thumbup:
> 
> On a side note, I was talking to the parts guy that was helping me out and he said they have quite a few Baroness Greens mowers there at the store that have been sitting there since last year. Supposedly Baroness sent them a bunch of mowers to deliver to a PGA event that was held last year near Wilmington,NC and they were used for one week and have been sitting there ever since. I asked if they were for sale and he said no as they still belong to Baroness so I couldn't get a price on them. I was hoping it could get a good deal on one of them


ummm... are you purposely avoid telling all how you left me in the car for 45 minutes while you spoke to this guy about all things Baroness?


----------



## Mightyquinn

touchofgrass said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> Went to the Baroness dealer in town here and ordered the parts needed to fix the mower. I did order the 9-Blade reel but I got to say that parts are VERY expensive for this mower  They should be here no later than early next week since they are coming from California. So the following weekend I will be installing them. I will try to take a lot of pictures of the replacement :thumbup:
> 
> On a side note, I was talking to the parts guy that was helping me out and he said they have quite a few Baroness Greens mowers there at the store that have been sitting there since last year. Supposedly Baroness sent them a bunch of mowers to deliver to a PGA event that was held last year near Wilmington,NC and they were used for one week and have been sitting there ever since. I asked if they were for sale and he said no as they still belong to Baroness so I couldn't get a price on them. I was hoping it could get a good deal on one of them
> 
> 
> 
> ummm... are you purposely avoid telling all how you left me in the car for 45 minutes while you spoke to this guy about all things Baroness?
Click to expand...

People here don't care about that :lol:


----------



## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> Went to the Baroness dealer in town here and ordered the parts needed to fix the mower. I did order the 9-Blade reel but I got to say that parts are VERY expensive for this mower  They should be here no later than early next week since they are coming from California. So the following weekend I will be installing them. I will try to take a lot of pictures of the replacement :thumbup:
> 
> On a side note, I was talking to the parts guy that was helping me out and he said they have quite a few Baroness Greens mowers there at the store that have been sitting there since last year. Supposedly Baroness sent them a bunch of mowers to deliver to a PGA event that was held last year near Wilmington,NC and they were used for one week and have been sitting there ever since. I asked if they were for sale and he said no as they still belong to Baroness so I couldn't get a price on them. I was hoping it could get a good deal on one of them
> 
> 
> 
> ummm... are you purposely avoid telling all how you left me in the car for 45 minutes while you spoke to this guy about all things Baroness?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> People here don't care about that :lol:
Click to expand...

oh puhleeze... sounds like someone wants to make his own dinner


----------



## Gibby

touchofgrass said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> ummm... are you purposely avoid telling all how you left me in the car for 45 minutes while you spoke to this guy about all things Baroness?
> 
> 
> 
> People here don't care about that :lol:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> oh puhleeze... sounds like someone wants to make his own dinner
Click to expand...

I could never have my wife on the same forum as me....


----------



## Mightyquinn

Gibby said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> People here don't care about that :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> oh puhleeze... sounds like someone wants to make his own dinner
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I could never have my wife on the same forum as me....
Click to expand...

Your wife must not be as awesome as mine then


----------



## touchofgrass

Gibby said:


> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> People here don't care about that :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> oh puhleeze... sounds like someone wants to make his own dinner
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I could never have my wife on the same forum as me....
Click to expand...

hey!!! It's all in good fun. I would leave in a heartbeat if he didn't want me here  He claims to enjoy having me take part in this part of his life... since it's the most important part.. lol


----------



## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> Gibby said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> touchofgrass said:
> 
> 
> 
> oh puhleeze... sounds like someone wants to make his own dinner
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I could never have my wife on the same forum as me....
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Your wife must not be as awesome as mine then
Click to expand...

😍😘


----------



## Ridgerunner

> Your wife must not be as awesome as mine then


But, but, but...she sat in THE CAR instead of going in the vroom vroom lawn mower store and kicking tires with you! :lol:


----------



## touchofgrass

Ridgerunner said:


> Your wife must not be as awesome as mine then
> 
> 
> 
> But, but, but...she sat in THE CAR instead of going in the vroom vroom lawn mower store and kicking tires with you! :lol:
Click to expand...

This place gives him crap sometimes for being a regular civilian instead of a top dog 'professional' company so I didn't want to blow his cover, just in case he was acting all 'business-man' like.. haha


----------



## Mightyquinn

touchofgrass said:


> Ridgerunner said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Your wife must not be as awesome as mine then
> 
> 
> 
> But, but, but...she sat in THE CAR instead of going in the vroom vroom lawn mower store and kicking tires with you! :lol:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> This place gives him crap sometimes for being a regular civilian instead of a top dog 'professional' company so I didn't want to blow his cover, just in case he was acting all 'business-man' like.. haha
Click to expand...

That's just the fertilizer salesman who is the owner's son but I just don't buy fertilizer there  They all know I'm a homeowner :thumbup:


----------



## SGrabs33

​You two are funny. Love it that you wife enjoys being on here.

I agree that sometimes a deal on a backup reel is much better than the cost of brand new parts. We all wish that things won't go wrong with our reels but it's inevitable. You could just buy a CalTrimmer instead  I think I could cut a deal for a TLF OG. Kidding, but not kidding.

You would think that places like that would be excited about having a homeowner, who is knowledgeable, who is interested in their products. Maybe they really get too many Joe Shmo's in the specialty stores asking if they sell RoundUp or something.


----------



## Movingshrub

Mightyquinn said:


> I have also considered using a 2x4 to screed the lawn like you would with concrete as this would also allow you to see all the low and high spots in the lawn and hopefully give you a better finished product but I will reevaluate all of that next year when it gets closer to sanding the lawn.


Did you ever go the screed route? I keep considering making one with scrap lumber versus procuring a drag mat.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Movingshrub said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> I have also considered using a 2x4 to screed the lawn like you would with concrete as this would also allow you to see all the low and high spots in the lawn and hopefully give you a better finished product but I will reevaluate all of that next year when it gets closer to sanding the lawn.
> 
> 
> 
> Did you ever go the screed route? I keep considering making one with scrap lumber versus procuring a drag mat.
Click to expand...

I haven't yet but I am still considering it as it is getting closer to doing another leveling project. I still think you need a drag mat regardless to get the lawn relatively smooth.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Well I figured it was about time to start one of these for the year and hopefully I can keep it updated better this year. Last year work just got in the way with all the crazy hours I was working so it was a chore just to keep the lawn up which I barely was able to. I ended up at .700" HOC to go into the Winter which I was not too happy with.

I just started a new job a few weeks ago which has a lot better hours so I will have plenty of time to get lawn work done during the week and on weekends.

Today I was able to finish up the front yard with a deep verticut in 2 directions, rake all the debris up and mow the lawn @.500" picking up all the smaller stuff the rake didn't get. I meant to take pictures during the process but totally forgot about it. I was able to verticut and mow the backyard earlier this week which was nice as I didn't have to do everything in one day.

*Backyard done on Wednesday 3/13*


















*Frontyard done Today 3/16*


























Tomorrow I plan on taking the front and back down to .400" and maybe even .300" if time and energy allows . I also plan on trimming down the bush on the right of the garage to match the other ones that I have hacked down already. I've decided to trim those bushes back since they were getting way too tall and was making it hard to keep trimmed. They tend to grow real fast during the season so they should fill in just fine by the end of the year.


----------



## Brodgers88

Looking good, especially with that tree out of the way! Are you planning on planting something new there?


----------



## Confederate Lawn

Looking pretty weed free, dude! looking forward to seeing the progress


----------



## Thor865

Mightyquinn said:


> Well I figured it was about time to start one of these for the year and hopefully I can keep it updated better this year. Last year work just got in the way with all the crazy hours I was working so it was a chore just to keep the lawn up which I barely was able to. I ended up at .700" HOC to go into the Winter which I was not too happy with.
> 
> I just started a new job a few weeks ago which has a lot better hours so I will have plenty of time to get lawn work done during the week and on weekends.
> 
> Today I was able to finish up the front yard with a deep verticut in 2 directions, rake all the debris up and mow the lawn @.500" picking up all the smaller stuff the rake didn't get. I meant to take pictures during the process but totally forgot about it. I was able to verticut and mow the backyard earlier this week which was nice as I didn't have to do everything in one day.
> 
> *Backyard done on Wednesday 3/13*
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> *Frontyard done Today 3/16*
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> Tomorrow I plan on taking the front and back down to .400" and maybe even .300" if time and energy allows . I also plan on trimming down the bush on the right of the garage to match the other ones that I have hacked down already. I've decided to trim those bushes back since they were getting way too tall and was making it hard to keep trimmed. They tend to grow real fast during the season so they should fill in just fine by the end of the year.


What did you use to to verticut? Looks like it did well


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## Mightyquinn

THIS is what I used.


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## Two9tene

Looks Noice!!! Posting in here to follow the progress!


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## Mightyquinn

Brodgers88 said:


> Looking good, especially with that tree out of the way! Are you planning on planting something new there?


I am planning on putting a 25-30' lighted flag pole in that spot where the tree was at. I have just been waiting for that area to dry out some more.



Confederate Lawn said:


> Looking pretty weed free, dude! looking forward to seeing the progress


Yeah, I did pretty good this year with the Pre Emergent, just had a few weeds around the edges but between the scalping and verticutting they aren't too happy  Once I get everything else scalped down, I will see what's left and hit them with some Celsius.


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## bermuda_dude

Very level and smooth lawn! Can't wait to see it green up!


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## Brodgers88

Nice! A flag pole is going to look great right there.


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## Mightyquinn

I took the lawn down to .400" on Sunday and cut back the other bush on the right side of the garage. Today after work I got out and mowed it down to .350" as I was hoping the lawn was still going to be a little damp from the rain last night and it was misting most of the morning. I have found that scalping a damp lawn is better than a dry one since the clippings are "heavier" and tend not to blow around so much and more of them make it into the grass catcher. I was also picking up a lot more clipping the lower I go but I assume it's from the crowns of the grass being denser that the top growth. I'm hoping to get the lawn down to .250" by the end of this weekend and I will update with new pictures.


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## Mightyquinn

Got out on the lawn again today and took the lawn down to .300". It's amazing that the lower you go the more clippings you end up getting. I ended up going over the back lawn in two directions since the mower was struggling a bit in the one direction and I ended up collecting about as much clippings the second time around as I did the first. Getting down into the crown of the plant really taxes the mower more. I also have the brush attachment set at ground level rotating in reverse to help clean up all the fine stuff that gets blown around by the wind. I'm really waiting for a day with low wind and some light rain to help get most of the stuff that sits on the ground or gets blown in the wind. I may just end up running the irrigation right before I mow one of these days.

*Front Yard @ .300"*


























*Back Yard @ .300"*

















*Close Up Pic @ .300"*









I plan on trying to take it down to .250" tomorrow and go in 3 directions throughout the week and I might eventually try to get it down to .200" next weekend depending on how things go at .250". I have never gone lower than .250" so this will be interesting for sure :thumbup:


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## Ware

Looks great! :thumbup:


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## Two9tene

Looking Nice brother! Looken Noice! Looks like a bit of green-up there! I've Got some over here too! Super pumped for this season! I think you might have a contender for the TLF-LOTM!


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## Mightyquinn

I also wanted to add what I have been doing over the Fall/Winter to make trimming a little easier on myself. I decided that since I can't get right up against the fence and other areas of my lawn with the mower which left a lot of areas that needed trimming that I would put pavers down in those areas. So far all I got done was the areas around the house done and I'm getting a little better and laying them with each project  I figure this way all I really need to do is trim the edges every so often with the Landscape Blade and spray the areas with some glyphosate to keep the grass at bay. I use polymeric sand to lock all the pavers in and to keep weeds and grass from growing between the cracks.

This area on the West side of my house was always thin due to the fence and the down spout.









This areas is on the East side and had the same issues as the West side. I was also unable to get the mower in there due to the radius of the curbing I had installed before I had a reel mower  









These areas are on the South side of the house and on the other side of the fence of the other 2 pictures posted above. The grass always grew nice and thick here but made trimming a PIA especially the large area by the Recycling Bin and house.

















I plan on knocking the rest of it out after this season as it's much easier to work on this when it's not hot as Hades outside. I might try knocking out the areas around the green box and over by the light pole in the front yard but I will save the backyard for later. I also like it because it gives me a nice straight line to go off of while mowing. There are some areas along the pavers that I need to bring down and some that I need to add some sand but I will tackle those as the grass fills in.


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## Two9tene

I'm a fan of the paver idea!


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## Mightyquinn

I think it's been 2 weeks since I last updated this so here we go! Last weekend I took the lawn down to .250" in two directions and then I verticut some high spots that I have to help bring them down to the rest of the lawn, sorry I don't have any pictures of that directly after.

Yesterday, while it was still wet outside after the rain we had on Friday, I decided to take the lawn down to .200" and pick up any remaining debris from the verticutting I did last weekend. I ended up picking up quite a bit a material and really cleaned up the lawn and going down to .200" wasn't all that bad and may venture into that area again next year :thumbup: I also finished up trimming all the bushes which was nice to be finally done with. I have a little bit of fine tuning to do with the bushes but I can tackle that after work one day.

Today, I sprayed the lawn with Prodiamine, Imidacloprid and Permethrin all at the same time to get my PreM down and kill any bugs that were in the lawn. I also fertilized the flower beds on both sides of the house so they have plenty of food for the upcoming warm temps.

Here is the lawn in it's current state:









































My plan going forward is to raise the HOC to .350" and let the lawn start growing and filling in. I plan on spraying .42lbs of AMS/M next weekend with .53lbs/M of SOP to help give the lawn a little kick and get her 100% and fill in all the pee spots from my dog over the winter. I also need to get off my arse and order the flag pole so I can finish that project up before Summer gets here


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## ctrav

Great job! I don't have the guts to take my rotary mower or ztr down to the lowest settings (currently at one above lowest). With that being said Im cutting at the lowest I ever have.

Looking forward to following and watching a pro work


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## Mightyquinn

I know it's been 2 weeks since I updated this but there just wasn't a lot to update last weekend I think. I have had some significant green up in the last two weeks and it's starting to get shaggy after not mowing for one week and it's starting to fill in quite nicely. Another week or two of this weather we have been having and i should be at about 100% :thumbup: Here are some pics I took today and it's coming along nice. I mowed @ .325" with my Groomer set @ .125". I also applied 2lbs of AMS/M last weekend to help give it a boost. I also plan on starting my PGR application this week with some FEature and maybe some Urea for good measure 










































Most of the dead spots in the backyard from the dog pee are starting to fill in as are the areas that I hit with the verticutter heavy a few weeks ago. The flag pole should be delivered this week so I may have to wait until next weekend to concrete the sleeve into the hole in the front yard so it most likely won't be a 100% until the weekend after that, it all depends on how far I can get this coming weekend with the InLaws coming to town on Wednesday-Sunday :lol: I also replaced all my irrigation heads from Hunter PGP's to I-20's today after I took the pictures. The wife(TouchofGrass) bought them for me for Christmas. I like them because they are Stainless Steel and have a much better nozzle selection and are a little more robust than the PGP's.


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## ThomasPI

Nice job, that Baroness does a great job


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## ctrav

Definitely coming along sir :thumbup:


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## Mightyquinn

It's been too long since I did an update so here it goes :thumbup:

The lawn is 100% greened up as you would expect. I've been mowing with the new to me Baroness for the last 3 weeks and I've raised my HOC to .400" and lowered the Groomer to .100". I may start gradually lowering the groomer some more just to see how low it can go without doing any damage to the turf. I also plan on swapping in the 9 blade reel on the original Baroness hopefully next weekend if I don't get sidetracked with something else 

The grass is filling in nicely and most of the pee spots from over the winter are filling in but not as fast as I would like but the lack of rain the last 3 weeks and we have been in the 90's for the most part of the last 2 weeks isn't helping. I do have some seed heads showing up but it's only in the areas that are trying to fill in and mowing with the groomer help alleviate most of them. I do have some hot spots in the lawn too as you will see in the pictures but that is from some irrigation issues that I had that I am slowly zeroing in on. I replaced all my Hunter PGP heads with I-20SS heads this Spring and I'm just getting everything dialed in as I type this. My irrigation bill is going to be crazy next Month with all this heat and no rain. Everyone else's lawn in the neighborhood is brown and dormant except for a few weeds. I sprayed my second app of PGR last night and I put down 1lb of Stabilized Nitrogen/M last weekend to help give it a kick which has seemed to help deepen the green with just the irrigation water.

This weekend has just been about getting caught up in the lawn and doing a few odds and ends that needed to get done around the house, so hopefully after I get the reel changed out of the old Baroness, I can just go into maintenance mode and just mow and apply what's need every so often  Something tells me that's not going to happen. Oh, I also put down some sand in some low spots in the lawn this weekend to help smooth things out a little. In case if your were wondering, I have some sand left over from last year when I top dressed and it's under the blue tarp on the back patio. I will be trying to use that up this year to help bring everything up to level and smooth.


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## BlackOut

Looks great. Nice job on the flag.


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## Confederate Lawn

fantastic work!


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## Mightyquinn

I merged all my "Journal" threads into this one large thread and will just continue to add to this.

I'm in the early stages of totally renovating my lawn. I just ordered some Round Up Max and Fusilade II to spray out the lawn either next weekend or the week after and let the carnage begin. I have only been feeding the lawn Nitrogen all season and just doing what I can to keep it decent looking but I wanted it growing but I little weak which is why I didn't give it any other nutrients. I also plan on adding some nitrogen to the mix of RU and Fusilade to help it bring it down into all the roots/rhizomes and stolons.

After spraying the concoction on the lawn I will just let it do it's thing until Spring unless I see any stragglers through the Fall and Winter. Then come Spring I plan on verticutting the lawn in several different directions, raking up the debris and then spraying again to get anything I didn't the first time. I will wait a few weeks and then plan on renting a Mini Track Skid Steer and a Harley Power Rake attachment to help regrade some areas and smooth everything out. I will let the soil settle for about a week and rent a small asphalt roller and go over the soil to get everything compact and graded like I want it. I'm not too worried about compaction as my soil is basically sand anyway so the new sod shouldn't have any issues sending roots down. I just want a nice firm surface that is graded good and is as smooth as possible. I figure after I have all of this done I will spray one last time just to make sure I have gotten every last stitch of 419 out of the lawn and then will schedule for the sod to be delivered.

I have 3 sod farms near me that have Certified TifGrand sod and the 3 quotes I got from them was an eye opener!! This is for 7,000 sq/ft of turf. I will measure before I order to get an exact number as I currently have around 8,000 sq/ft but I am building a shed in the backyard over the Winter and adding some beds in the backyard along the fence and some pavers to help make trimming a lot easier/faster and a cleaner look.

BuySod.com(Southern Pines/Dunn, NC) $5,600 Delivered
DMG Turf(Angier, NC) $3,550 Delivered
Willow Springs Turf(Willow Springs, NC) $2,160 Delivered

I will probably be going with Willow Springs as they seemed the nicest through the email exchange and are the cheapest and seem (so far) the easiest to work with. I will be installing the sod myself with help from the wife(TouchofGrass)and hopefully I can get the kids out there to help if I bribe them 

I decided to go with TifGrand as it seems to be EXACTLY what I want in a lawn. It like's to be mowed low and has a dark green color and hopefully shouldn't require as much maintenance as the 419 does to keep it looking good. I have just gotten tired of fighting with the 419 and trying to keep it looking good all season without having to do extensive corrective actions on it. I love the lawn when it's mowed at or below .500" but the 419 doesn't seem to like it at those heights and it was just a constant battle.

I will try to post some pictures of the lawn in it's current state before I spray everything out and I will do my best to update this thread as things progress.


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## Ware

Can't. Wait. :yahoo: :clapping:


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## touchofgrass

Ware said:


> Can't. Wait. :yahoo: :clapping:


Same!!!! Except for, apparently I have to... nay.. GET TO help


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## g-man

Killing Bermuda, I'm looking forward to this.


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## Mightyquinn

Here is the current state of my lawn last mowed about a week ago at .700"


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## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Beautiful lawn and love the flag pole.

Adding the fusilade to the Roundup mix....is there any waiting periods / residuals for SOD / or PLUGS after spraying the fusilade?

Also any tips on how you have a clean edge around your concrete edging?

Is that just bare dirt / sand between the 419 and the concrete edging that you keep sprayed out with Glyphosate or etc?


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## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn Beautiful lawn and love the flag pole.
> 
> Adding the fusilade to the Roundup mix....is there any waiting periods / residuals for SOD / or PLUGS after spraying the fusilade?
> 
> Also any tips on how you have a clean edge around your concrete edging?
> 
> Is that just bare dirt / sand between the 419 and the concrete edging that you keep sprayed out with Glyphosate or etc?


Thank you, I really like the flag too and is way better than the tree I had before!

From everything I have read, No, there isn't any residual in the soil from either one and you could theoretically put sod, sprigs or plugs down the day after but I am going to wait at least a few days after my last application just to be safe.

My original concrete curbing, I had about a 2-3 inch gap between the grass and the curb that I created with a string trimmer to help create a buffer. The curbing has an angle to it that wasn't an issue when I first got it since I had a rotary and then a TruCut, so I was able to mow right up to it without much issue. Once I got the Baroness, I started having a little more issues with trying to mow it close because of the axles and the gear box for the groomer. So last Winter I added my own 5" concrete curbing "buffer" that I can mow right up to since it is flat and now all I do is run the edger right along the curbing every few weeks to clean it up. As for the pavers around the flag and the mailbox and various other places that I have them I just run my edger along there also. It's quick and easy and leaves a nice clean edge.

I also plan on adding pavers between my lawn and both the neighbors lawns to help create a barrier since they both have a little bit of my 419 in there lawns and I don't want that creeping back into my TifGrand. I also think it will help to "frame" the lawn more too. It will also give me a nice straight edge to go off of.


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## TulsaFan

Mightyquinn said:


> Here is the current state of my lawn last mowed about a week ago at .700"


You have an extremely nice looking lawn!!! I can't imagine who would be more O.C.D. between you and @Shindoman that either of you would think about doing a complete renovation??? :lol:

I guess when you have a top tier lawn for so long...you get bored. :?


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## Mightyquinn

Even when my lawn is at it's peak, I always said that it was only about 70-80% of where I wanted it. Even though the lawn looks relatively smooth and flat it is not and definitely needs to be redone to get all the grading right and smooth out some undulations from all the sand I have applied over the years. It's not so much boredom as it is the pursuit of perfection or as close as I can get, as it will never be perfect. I just want to keep the lawn at or below .500" all season long without having to constantly verticut or topdress. I figure after this is done I may have to topdress once or twice more and then I should have it where I need it. My goal is to have the best looking lawn with the minimal amount of input.


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## Shindoman

Your place looks fantastic but I completely understand the striving for perfection thing in the yard. Surprised on the price variation in your sod quotes. Is that mostly delivery distance charges. Take your time with the leveling and let it settle in between tweaks like you said. I built this levelling contraption out of angle iron for cheap. It worked wonders by dragging it in different directions.


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## Mightyquinn

Actually, the closest sod farm is the most expensive one and the furthest one is the cheapest. My thinking is that the expensive one is close to Pinehurst which is where all the golf courses are at so that might be why their prices are higher but that is only a guess on my part.

I have a 48" leveling rake from R&R already and a 3x5 drag mat that I will use to get things right. I also have an 8 ft aluminum concrete screed board that I will be using along with a 4 ft level just to make sure everything is pitched correctly. I figure if I can get the base as perfect as possible before the sod is laid it will require less sanding after the fact.


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## Mightyquinn

One step closer to the renovation!!!

I had a someone in the neighborhood that was needing some sod to cover an area in their backyard where they use to have a pool. They are renting so they needed to fill it in. Well they came by today with a sod cutter and too most of the main area I needed removed as this spot is several inches higher then the rest of the backyard so that will help in the Spring when I am grading everything.










I also received this on Thursday so hopefully as long as the weather cooperates, I plan on spraying this down next weekend.


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## ThomasPI

Following this one, planning to go to Tifgrand in spring or fall. Been a while since updating here but that will come, lot of projects going on in yard. I will need I am guessing to cover about 15K sq ft.


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## Mightyquinn

Here is an update to my progress. Had a friend of a neighbor reach out to us stating he wanted the rest of the grass, so I was more than happy to oblige and let him have it. Him and his friend came by last night to get started and we found out that the sod cutter he rented from Home Depot was defective, I think it was a belt was slipping as he had to really push it to get it to move while cutting. So he took that back and came back at 0800 this morning to get started. He had the whole backyard cut up by 1030 so it was just a matter of slicing the long strips into manageable pieces to roll up and transport out to his truck and trailer. We have been working off and on all day, the only downside is that he lives about 30 minutes away so it's about 1.5 hours between loads. He just left to drop another load off at his house and will be back for one more. The plan as of right now is for him to come back after church tomorrow at about noon. Here is the progress we have made so far. He should be able to get the rest of the backyard in 2 trips tomorrow and then the plan his for him to get the front and side yards next weekend.


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## g-man

Are you planning to water the area after the sod removal to see if anything grows to then hit it with round up?

Do you plan to drop some perennial ryegrass over winter as a erosion cover crop? A heavy rain can destroy your leveling.

Lastly, is the square for a shed?


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## Mightyquinn

g-man said:


> Are you planning to water the area after the sod removal to see if anything grows to then hit it with round up?
> Yes, After I get all the loose debris raked up I plan on spraying everything as there are still a few spots that still have grass. My plan is still evolving at this point since I am having most of the sod removed.
> 
> Do you plan to drop some perennial ryegrass over winter as a erosion cover crop? A heavy rain can destroy your leveling.
> There is still about 1 inch of rhizomes left in most areas so I feel like that alone would hold most of the soil. I may put some Rye in the front but I have no idea how late I can put seed down and still have it grow. I really don't plan on doing the final leveling until Spring. My goal over the Winter(as of right now) is just to remove as much vegetative material as possible with my verticutter.
> 
> Lastly, is the square for a shed?
> YES, I poured it originally in July and it turned out hotter than it was suppose to be and the slab set up too fast, so I am going to be adding another 2-3 inches on top of that here soon now that the weather is cooler and it will give me more time to work it. It's going to be an 18x12 shed with HVAC and power of course. Majority of my lawn stuff will be going out there.


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## Mightyquinn

The guy came by a little later then he was suppose to but he brought a friend with him so we loaded both of their trucks and the one trailer and they plan to stop by after work tomorrow to get the rest of it since he lives kind of out of the way. We are coming up with a plan to get the front lawn later this week or weekend depending on the weather. It will be nice once it's all gone and I have a clean slate to work with :thumbup:


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## JRS 9572

Welcome to the TifGrand party hard charger! Look forward to seeing the progress in the spring.

Here's a close up of mine this afternoon


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## Mightyquinn

JRS 9572 said:


> Welcome to the TifGrand party hard charger! Look forward to seeing the progress in the spring.
> 
> Here's a close up of mine this afternoon


What's your HOC right now?

I plan on seeing how low I can actually go with TifGrand once I get it established and all the minor imperfections ironed out.


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## JRS 9572

I kept it as low as I've ever kept it this summer at a 1/2". Not to say it wouldn't go lower. I need another huge leveling before I can go lower, and it look real good. In the last couple of weeks I've gone up to 5/8". It probably needs scalping, and it's too close to going dormant for me to do it so I just raised the height a little.


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## Thor865

@Mightyquinn my hoc was .25 for the first half of the season. It can handle as low as you want. Supers in Florida have tifgrand as collar grasses at .180


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## Mightyquinn

@Thor865 Good to see that it can be pushed low. Yeah, I have read that too about TG but there just isn't that much information about it out there on the web. I know a handful of members here have it but of those that do very few post regularly.


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## Mightyquinn

The guy came by yesterday after work and got the rest of the good grass in the back. Now there is just all the scraps and debris left and a few strips of good grass that haven't been cut due to the fact that the sod cutter didn't line up perfectly and around the edges and around the irrigation heads. I plan on cleaning and raking up most of it tonight after work and consolidating it all in one spot. The guy did offer to take all the "garbage" I had left over and dispose of it in the woods behind is house, so I may take him up on that offer depending on what I have left over after everything is said and done.

The updated plan now is for him to come by the house either Wednesday or Thursday and precut the sod and start to roll it so Friday morning(we are both off work for Columbus Day) he can come by and we can start loading it. He said hopefully this time he can get more friends of his to come by to help and maybe get an extra trailer too to help speed up the process. It didn't really take long to load the trailer last weekend when it was just him and I doing it all. He also plans on cutting out what little is left in the back yard when he cuts the front lawn. We are suppose to get some rain from this Hurricane in the Gulf right now on Saturday and Sunday so he want to get it all done before then.

I will try to take some pictures after I get everything cleaned up and organized in the backyard.


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## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Following along and enjoying this journal!

I can only imagine how good you are going to have that TifGrand looking!!!


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## dubyadubya87

Following. I can't imagine starting over, given what your lawn already looked like. The pursuit of perfection...


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## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn Following along and enjoying this journal!
> 
> I can only imagine how good you are going to have that TifGrand looking!!!





dubyadubya87 said:


> Following. I can't imagine starting over, given what your lawn already looked like. The pursuit of perfection...


Thank you both :thumbup:

Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, it just was never where I wanted it to be and through all these years of trying different things I knew I could never achieve what I wanted with 419 plus other minor issues with the lawn and all the sand I added over the years. This way I can do it right from the get go and tweak it from there. I think it may take another year after it's installed before it really start to shine. But I guess we will see.


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## Mightyquinn

Got most of the debris cleaned up and bagged to get rid of. I just can't wait to see what it looks like once all the green is gone and I have a clean canvas to work with.


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## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn

How many rounds of glyphosate do you think it will take to get rid of all the old Bermuda Rhizomes?

Considering how resilient Bermuda is do you think 419 will come back...or will laying the sod over the old turf "after it been sprayed with glyphosate and fusillade" keep the old 419 from bouncing back?


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## Mightyquinn

My goal is to do 3 apps but not sure how effective it will be on the rhizomes as I think it needs leaf tissue to work but I could be wrong.

Cutting the sod out has probably removed 90% of the stolons and rhizomes already and I plan on going over the area with a verticutter several times and a Harley Rake which should remove a lot of what's left. My goal is to totally eradicate the lawn of 419 but I know that might not be totally possible. If I ever do find some growing in I will either pull it or paint it with some Gly and Fusilade.


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## rjw0283

Mightyquinn said:


> Here is the current state of my lawn last mowed about a week ago at .700"


I have that same tv antenna. I can't seem to get channel 17 since they made the switch to VHF. 
Yard looks good.


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## Mightyquinn

@rjw0283 It appears to work for me from where I live, I think it can be sketchy some times though. Before the repack the FCC had I use to get a CBS station from Myrtle Beach also, can't remember what number it was though. So far I have been pretty happy with it. I did run RG-6 Quad Shielded cable from the antenna to the house and put a Channel Master Pre-Amp inline up by the antenna which I think has helped pick up some weaker signals.

Thanks for the compliment on the lawn but it won't look like that after this weekend


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## AZChemist

Great work MQ. That's a lot of elbow grease and can applaud you for that!

Man I wish I lived in a state with rain and humidity. My Tifgrand performed worse the lower I went. 140 days of 100F and above with 0.2" of rain if I remember correctly. I'm sure you will end up loving it and am excited to see your progress! Gives me something to aspire to!


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## Mightyquinn

AZChemist said:


> Great work MQ. That's a lot of elbow grease and can applaud you for that!
> 
> Man I wish I lived in a state with rain and humidity. My Tifgrand performed worse the lower I went. 140 days of 100F and above with 0.2" of rain if I remember correctly. I'm sure you will end up loving it and am excited to see your progress! Gives me something to aspire to!


Thank You for the kind words!

You and @Thor865 gave me the inspiration to do this. I loved all the prep work you did on your lawn and I am using that as a template for mine. Hopefully my soil will be a little easier to work with then yours was  Thor865's lawn just looks amazing and can't wait to get mine like his. I still think your lawn looks amazing even though I know you battle with a lack of rain which doesn't help much as nothing can replace good old Mother Nature :thumbup:


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## rjw0283

@Mightyquinn I have a big channel master amplifier in my attic. With the antenna on the roof. It works decent. We are in a bad spot because all of our big tv stations are 55 plus miles away. 
What's going to happen with that beautiful grass you cut out? Selling it? ****nevermind**** I actually read your other posts and your answer was in there.


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## blitz28179

So you just gave the old 419 away? I bet you could have sold it to make a little extra cash

How would you think a sod cutter would work on a hill/slope(15-20 % grade)? looks like you have a pretty level area


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## Mightyquinn

blitz28179 said:


> So you just gave the old 419 away? I bet you could have sold it to make a little extra cash
> 
> How would you think a sod cutter would work on a hill/slope(15-20 % grade)? looks like you have a pretty level area


Sure did, I figured it was easier and cheaper to give it away then trying to sell it. I don't think anyone would buy it if they had to cut it, load it, haul it and unload it. I figured if someone wanted it for free that their sweat equity would be enough plus it saves me a ton of time and energy having to remove it all and gives me a good base to start with plus there will be less rhizomes and roots that I will have to worry about re-growing.

I think a sod cutter may work for you but you would want to make sure the grass is dry as the wheels tend to slip a little on wet grass. You might want to start a thread about that and post a picture of your lawn as someone may have tried it already with a similar situation.


----------



## rjw0283

Mightyquinn said:


> blitz28179 said:
> 
> 
> 
> So you just gave the old 419 away? I bet you could have sold it to make a little extra cash
> 
> How would you think a sod cutter would work on a hill/slope(15-20 % grade)? looks like you have a pretty level area
> 
> 
> 
> Sure did, I figured it was easier and cheaper to give it away then trying to sell it. I don't think anyone would buy it if they had to cut it, load it, haul it and unload it. I figured if someone wanted it for free that their sweat equity would be enough plus it saves me a ton of time and energy having to remove it all and gives me a good base to start with plus there will be less rhizomes and roots that I will have to worry about re-growing.
> 
> I think a sod cutter may work for you but you would want to make sure the grass is dry as the wheels tend to slip a little on wet grass. You might want to start a thread about that and post a picture of your lawn as someone may have tried it already with a similar situation.
Click to expand...

That's a good deal, but a lot of work. Just laying sod is work in itself. Cutting it rolling it, loading it, just to unload it and then unroll it on it's new lawn. But that's a damn good deal. 8,000 sq ft of sod for the price of renting a sod cutter. My back hurts thinking about it, but I would have done it! :lol: Also, I think the rain chances from the hurricane are going down, this morning they said only .25 rain the next four days.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Yeah, I don't expect to get much rain from that but the one guy has a working knowledge at least of what to do with the sod. Him and his friend have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting so it hasn't been too bad for me. The wife @touchofgrassand I have been helping with cutting the sod into manageable pieces and rolling them up for transport.

We just got done helping them cut the front and side lawns and they will be back tomorrow morning to roll it up and haul it away and they are suppose to bring a few friends with them.


----------



## Thor865

Mightyquinn said:


> AZChemist said:
> 
> 
> 
> Great work MQ. That's a lot of elbow grease and can applaud you for that!
> 
> Man I wish I lived in a state with rain and humidity. My Tifgrand performed worse the lower I went. 140 days of 100F and above with 0.2" of rain if I remember correctly. I'm sure you will end up loving it and am excited to see your progress! Gives me something to aspire to!
> 
> 
> 
> Thank You for the kind words!
> 
> You and @Thor865 gave me the inspiration to do this. I loved all the prep work you did on your lawn and I am using that as a template for mine. Hopefully my soil will be a little easier to work with then yours was  Thor865's lawn just looks amazing and can't wait to get mine like his. I still think your lawn looks amazing even though I know you battle with a lack of rain which doesn't help much as nothing can replace good old Mother Nature :thumbup:
Click to expand...

Who me? I don't deserve the praise.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Thor865 said:


> Who me? I don't deserve the praise.


It was your Lawn Journal and your amazing lawn. I just love the dark green color of TifGrand and the slow growing habit of it.


----------



## Thor865

Mightyquinn said:


> Thor865 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Who me? I don't deserve the praise.
> 
> 
> 
> It was your Lawn Journal and your amazing lawn. I just love the dark green color of TifGrand and the slow growing habit of it.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Yeah it's great. Just have to manage seed heads or just accept it's gonna happen


----------



## Mightyquinn

Thor865 said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thor865 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Who me? I don't deserve the praise.
> 
> 
> 
> It was your Lawn Journal and your amazing lawn. I just love the dark green color of TifGrand and the slow growing habit of it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Thanks! Yeah it's great. Just have to manage seed heads or just accept it's gonna happen
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not too worried about the seed head issue right now as I have both PGR's(Tnex and Paclo) and I have the groomer on my Baroness which seemed to eliminate a lot of them in the 419.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Well, the front lawn is about 90% done. They are going to come by next Saturday and finish getting around all the edges as it was late last night that they finished cutting it all and the sod cutter they got just didn't seem to be cutting all that well and required a whole lot of work to push it. The rest of this week I am just going to concentrate on cleaning up all the loose debris from the front and cutting out what little bits of sod are left in the back. I am already getting some green up in the back where the neighbors cut about 2 weeks ago. I think I am going to go buy some cheap fertilizer at Lowe's and try and get it down before the rain from Hurricane Delta gets here. I am SO GLAD this part is done and thankful for the guys that came and took it off my hands as it would have been some extra work to remove all the dead material. Well, here are some pics of it's current state.


----------



## dubyadubya87

Nice clean slate to work off of! Eager to see this project going forward.


----------



## Thor865

Now that's a scalp &#129315;


----------



## rjw0283

@Mightyquinn I showed these pictures to my wife, and explained what you were doing and why. She didn't get it. Was his yard bad before? No it looked awesome! Then why? So it looks better and he can mow it lower! Makes sense to me! :lol:


----------



## Mightyquinn

rjw0283 said:


> @Mightyquinn I showed these pictures to my wife, and explained what you were doing and why. She didn't get it. Was his yard bad before? No it looked awesome! Then why? So it looks better and he can mow it lower! Makes sense to me! :lol:


Yeah, that's the part some people don't understand. I have already gotten a few questions from the neighbors


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Couple of questions regarding the TigGrand if you don't mind.

How much slower does TifGrand grow vertically vs 419 or other Bermudas...???...is it a noticeable difference?

One youtube video I saw said it could be reel mowed once a week?

I am guessing they were assuming a 1 inch HOC...???

Also If someone were to purchase TifGrand and where not able to reel mow it and had to use a rotary at 1 to 2 inches is that ok?

Thanks!


----------



## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn Couple of questions regarding the TigGrand if you don't mind.
> 
> How much slower does TifGrand grow vertically vs 419 or other Bermudas...???...is it a noticeable difference?
> 
> One youtube video I saw said it could be reel mowed once a week?
> 
> I am guessing they were assuming a 1 inch HOC...???
> 
> Also If someone were to purchase TifGrand and where not able to reel mow it and had to use a rotary at 1 to 2 inches is that ok?
> 
> Thanks!


Don't mind at all!!!

I can't say for sure exactly as I don't have any full experience with it. I bought a full pallet of it about 9 years ago to put in some shaded areas by the fence and front of the house. I will say that the areas that ended up getting full sun during the Summer time seemed to grow a lot slower then the 419 so I would expect you could get an additional 1-3 days between mowings without using any PGR. Now, @Thor865 has it and has used Tnex and Paclo on his and mows every 7-10 days and barely takes anything off. So take that for what it is but I do think it is a significant amount. All of that is mowed with a reel mower.

I'm not sure if they were assuming a 1 inch HOC as most things I have read about it is that it doesn't like to be mowed much above .5-.75". I don't know of many people here on TLF or anywhere else that have it and don't mow it with a reel mower and can't think of anyone that mows it with a rotary mower.

I would recommend checking out Thor's 2020 Lawn Journal as well as his older ones too and AZ Tifgrand 2020 Journal and his older ones too!

There isn't a ton of information out there on TifGrand so it looks like we need to start our own source of information here at TLF :thumbup:

Feel free to ask any questions you might have if I didn't answer them fully and I will do my best with what I know about it so far.


----------



## ENC_Lawn

Mightyquinn said:


> ENC_Lawn said:
> 
> 
> 
> @Mightyquinn Couple of questions regarding the TigGrand if you don't mind.
> 
> How much slower does TifGrand grow vertically vs 419 or other Bermudas...???...is it a noticeable difference?
> 
> One youtube video I saw said it could be reel mowed once a week?
> 
> I am guessing they were assuming a 1 inch HOC...???
> 
> Also If someone were to purchase TifGrand and where not able to reel mow it and had to use a rotary at 1 to 2 inches is that ok?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> 
> 
> Don't mind at all!!!
> 
> I can't say for sure exactly as I don't have any full experience with it. I bought a full pallet of it about 9 years ago to put in some shaded areas by the fence and front of the house. I will say that the areas that ended up getting full sun during the Summer time seemed to grow a lot slower then the 419 so I would expect you could get an additional 1-3 days between mowings without using any PGR. Now, @Thor865 has it and has used Tnex and Paclo on his and mows every 7-10 days and barely takes anything off. So take that for what it is but I do think it is a significant amount. All of that is mowed with a reel mower.
> 
> I'm not sure if they were assuming a 1 inch HOC as most things I have read about it is that it doesn't like to be mowed much above .5-.75". I don't know of many people here on TLF or anywhere else that have it and don't mow it with a reel mower and can't think of anyone that mows it with a rotary mower.
> 
> I would recommend checking out Thor's 2020 Lawn Journal as well as his older ones too and AZ Tifgrand 2020 Journal and his older ones too!
> 
> There isn't a ton of information out there on TifGrand so it looks like we need to start our own source of information here at TLF :thumbup:
> 
> Feel free to ask any questions you might have if I didn't answer them fully and I will do my best with what I know about it so far.
Click to expand...

 :thumbup:

Very cool...that you could get and additional 1 to 3 days between mowing without PGR and 7+ days with PGR.

Sounds like you made an excellent choice!


----------



## Mightyquinn

That was part of my thinking by doing all of this.

1. I will get a superior grass that is darker green and actually likes to be mowed low--under .5"
2. I will hopefully reduce my mowing frequency
3. It will require less input from me to look amazing(supposedly it requires a lot less Nitrogen to look great)
4. I will still probably go above and beyond spraying stuff to get the full potential out of it 

I kind of wanted a grass I could put on cruise control if need be so that I wasn't feeling like I always have to be doing something to keep it great looking.


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn You may have already seen / watched these youtube video's but Hawaiin turfgrass youtube channel has some short but cool video's on TifGrand.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Yeah, I have watched a few of their videos but they aren't really that informative and that intro song drives me nuts


----------



## Thor865

@ENC_Lawn @Mightyquinn this is Tifgrand rotary mowed around 2". My side yard is a swamp thanks to my neighbors crawl space sump pump that empty's over there. It looks fine and haven't had any issues with doing that section with a rotary.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Thank you, that's good to know even though I don't plan on ever cutting mine with a rotary  I don't own one anyway.


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Thor865 Thanks for the pic.

How often do you have to cut with the rotary at that height?


----------



## Thor865

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Thor865 Thanks for the pic.
> 
> How often do you have to cut with the rotary at that height?


I didn't use PGR on that section this season so I mowed it every 4-5 days. Literally took me 5min as it's only 1k sqft


----------



## Thor865

Mightyquinn said:


> Thank you, that's good to know even though I don't plan on ever cutting mine with a rotary  I don't own one anyway.


Rotary is a must for cleanup purposes


----------



## Mightyquinn

Thor865 said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, that's good to know even though I don't plan on ever cutting mine with a rotary  I don't own one anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> Rotary is a must for cleanup purposes
Click to expand...

I use to think that also but I have been able to do a really good clean up with my Baroness the last two years and never used my rotary, so I ended up selling it to a friend of mine. I usually use the groomer set really low or the brush attachment to get most of the debris and I will put on an old bedknife so that I won't dull my good one with all the sand and dirt. I also usually rake up all the large debris first as I have found that to be more efficient as I am not having to stop and empty the bag after every pass.

I'm by no means trying to say my method is the best and if a rotary works for you then by all means keep up what you are doing :thumbup:


----------



## ENC_Lawn

Thor865 said:


> ENC_Lawn said:
> 
> 
> 
> @Thor865 Thanks for the pic.
> 
> How often do you have to cut with the rotary at that height?
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't use PGR on that section this season so I mowed it every 4-5 days. Literally took me 5min as it's only 1k sqft
Click to expand...

 :thumbup:


----------



## Thor865

Mightyquinn said:


> Thor865 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, that's good to know even though I don't plan on ever cutting mine with a rotary  I don't own one anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> Rotary is a must for cleanup purposes
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I use to think that also but I have been able to do a really good clean up with my Baroness the last two years and never used my rotary, so I ended up selling it to a friend of mine. I usually use the groomer set really low or the brush attachment to get most of the debris and I will put on an old bedknife so that I won't dull my good one with all the sand and dirt. I also usually rake up all the large debris first as I have found that to be more efficient as I am not having to stop and empty the bag after every pass.
> 
> I'm by no means trying to say my method is the best and if a rotary works for you then by all means keep up what you are doing :thumbup:
Click to expand...

Well for me if it ain't broke.....ya know lol


----------



## ENC_Lawn

Thor865 said:


> @ENC_Lawn @Mightyquinn this is Tifgrand rotary mowed around 2". My side yard is a swamp thanks to my neighbors crawl space sump pump that empty's over there. It looks fine and haven't had any issues with doing that section with a rotary.


@Thor865 What was your Rotary HOC here?

To me the turf has a pretty cool "look" to be rotary cut!

I have always liked the golf course rough to fairway look!


----------



## Thor865

ENC_Lawn said:


> Thor865 said:
> 
> 
> 
> @ENC_Lawn @Mightyquinn this is Tifgrand rotary mowed around 2". My side yard is a swamp thanks to my neighbors crawl space sump pump that empty's over there. It looks fine and haven't had any issues with doing that section with a rotary.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> @Thor865 What was your Rotary HOC here?
> 
> To me the turf has a pretty cool "look" to be rotary cut!
> 
> I have always liked the golf course rough to fairway look!
Click to expand...

2"


----------



## Mightyquinn

Another update, the guy that got the sod was planning to come by today and get the rest of the trimmings around the edges but said he was good with what he had and he had family coming in this weekend so wouldn't have been able to do it anyway. He did send me this pick of his(my old) lawn.









Now the plan is to spray everything tomorrow with the Gly/Fusilade mix and give it a week or two to do it's thing before going any further. After that I will plan on renting a sod cutter and cutting out the rest of the big stuff out of the lawn and then reassess the lawn to see if I have anymore green coming up. I really want to run the verticutter over the lawn to help smooth everything out and clean it up a bit. But that will have to wait. I also applied some 10-10-10 the other day right before it was suppose to rain so hopefully that will help it take in the poison it's suppose to get here soon.

For anyone reading this and think that you will hurt your Bermuda lawn just look at the pictures below. This was all cut 2-3 weeks ago and the sod cutter was set at 1.5" below the soil. I could technically not do anything else to the lawn and I could almost guarantee that I would have a full lawn by July easily. This is why Bermuda is an ALPHA grass


----------



## Thor865

That's pretty epic seeing your lawn transplanted to his.


----------



## Brodgers88

Almost looks like a fraze mow!

Can't wait to see your new turf :thumbup:


----------



## TheE

Thor865 said:


> @ENC_Lawn @Mightyquinn this is Tifgrand rotary mowed around 2". My side yard is a swamp thanks to my neighbors crawl space sump pump that empty's over there. It looks fine and haven't had any issues with doing that section with a rotary.


Looks awesome! Do you have any other pictures of your Tifgrand that is cut with a rotary?


----------



## Thor865

TheE said:


> Thor865 said:
> 
> 
> 
> @ENC_Lawn @Mightyquinn this is Tifgrand rotary mowed around 2". My side yard is a swamp thanks to my neighbors crawl space sump pump that empty's over there. It looks fine and haven't had any issues with doing that section with a rotary.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Looks awesome! Do you have any other pictures of your Tifgrand that is cut with a rotary?
Click to expand...

Probably some in my 2019 and 2020 journal. I don't often take photos of that side


----------



## jayhawk

Cool story. I was expecting you to go full vanguard....miniv or ? (Not quite to zoysia though )

I'd still chose grand, it's imo the best low cut muda I just wonder how much harder is it to get going fwd when tiftuff has the marketing. Pics don't even convey it's goodness of tifgrand ....it's details.


----------



## Mightyquinn

jayhawk said:


> Cool story. I was expecting you to go full vanguard....miniv or ? (Not quite to zoysia though )
> 
> I'd still chose grand, it's imo the best low cut muda I just wonder how much harder is it to get going fwd when tiftuff has the marketing. Pics don't even convey it's goodness of tifgrand ....it's details.


I had considered doing an Ultra Dwarf lawn but the costs and sourcing the grass would have been difficult plus from what little info that is out there it seems like most of them will get excess thatch build up if grown too tall plus all the extra TLC they require to stay healthy. It would be fun to have a little patch of it to play around with and see what could be done with it from a homeowners perspective. As for Zoysia varieties, I thought about that also but I just didn't want to mess around with Zoysia as it seems to be a little more temperamental and not as forgiving as Bermuda is. I think it produces a beautiful lawn but I have just never been a fan of it for some reason.

I agree with the TifTuff, it seems like they are shoving that stuff down our throats as there is a ton of info about it out there when you do a Google search but can't hardly find any info about TIfGrand and it's been out for so much longer. To me, TifTuff just seems like an improved variety of 419 and like most marketing the claims they make are only under perfect conditions, just like all the claim they made about TifGrand when it came out. There are 3 farms around me that sell TifGrand, so that was very helpful and I hope it stays around for awhile as it seems like the premier grass if you like to reel mow low.


----------



## Ware

Bump for update.


----------



## Mightyquinn

There is no real update at this time. I sprayed the lawn last week with 2oz/M of Round Up ProMax--.5oz/M of Fusilade II--.5oz of NIS in about 1 gallon of water/M. I also added about 6lbs of AMS into the mix to use the rest of what I had up and to help the bermuda take in the poison. I had some leaf tip burn after a day or two and it's starting to lose it's color of what started to grow back and what was left over. There seems to be few spots that are still dark green so I will probably hit those areas again next weekend and will probably update with some pictures.

My OCD wants to tear out what is left over and run the verticutter over the lawn to help smooth things out as having patches all over the lawn is driving me nuts but I know I need to wait to get the final results that I want.


----------



## dfw_pilot

jayhawk said:


> Cool story. I was expecting you to go full vanguard....


----------



## Mightyquinn

It's been 2 weeks since I sprayed the lawn and most of it is dying but I have had a few spots green back up that I guess I didn't get as it wasn't growing at the time. We have been in the 70's and 80's majority of the time the last 2 weeks so that has helped a lot with getting the poison down into the grass. I plan on doing another spray later this week as the temps should be getting back up into the 70's with sunshine which will help it take in the poison better. I will probably give it another 2 weeks and hopefully by then most of it will be dead or a frost will hit us and put the rest of it to sleep. At which point I am going to rent a sod cutter and get the remaining large sections of grass that are still left so I can then run the verticutter over the lawn to help even it out some and give it a more uniform look and remove as much of the remaining rhizomes that are left.


----------



## Redtwin

I hope your neighbors are enjoying the short period of domination while they have it.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Redtwin said:


> I hope your neighbors are enjoying the short period of domination while they have it.


I think most of them could care less except my one neighbor who thinks his weed patch was looking good this year. I will say that his lawn did look good this year compared to all the years in the past(It was his first year in the house). He's one of those guys that ask for advice and then does the exact opposite of what you recommend. So needless to say I quit offering up advice to him :thumbup:


----------



## Redtwin

I have a neighbor like that. He has a full-blown salad bar complete with sand spur and burr weed. I was walking through it to help him with a project this past weekend and he bragged how great it looks when he mows it. My response was, "Just don't let your grandkids walk through it barefooted." It looks good from afar, but far from good! We lawn crazies can have our kids laying and rolling around in our yards all day and it doesn't affect the kids or the lawn.


----------



## JRS 9572

@Mightyquinn @Redtwin

What I find over time. Folks come to you for advice. Then when they realize there's no magic potion to throw out and fix it, and it takes hard work, they tune you out.

I give advice once. After that I act like I never hear their complaining about their yard when they talk about it further.

At the end of the day. It's like anything else in life. What you put into it is what you get out of it.


----------



## Mightyquinn

JRS 9572 said:


> @Mightyquinn @Redtwin
> 
> What I find over time. Folks come to you for advice. Then when they realize there's no magic potion to throw out and fix it, and it takes hard work, they tune you out.
> 
> I give advice once. After that I act like I never hear their complaining about their yard when they talk about it further.
> 
> At the end of the day. It's like anything else in life. What you put into it is what you get out of it.


I know exactly what you mean about the magic potion, a lot of people who stop by ask what kind of fertilizer I use and they don't understand that it really doesn't matter but it's too hard to explain that to them. I just generally say I water, fertilize and mow regularly and try and leave it like that but some of them want to know specifics and I think that they think if they do exactly what I do they can have to the same kind of lawn which just isn't the case.

I've gotten to the point where I try and give as little info as possible to anyone passing by as I know it will just fall on deaf ears and the neighbor I just let him vent and say what he wants to say. Beyond the whole lawn thing, the neighbor is a nice and friendly guy and a good neighbor to have so I can't be too upset


----------



## dfw_pilot

Come on, Mighty, we all know Humic Acid is the magic elixir.


----------



## Mightyquinn

dfw_pilot said:


> Come on, Mighty, we all know Humic Acid is the magic elixir.


Don't get me started on that stuff :lol:


----------



## Redtwin

I tell them the secret is to buy a greens mower and mow every other day. That usually ends the discussion.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I did some more work this weekend since the weather was pretty decent and I wanted to clean things up some more. I took the verticutter in 2 directions diagonally on the lawn to help break up the mat of rhizomes that was still left after cutting most of the sod our a month or so ago. I also rented a sod cutter last weekend and cut out all the remaining sod that was still left around the edges mainly. I had already sprayed it with 2 rounds of Round-Up and Fusilade and we had some cold temps here recently that pretty much put all the lawns to sleep in the neighborhood so I doubt it's done all it can do at this point. My goal over the Winter is to remove as much dead material as possible before Spring and going over the lawn with a Harley Power Landscape Rake.

I had 4 trash bags full of debris that I raked up from the back yard and I plan on getting rid of all the dead sod that I piled in the backyard with a few trips to the dump with the neighbors pickup truck  I still have some raking to do in the front yard and a little more small spots of dead sod that I can get up with a shovel.

















I found a lot of gravel here between the flag pole and sidewalk which would explain why that spot was always so thin and didn't really get as thick and green as the rest of the lawn. I will be digging this area up to over the Winter.

































I still plan on going over the lawn again with the verticutter after we have a few rain storms to help settle a bunch of this sand and bring some of this dead loose debris to the surface.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I have to say that this was perfect timing as they are installing Fiber Internet in my neighborhood so when they dug 3-4 holes in my lawn I wasn't too upset about it  I now have 2 additional boxes in my lawn but they are on the edges of the lawn so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.










Other than this I am just waiting for things to dry out some as it has been almost non stop rain here over the Winter. We might get 3-4 dry days before it rains again and with the cold temps things don't really dry out too fast. Still shooting for April sometime to lay the sod but I have to get everything leveled and graded before then.


----------



## rjw0283

Where are you getting the sod?


----------



## Mightyquinn

rjw0283 said:


> Where are you getting the sod?


Willow Springs Turf


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Any updates...I'm excited to follow along!


----------



## touchofgrass

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn Any updates...I'm excited to follow along!


Same!!! Stay tuned... we're getting close... next month should be lots of updates


----------



## Mightyquinn

As @touchofgrass said we are getting close. I tried to rent the Dingo and Harley rake for this weekend to do all the dirt work and get the lawn graded but it was already rented for the week so I have it reserved for next weekend. It looks like it won't be until the middle to end of April before I can get the sod laid. I may have a small update after this weekend as I have done some small things in the lawn. I did spray my 3rd round of RoundUp/Fusilade last night as I was getting some weeds around the edges and a few spot of Bermuda coming through but I am hoping the Harley rake will remove a majority of the rhizomes that are still remaining in the soil.


----------



## Tmank87

I may have missed it, what are you putting back down. The Tif Grand?


----------



## ENC_Lawn

Mightyquinn said:


> As @touchofgrass said we are getting close. I tried to rent the Dingo and Harley rake for this weekend to do all the dirt work and get the lawn graded but it was already rented for the week so I have it reserved for next weekend. It looks like it won't be until the middle to end of April before I can get the sod laid. I may have a small update after this weekend as I have done some small things in the lawn. I did spray my 3rd round of RoundUp/Fusilade last night as I was getting some weeds around the edges and a few spot of Bermuda coming through but I am hoping the Harley rake will remove a majority of the rhizomes that are still remaining in the soil.


@Mightyquinn :thumbup:


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## Mightyquinn

Tmank87 said:


> I may have missed it, what are you putting back down. The Tif Grand?


Yes, I had Tifway 419 before.


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## Tmank87

Looking forward to following.


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## Mightyquinn

I know a few of you have been asking what's going on with my reno, so here is a small update.

When I had all the material for the shed delivered, I also got 300 pavers to put down along the fence and the boarders of my neighbors. I finally got most of those put down last weekend and still need some more to finish up around the perimeter. I tried getting them as straight as possible but if they are off a hair I'm not really that concerned about it. The thinking behind them is that it's way easier to edge them than have to trim the grass between the lawn and the fence which I can't mow because of the axles. It will also create a barrier between my TifGrand and the weeds/Centipede/Bermuda from the neighbors yards. I plan on renting the Mini Skid Steer and Harley rake this coming weekend if the weather holds out but it's starting to look like rain all weekend so I may have to push that to the following weekend.

I reached out to the sod farm today and everything is still good and it's looking like end of April or beginning of May before I will be ready to lay the sod. The quote they gave me 6 months ago is still good which was great news to me as they were the cheapest out of the 3 sod farms I contacted.

The ditch in the middle of the lawn is for my electric run from my house to the shed. I dug that out this morning and it went fairly easy as I dug about 70 feet at 18 inches deep in about an hour and a half. I LOVE having sandy soil and no grass that I had to dig through. The shed is coming along but is taking a little longer than planned but I am no rush and trying to do things as right as I can  I am getting a little bit of run around with the city about getting it inspected and signed off on as their website isn't very informative of what needs to be done and in what order so we are working out all the kinks as we go. I hope to have it all done and buttoned up by Memorial Day weekend but you never know what else we will run into.

Here are some updated pictures of what I am dealing with.


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## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Smart thinking with the pavers!

Its gonna look awesome here soon!


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## Redtwin

I like the paver idea; I may have to copy-cat that. Was it really expensive? Where did you get the pavers?


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## Mightyquinn

Redtwin said:


> I like the paver idea; I may have to copy-cat that. Was it really expensive? Where did you get the pavers?


Yeah, I stole the idea from another member here @Iriasj2009 from his old house that he had. It is on the pricey side as each paver is about $3 so you can do your own math from there. The pavers I use are from Lowe's. If you do a little section at a time you can break up the cost a little. That's how I started with them just to experiment around some areas of the lawn that grass wouldn't grow due to shade.


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## Mightyquinn

Looks like Sunbelt rentals only has one Harley Rake in town available to rent and the guy who has it, isn't coming off of it since it has been fairly dry here for the last few weeks. The guy I have been talking to about confirming it's availability has been very nice and apologetic and is going to give me a bigger discount since I have been understanding about it all. I have called around to other rental sites but no one else has the Dingo and Harley rake even available to rent. So I am between a rock and a hard place. It's not a HUGE deal since I can't really lay the sod until I can rent the equipment and prep the soil and it hasn't really gotten too hot yet here so I have that going for me too. So hopefully (fingers crossed) that I will be able to get it next weekend and the weather will hold up for me. Once the soil prep is done I will probably be laying sod the next weekend most likely if not the weekend after that.


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## Mightyquinn

I noticed walking around the yard(dirt lot) that I had quite a few sprouts of bermuda trying to grow back. So today, I mixed up a gallon of Round up/Fusilade and went around the lawn spraying everything I could find, I ended up almost using the whole gallon I mixed. I figure once I am able to get my hands on the Harley rake it should help remove the majority of the remaining rhizomes that are left. I figure I have removed around 99% of the old lawn and hopefully I can get to 99.9%


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## BU Bear

I feel like anybody who is concerned they might accidentally kill their bermuda needs to read your journal. You've been very thorough and methodical and yet the bermuda finds a way!


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## Mightyquinn

BU Bear said:


> I feel like anybody who is concerned they might accidentally kill their bermuda needs to read your journal. You've been very thorough and methodical and yet the bermuda finds a way!


Very true!!

I have cut out all the sod, sprayed it 3 times with RoundUp and Fusilade and have run a verticutter over it 2 or 3 times. It also sat out all Winter all exposed to the weather and it's still coming back for more


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## CenlaLowell

Mightyquinn said:


> BU Bear said:
> 
> 
> 
> I feel like anybody who is concerned they might accidentally kill their bermuda needs to read your journal. You've been very thorough and methodical and yet the bermuda finds a way!
> 
> 
> 
> Very true!!
> 
> I have cut out all the sod, sprayed it 3 times with RoundUp and Fusilade and have run a verticutter over it 2 or 3 times. It also sat out all Winter all exposed to the weather and it's still coming back for more
Click to expand...

This is why in some states it's labed a weed can't get rid of this stuff


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## Mightyquinn

Called yesterday to verify my reservation to make sure they had everything and was told that they had a Harley rake coming from Greensboro as they didn't plan on getting the other one back anytime soon. I was waiting on a call for when it arrived locally. Well, got a call and they said the trucking company thought they meant Greensboro, TX not NC so I was told it wouldn't be here until Monday. The guy said he would try and work something out for me and he would call me back. Well he never called, so I called this morning just to see what my options were and he said they had the one coming from NC and it should be there by lunch time. I got a call from them about 1130 today and said it was here and I could come get it whenever. So I left work and went to pick it up and I am getting the "weekend" rate which is you pay for ONE day rental but get it the whole weekend as long as you keep it under 8 hours and return it by 0800 on Monday. They guy told me I could keep it a little later if need be since I was understanding through this whole ordeal. So needless to say I have the equipment and have already started on the backyard and to get a feel for the machine.

The backyard is about 60-70% done, still have some high spots to take down and then grade and smooth everything, I hope to have that done by lunch tomorrow and then start on the front yard. The Harley rake did a good job of getting most of the rhizomes out of the lawn and I borrowed the neighbors JD riding mower to pull the drag mat around and that help clump all the debris together which made raking it up much easier. It's been super dry here all month, we have had .87" of rain all month so the ground is dry and dusty. Had the wife take the hose over the yard to dampen it up a bit so the dust wasn't so bad.

The Dingo and Harley rake are fairly easy to operate but I was going too deep at first which created a lot more dirt to work with. I plan on going a little less deep on the front as it should make grading a little easier. I will have some picture for you tomorrow, I have some now but postimage isn't playing nice right now for some reason.


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## Mightyquinn

Sorry I didn't get any updates over the weekend but I was tired and worn out.

There was a lot more raking involved than I thought initially as the Harley rake remove a lot more material than I thought. I ended up having 2 large garbage bags and a 96 gallon trash bin full of rhizomes. I started off with taking the Harley rake over the whole lawn to tear up anything that was left over then I would take the JD mower with the drag mat and go over the lawn until everything was relatively smooth. After that I would take the Harley rake to all the visible high spots and knock them down and try pushing the excess dirt to the low spots and then I would drag again. Usually after dragging is when I would get clumps of rhizomes scattered across the lawn which would need raked up. After raking all the debris up, I would take the hose and water down the lawn to help settle it and to keep the dust down too since we haven't had hardly any rain in the last 2-3 weeks and we have had pretty windy conditions.

At this point, I have the soil pretty close to where I want it. There are a few spots here and there I need to tweak before I lay the sod but I plan on doing those after work this week. I still have to reinstall all the irrigation heads that were in the lawn, about 8 all together, and adjust them before the sod gets here.

Talked to the sod farm this morning and he said we should be good for Friday and I will be getting 15 pallets of TifGrand and it sounds like they are going to have to make 2 trips as the truck they have won't hold it all which is fine as I can't lay it all at once anyway  He said they like to use the smaller trucks in neighborhoods since they don't use as much space. I talked directly to the owner as I think it's just him and his son that run it which is pretty cool. I will try and get some more pictures up today or tomorrow of the current state of the lawn.


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## Mightyquinn

I finally have some pics that I know I have been promising but it's been a crazy couple of days. I have been trying to do a little housekeeping on the lawn every night after work just to make sure everything is as right as it can be before the sod comes on Friday. Last night I was going to take some pics but ran out of time as we had a good thunderstorm roll in finally and we got about .5" of rain which was nice as it helped settle all the dirt down and I didn't get hardly any wash outs. I'm almost to the point where I could lay sod and be content but I would rather not stop there. I took tomorrow and Friday off work for the sod so I plan on tomorrow to just tweak everything and make sure I take care of any minor high spots I might have, then my plan is to take my 48" level rake over the lawn a few times just to make sure. I figure no matter what I do I will need to do at least one sand leveling to get it just right as there will be some settling and I'm sure the sod won't all be evenly cut.

I do like the sod farm so far as it's a family run business and I have been talking directly to the owner for everything and he even said he will be delivering it which is pretty neat. Can't think of too much else to add at the moment so here are the pics.


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## ENC_Lawn

Very Nice Prep job!

You definitely have raised the bar on lawn prep.

I'm excited for you. I know it feels like forever since you started from last year!

It's gonna look awesome!


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## Rooster

ENC_Lawn said:


> You definitely have raised the bar on lawn prep.


I was about to say the same. It's hard to imagine being any more thorough. I can't wait for the pics over the next few days.


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## Mightyquinn

Thank you @ENC_Lawn & @Bermuda_Rooster for the kind words. I feel like if I had one more week I could really fine tune it but I'm at the point of where I feel like I just need to lay the sod and then fine tune it after that. I definitely feel like it's going to be better than it was before but it will be nice to have grass again after over 6 months without any 

Now let the waiting begin!!!


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## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Have you had the replacing Bermuda with...."Bermuda" conversation with your neighbors yet...


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## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn Have you had the replacing Bermuda with...."Bermuda" conversation with your neighbors yet...


Funny you mention that, I was just talking about that with the wife @touchofgrass today about how we still get questions about the lawn(dirt) and neighbors asking why we tore it up to replace it with another bermuda. Some people ask "What are you going to seed with?" which really gets me.


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## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> ENC_Lawn said:
> 
> 
> 
> @Mightyquinn Have you had the replacing Bermuda with...."Bermuda" conversation with your neighbors yet...
> 
> 
> 
> Funny you mention that, I was just talking about that with the wife @touchofgrass today about how we still get questions about the lawn(dirt) and neighbors asking why we tore it up to replace it with another bermuda. Some people ask "What are you going to seed with?" which really gets me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I try to keep it vague when I get the "what are you putting in?" And I answer "Bermuda" and they ask with a puzzled look "didn't you already have Bermuda?" So then I have to actually explain … it's just the two of us tomorrow so I am a little nervous of the questions slowing us down while we're trying to work.


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## Ben S

Maybe you could post a sign with answers to all the typical questions.


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## ENC_Lawn

Mightyquinn said:


> ENC_Lawn said:
> 
> 
> 
> @Mightyquinn Have you had the replacing Bermuda with...."Bermuda" conversation with your neighbors yet...
> 
> 
> 
> Funny you mention that, I was just talking about that with the wife @touchofgrass today about how we still get questions about the lawn(dirt) and neighbors asking why we tore it up to replace it with another bermuda. Some people ask "What are you going to seed with?" which really gets me.
Click to expand...

@Mightyquinn @touchofgrass Lol...I figured you guys had received a couple of those questions. :nod:


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## touchofgrass

Ben S said:


> Maybe you could post a sign with answers to all the typical questions.


I have been wanting to make a "Take One" brochure or pamphlet with FAQ for years but @Mightyquinn won't let me…


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## Ben S

touchofgrass said:


> I have been wanting to make a "Take One" brochure or pamphlet with FAQ for years but @Mightyquinn won't let me…


 :lol:


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## Mightyquinn

We are getting some Thunderstorms right now, nothing too bad, more thunder and lightening than rain. Got a text from the sod farm, they are loading the sod right now but may be delayed a little due to the thunderstorms rolling through their area. Besides the rain, I couldn't ask for better weather for this project as it's only suppose to be 66 today.


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## dubyadubya87

Eager to see this come together!


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## Mightyquinn

dubyadubya87 said:


> Eager to see this come together!


You and me both :lol:


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## touchofgrass

dubyadubya87 said:


> Eager to see this come together!


Same here!!!


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## Mightyquinn

Rain is tapering off here but I think they are still getting hit at the sod farm. I plan on texting him for an update. I will need about an hour for the lawn to dry out a little as I have some puddles but nothing to really worry about. At this rate I may have to finish up on Saturday morning, just depends on how things go.


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## Bmossin

@Mightyquinn I have my fingers crossed for you. We all cant wait to see the pictures.


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## Lawn Burgundy




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## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Can't wait to see the pictures!!!


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## Mightyquinn

Well the weather played a big part in today's activities as it really put us behind the power curve. Between the rain we got this morning and the rain that they got at the sod farm put us behind from the start. The sod finally arrived around 1 pm and that was only half of what I ordered so they were done by about 2pm and headed back for the rest of it. It's an hour drive each way. I had the help of a friend who is a member here but can't remember his screen at the moment, the extra set of hands really came in handy and helped the first load go pretty quick and easy for the most part. We also had spotty showers come through as we were laying the sod in the backyard so that delayed us some too. My friend(Charles) helped with the majority of the first load but had to leave due to prior engagements so me and the wife @touchofgrass finished up the rest of the sod which was enough for the backyard and a little bit down the side yard.

The second load didn't arrive until 7pm as he ran into traffic and had a weather delay out where he was at. So we did a little more until it got dark outside and decided to rest for the night and finish it up in the morning. I will probably go more into detail about things once we are done and I can rest a little bit and get my mind straight. It is weird seeing grass again in my lawn after over 6 months without any.


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## Ware

Mightyquinn said:


>


What is the string line for? Are you adding an apron of some sort around the new shed?


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## Mightyquinn

Yes, I am going to add pavers around the shed.


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## Mightyquinn

Here are two more photos, they didn't upload correctly the first time.


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## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> . I had the help of a friend who is a member here but can't remember his screen at the moment, the extra set of hands really came in handy and helped the first load go pretty quick and easy for the most part.


@chucky_tm thank you so much for the help!!!!!


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## Mightyquinn

So glad this is done and over. All the sod has been laid and has been hand watered due to the fact that it is windy as heck outside so I had to hand water everything plus it helped to knock off all the dirt that was laying on top of the sod. We had a little less than a pallet leftover which @chucky_tm is on his way to pick up as I write this. I can't say thank you enough to him or my amazing wife @touchofgrass for helping me with this project. We started about 9am this morning to finish up what we had left and just finished now but we were taking it easy with lots of breaks as there wasn't really a rush to get it done.

I still need to fertilize it and roll it with my Baroness and I also plan on applying some Tournament Ready and bug killer in the next few days to help it along. I still plan on laying some more pavers around the obstacles in the lawn as that will help clean everything up. Also debating on renting an asphalt roller as the lawn is very lumpy right now but we will see how that goes once the sod starts to root some.


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## Redtwin

Great job, @Mightyquinn, @touchofgrass and @chucky_tm. The Tifgrand is going to look awesome but that flagpole is next level!


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## Mightyquinn

Thanks @Redtwin, Now the waiting game and making sure it's getting enough water, this wind we have been getting is killing me as I can't really run the irrigation when the wind is 15-25 MPH during the day.


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## rjw0283

Awesome! It's gonna look great! You're right with the wind. I was going to spray today... Nope!

That's alot of work! I'm sure you feel it.


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## Mightyquinn

Yeah, we are both feeling it right now.

Thanks @rjw0283


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## Ware

Looks great @Mightyquinn!


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## Mightyquinn

I had a little bit of a chat with the sod farmer (owner) when he came to deliver the second load of sod on Friday. He is a real down to earth guy and is very customer service oriented. It impressed me that he as the owner is also the one delivering the sod. I asked him why he decided to carry TifGrand for and he said that he wanted something to offer that was a little more high end over 419 and that he sells more TifGrand and has more of it then the 419. He also said that the TifTuff is being hoarded by the big sod farms like SuperSod and BuySod as they are dumping all the marketing into that right now. He also said that when the 2008 recession hit that kind of put TifGrand on the back burner because it had just been released so now it's kind of like the red headed step child  I am very pleased with my whole experience with Willow Springs Turf and would recommend them to anyone that lives around here as they had the best prices by far over any of the big sod farms. He has only been growing sod for 2-3 years too so he's just getting started. He will also provide you with a certificate from NC State too like this.










The sod did have some sedge in it as I was laying it out but he told me they sprayed it with some SedgeHammer before they cut it so it shouldn't be an issue. I have Certainty and Celsius so I am not too concerned about any weeds that may form. My goal is to have the lawn relatively smooth by the end of the season and then just to tweak it from there. It will definitely take 1 or 2 sanding jobs to get there.

One more thing I learned while working the dirt and prepping it for sod is that I don't think I am going to aerate again anytime soon as 95%+ of my lawn is basically sand so there is no advantage to doing that here anymore. I have a little bit of clay around the sidewalks but beyond that it's all sand. I also want to mention that my previous 419 was always spongy and soft and I think that was due to the fact that early on in my lawn care journey, I was pounding it with Nitrogen monthly which caused it to grow a deep and thick rhizome mat that was a few inches thick and probably contributed to the sponginess of the lawn and caused more issues(at least for me reel mowing) then it helped. It's much more firmer then it was before so I am keeping my fingers crossed that it stays like that for the foreseeable future.


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## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Thats awesome you have the certificate for the TifGrand.

It's always great to see and hear of great customer service!


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## HungrySoutherner

Welcome to the TifGrand club. You will love it. To me its the most beautiful Bermuda out there.


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## dubyadubya87

Oh man, that is going to look awesome once it's settled and rooted in. Your hard work prepping paid off.


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## Mightyquinn

HungrySoutherner said:


> Welcome to the TifGrand club. You will love it. To me its the most beautiful Bermuda out there.


I hope to be a proud member and represent the TifGrand properly. After all my research to find the best grass for my renovation, I don't see any downside to the Tifgrand. To me if you are going to reel mow, it's the only logical choice.



dubyadubya87 said:


> Oh man, that is going to look awesome once it's settled and rooted in. Your hard work prepping paid off.


Thank You!! I think it's still going to take a little more work(sand) to get it there but I do believe I have a good base to start with and sanding it will help me fine tune it.

Yesterday I remembered why I HATE granular fertilizer for  I bought 2 bags of 10-10-10 from Tractor Supply a few weeks ago and I applied one bag to the whole lawn yesterday as we are suppose to get some rain this evening. Well, I dumped the bag into the spreader and there were some chunks that I broke up with my hand but even then that stuff just wouldn't flow very well through the spreader with it half way open. It was very frustrating and not something I really want to revisit again. I ended up putting down about .5lbs of N-P-K and will probably reapply it in another 2 weeks. I also applied some Permethrin and Imidacloprid to keep the bugs away from my new sod. Then I hose watered it all in with my Pellet Pro Gun and some H2O Maximizer that I already had in the gun. I plan on switching over to the Tournament Ready w/Actosol when this is used up. I kind of want it to warm up here so the sod can start sending roots down into the soil. Having these mild windy days aren't helping.


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## Mightyquinn

Did a little testing last night and this morning and I'm already getting some rooting of the sod which is good to see this early on as it's only been 4-5 days and the temps have been kind of mild. I have only been watering for like 15 minutes per zone in the morning and then I might hand water with the hose and the Pellet Pro in the evening. The soil has been staying pretty well hydrated throughout the day since we haven't really had any hot temps.


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## rjw0283

With the aeration, I am with you. My biggest areas of compaction are areas around concrete. I have some clay areas around where my cement pad for the shed was poured. The front is all sand, I am going to aerate and top dress the front and back but only because my backyard needs it badly. Years ago I used to fill dog holes with cheap top soil from lowes (also some old flower pot dirt) And there was a lot of holes. Probably 1200 lbs of cheap dirt over the years. Those areas seem to hold moisture for too long which is causing some growth issues. I need to open the soil up and get some sand in there. My dogs are old now and gave up the digging. Thank God.


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## littlehuman

MQ, you used to have a bit of TifGrand, right? Or is this your first foray into it?


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## touchofgrass

littlehuman said:


> MQ, you used to have a bit of TifGrand, right? Or is this your first foray into it?


We had Tifway 419 that we laid when we built the home in 2006. We did get a single pallet of TifGrand years ago and just replaced essentially the strip along our fence that stays in the shade much longer in the winter/early spring but this is our first venture into full TifGrand


----------



## littlehuman

touchofgrass said:


> littlehuman said:
> 
> 
> 
> MQ, you used to have a bit of TifGrand, right? Or is this your first foray into it?
> 
> 
> 
> We had Tifway 419 that we laid when we built the home in 2006. We did get a single pallet of TifGrand years ago and just replaced essentially the strip along our fence that stays in the shade much longer in the winter/early spring but this is our first venture into full TifGrand
Click to expand...

Nice! Excited to keep up with you guys' progress with the new cultivar.


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## JRS 9572

Welcome to the "We few...we band of brothers" that is the folks that have TifGrand in their yard! Interested to follow someone within 175 miles of me with TifGrand.

Great Job. Also I may have missed it in the thread, but did you recently put the landscape curbing in? If so, then would you mind sharing what it ran you a linear foot? I had it in my old home that was installed back in 05, and thinking about it again. I miss having it.


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## J_nick

@JRS 9572 more info on the pavers if you scroll up from the post below

https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=372136#p372136


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## Mightyquinn

JRS 9572 said:


> Welcome to the "We few...we band of brothers" that is the folks that have TifGrand in their yard! Interested to follow someone within 175 miles of me with TifGrand.
> 
> Great Job. Also I may have missed it in the thread, but did you recently put the landscape curbing in? If so, then would you mind sharing what it ran you a linear foot? I had it in my old home that was installed back in 05, and thinking about it again. I miss having it.


For the pavers, yes just follow the link @J_nick posted. As for the curbing around the house and the flower/shrub beds, I had those done in 2008 and I think I paid about $9 a linear foot to have them done. I added a 5 inch flat extension on to them too give me more space so my axles on my Baroness wouldn't hit them. I did those in the offseason last year, I would just add a bag of concrete with some dye from Lowe's mix it up and lay it out and then trowel it into shape. It was fairly easy to do and I would just do a little bit here and there until it was done. I had the curbing installed when I was still using a rotary mower so I didn't think about having a greens mower at the time.

Thank you for the welcome to the club  I hope to make us proud but it may take a year to get there :lol:


----------



## Mightyquinn

Well, it's been one week since the sod install and most of it seems to be rooting pretty well. I have a few spots that need some TLC but all in all not too bad for one week in.

I decided to get the Baroness out and set the HOC at .750" and gave her a haircut. I initially started with the groomer on but I didn't even get 5 feet before I realized that was not going to work as it pulled up a corner of the sod, so I turned it off and continued to mow. I wasn't mowing a whole lot off and only filled the catcher up 1.5 times but it did help clean up a lot of the loose stuff that was sitting on the lawn. It was a bumpy ride for sure so I am deciding on whether or not to rent an asphalt roller to help smooth things out here in a couple of weeks before I sand top dress the lawn. After the mow I laid another 40lb bag of 10-10-10 over the whole lawn and then hose watered it all in with Pellet Pro and some Tournament Ready with Actosol. Hopefully things will be good and rooted by next weekend as we are suppose to be getting into the 90's which will help the grass as long as I can keep it watered.


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## Redtenchu

Awesome work so far!


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## ENC_Lawn

Love the look of the pavers down the property line.


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## Mightyquinn

Redtenchu said:


> Awesome work so far!


Thank you!! Myself and @touchofgrass appreciate it :thumbup:



ENC_Lawn said:


> Love the look of the pavers down the property line.


Yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing how they look once I get the lawn dialed in.


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## dubyadubya87

Looking good!


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## chucky_tm

Hey @Mightyquinn and @touchofgrass glad i could help out. It was my pleasure. Be good to see the yard green again. I appreciate all the tips and being so helpful.


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## Falcon64

The prep on your yard puts mine to shame.
Whats your mower setup? And what HOC are you looking to get to this season?

I think I'm a little north of you in Fuquay. After calling around to all the sod farms up this way Ken at Willow Springs Turf went above and beyond helping me out; didn't laugh at my dumb questions and was just a easy going guy as you've said. Great pricing and super flexible. I picked up from the farm and it's definitely a family operation.
I laid 2200 sq ft of TifGrand in my backyard on April 9th so its been a waiting game for it to really root down with how the weather has been. I'm sure you know way more about this than I do but it seems like the growth rate of this cultivar also applies to the root growth as it rooted slow in my opinion.

I'm hastily maintaining at .6 with my caltrimmer every 5 days at most even with pushing N and in desperate need of a level.

But my 6 year old hasn't worn shoes in the backyard since April and that was the goal so its been a huge win.

Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out this year!


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## Mightyquinn

I currently have an 11 blade Baroness set at .75". I've only mowed once so far but mine has rooted pretty good so far. I think since you laid yours earlier it took longer to root.

Kenneth is a great guy and has great customer service. You might want to back off on the Nitrogen as TG doesn't require as much. A sand leveling will do wonders for getting the lawn right.

Thank you for the kind words and I hope to keep it under .50" once I level.


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## Mightyquinn

As the title suggests, I am getting a ton of seed heads right now but that is to be expected but it is taking away the look of the lawn quite a bit. I mowed the lawn Friday and again today (Monday) and I seemed to be getting just as much grass/seed heads on both days but today I mowed diagonally and it seems to do a better job of getting them as I wasn't going with any of the seams from the sod. I have also been using my groomer on the last 2 mows to help get more of the seed heads and it seem to be working but I did tear up a few spots where the sod was a little weaker. Not too concerned about it as it will all fill in eventually anyway.

Well, enough about that!! I think it's greening up quite nice and the seams are starting to fill in too. I was planning on cutting back on the water last week but with the temps in the upper 90's most of the week, I didn't want to risk it as the roots are still a little shallow. I still have a few dry spots that don't seem to be greening up as well as the rest of the lawn but there are little bits of green starting to show up in those spots so I think it will be fine. I also had some irrigation issues that I think I got figured out this weekend so I should be good there now too.

I still haven't fertilized any extra since I first laid the sod so I am planning on putting down some Potassium Nitrate (14-0-46) to help give it a boost and strengthen it up some. I'm holding off on the PGR right now until I sand the lawn which I plan on doing in about 2 weeks if everything works out right. After that I should be able to start getting on a regular maintenance schedule which would be nice as I am mowing at .75" but really want to be about half that HOC. I will say that I am impressed with how dark green it is and I haven't even added PGR or Iron to the lawn yet. It almost looks better then my 419 did on it's good days  I'm really looking forward to see how much I can push this grass and see what it can really do.


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## touchofgrass

Looks great, MQ :thumbup:


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## marcjw

Nice!


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## ENC_Lawn

Coming along nicely @Mightyquinn. With the temperatures picking up here in NC it will be looking on point by August!


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## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> Coming along nicely @Mightyquinn. With the temperatures picking up here in NC it will be looking on point by August!


Thank you! I hope to have it looking good by July sometime. I just need to smooth things out so I can get after it. Some rain would be nice too since the most rain we have had since we laid the sod was .25". Other than that we have only had enough to get the pavement wet.


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## ENC_Lawn

Mightyquinn said:


> ENC_Lawn said:
> 
> 
> 
> Coming along nicely @Mightyquinn. With the temperatures picking up here in NC it will be looking on point by August!
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you! I hope to have it looking good by July sometime. I just need to smooth things out so I can get after it. Some rain would be nice too since the most rain we have had since we laid the sod was .25". Other than that we have only had enough to get the pavement wet.
Click to expand...

Yes I feel your pain on the rain!


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## rjw0283

How's the lawn coming? You level yet?


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## Mightyquinn

It's coming along pretty good. I need to add some more pictures here soon.

I was going to level this weekend but things came up and with it suppose to be in the mid 90's I didn't want to push it. Will probably do it next weekend as long as the weather holds.


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## Mightyquinn

It's been a few weeks since I updated this thread in any real capacity. So let me try and catch up some.

About 2 weeks ago I applied some Pendimethalin with some Potassium Nitrate and Urea so a total of (33-0-46) per M. After that application we had some good rainfall for about a week so that lawn really took off and thickened up quite a bit and I have been mowing about twice a week to keep up with it. I was also planning on doing some leveling about 2 weeks ago but the weather was kind of sketchy that weekend and this weekend it was just busy so I didn't want to attempt it. The plan as of right now is to level this coming weekend as I am feeling like my hands are tied with doing anything else to the lawn until I can get it leveled out good.

I sprayed another application of Potassium Nitrate @ 1 lb/M and Pendimethalin the other day and watered that in the next morning as we haven't had any rain in about a week and the lawn was actually holding on pretty good up until that point as I was getting a few LDS's. I dropped my mowing down to .65" from .75" as I would like to get it as low as possible before I level. I have also been adding some dirt around the edges as I have some extra left over from the lawn/shed projects as some spots are lower around the concrete. I would rather them be too low than too high.

I am amazed at how dark green this TifGrand is with minimal inputs and I know the seed heads which are still plentiful will eventually go away once I lower my HOC and start using some PGR. I am really looking forward to pushing this grass to it's full extent and seeing what it can do.


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## littlehuman

Coming along nicely!

I'm noticing in your new sod (and mine) here as well - the lighter areas seem more prevalent now than they were a couple of weeks ago. Is that just from us mowing on a yet-to-be-leveled lawn? Or simply thinner areas that haven't totally filled in yet? I notice it along the edges of each stripe, so I figured it was maybe just little micro-scalping spots from it not being totally flat yet.


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## Mightyquinn

I would say the lighter areas in my lawn are drier then the other spots so the roots probably aren't as deep as the rest of the lawn. Some of it may be due to scalping along the perimeter as I need to level those areas out some more. Some of it is also from the seed heads too.


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## ENC_Lawn

Wow...amazing how good the lawn looks this early on and without any leveling! :thumbup:


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## g-man

I had to click the warm season folder to check this out. It looks great. Not as good as kbg, but close enough. . It is cool to see how fast it spreads.


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## Mightyquinn

Thank You!! Hopefully it will look better here soon as I have 9 yards of masonry sand being delivered on Friday! I got it for $185 delivered!

I also just mowed again at .55" with the Dethatcher @ .20". We are suppose to get some rain tomorrow so I will try and take it down to .45" on Wednesday and see where we are at after that.


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## Thor865

Excellent work. Seedheads are ever present in the Grand and you learn to live with them


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## rjw0283

Mightyquinn said:


> Thank You!! Hopefully it will look better here soon as I have 9 yards of masonry sand being delivered on Friday! I got for $185 delivered!
> 
> I also just mowed again at .55" with the Dethatcher @ .20". We are suppose to get some rain tomorrow so I will try and take it down to .45" on Wednesday and see where we are at after that.


Can't beat that price... I've seen some of the ridiculous prices some people pay for regular sand on here. But I guess it's expensive considering sand is what our soil is. 
I dug a drainage/tunnel thing today and my entire front/side yard is sand.....completely sand. It drains well... 1 inch of rain yesterday and you couldn't even tell digging it up. :|


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## Mightyquinn

When I was prepping the lawn for the sod and digging a 24" trench for electrical for the shed it was almost 100% sand. There was some clay mixed in down by the sidewalk and road but it was mostly sand. Drainage has never been an issue at my house either.

@Thor865 i had a few spots of TifGrand before the renovation and do remember the seed heads but don't remember them being that bad. I guess I will see for myself but I'm hoping that mowing low will help with them.


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## HungrySoutherner

Mightyquinn said:


> When I was prepping the lawn for the sod and digging a 24" trench for electrical for the shed it was almost 100% sand. There was some clay mixed in down by the sidewalk and road but it was mostly sand. Drainage has never been an issue at my house either.
> 
> @Thor865 i had a few spots of TifGrand before the renovation and do remember the seed heads but don't remember them being that bad. I guess I will see for myself but I'm hoping that mowing low will help with them.


The seedhead thing is just sort of par for the course with Tifgrand. Last year after laying sod I went through 2 seedhead cycles with the tifgrand which came and went within a 10 day window. This year has been the same late spring and I expect for them to return during the summer - fall transition.


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## Mightyquinn

Today after work I took the lawn down to .45" to prep it for topdressing on Friday/Saturday. I can't wait to get this lawn smoother so I can start adding some PGR and get it looking right!!!


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## mha2345

It already looks so good even non-leveled. This is about to be epic!!


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## touchofgrass

mha2345 said:


> It already looks so good even non-leveled. This is about to be epic!!


Let's hope


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## SGrabs33

I'm sure the last thing you want to do after a day or two of leveling is update this thread. But we're WAITING


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## touchofgrass

SGrabs33 said:


> I'm sure the last thing you want to do after a day or two of leveling is update this thread. But we're WAITING


Haha… yeah, the very last thing.. lol… we started last night after work and got a few hours in after the rain stopped but it was too wet to really get much done … we started this morning around 9am and just finished up for the day. The sand was still really wet but the sun came out and dried it up nicely so he was able to get the drag mat to good use.

He'll likely do a proper update with pictures and whatnot after we get some food in our tummies


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## SGrabs33

touchofgrass said:


> SGrabs33 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure the last thing you want to do after a day or two of leveling is update this thread. But we're WAITING
> 
> 
> 
> Haha… yeah, the very last thing.. lol… we started last night after work and got a few hours in after the rain stopped but it was too wet to really get much done … we started this morning around 9am and just finished up for the day. The sand was still really wet but the sun came out and dried it up nicely so he was able to get the drag mat to good use.
> 
> He'll likely do a proper update with pictures and whatnot after we get some food in our tummies
Click to expand...

 :thumbup: Looking forward to it


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## Mightyquinn

So, as the title suggests I have been dealing with wet sand for the most part through this leveling project. It rained a little bit Friday morning and they delivered the sand Friday afternoon so I'm sure it didn't have time to dry out and then it rained as I was coming home from work too which delayed me getting started early. @touchofgrass was able to cover the sand with some tarps before the rain came so I'm sure that helped some.

We were able to get started about 1800 on Friday and got the backyard started but with the wet sand and not a whole lot of sun that late in the evening it wasn't really drying out which made trying to drag it in quite a PIA as it doesn't like to spread very well and it clumps up in the drag mat too.

We started this morning at 0900 and continued with dumping like 6-8 carts of sand and then taking the drag mat over those areas to help spread it out to help it dry out too. We had sand on most of the lawn by 1200 and the sun was just starting to come out which was good and bad. Good that it was drying up the sand making it easier to spread but also made it hotter outside to work. We took a lunch bread at 1200 and to let the sand dry too, we went back out at 1400 and the sand was considerably dryer and made spreading it with the drag mat a dream and I was able to see what other areas needed more sand.

From 1400-1800 we would put out 6-8 buckets of sand, drag it out and then take a break to let it dry out and then drag it again and then start the whole process all over again. It made the job take a lot longer then it normally does but we were able to take a lot of breaks which was nice as I never really felt worn out during the whole thing. After dumping a load of sand the wife would take a come-along(Concrete Rake) to help spread the sand out while I was getting another load. It seemed to work pretty good.

About 90% of the sand has been used and for the most part the lawn is done. I still need to do the Hell Strip and get some sand in the corners and edges which I plan on doing tomorrow after church. i also plan to drag the lawn again tomorrow as the last batch we put down didn't dry all the way out so it still needs dragged and settled in some. I also plan to run my 48" Leveling Rake over the lawn in a few directions for the final touch and then run the irrigation. I will post updated pictures tomorrow after everything is cleaned up and smoothed out.

BEFORE









AFTER


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## Mightyquinn

Just a quick update, the sanding is done and all the sand has been put out except for one Gorilla Cart load which I'm holding on to so I can fine tune some spots in a few weeks once everything starts growing back in. I know there are going to be some areas, especially around the perimeter where I laid the pavers that will require some more sand. I think I did a pretty good job with the sand and it should be a great improvement over what I was dealing with before. I do have some thick areas of sand that will take some time to fill in but that is par for the course when it comes to sanding and topdressing. Now I want some rain to help wash some of this in but don't really want anything too heavy either


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## touchofgrass

You did a great job, MQ. Can't wait to see how it turns out.


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## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Nice job!

Pretty cool you got some pretty nice stolon runners near your barn!

That's great to see!

Looks like TifGrand will recover just as fast as the Tifway 419 but doesn't grow as up right...???...seems pretty cool! :nod:


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## Mightyquinn

Thanks @ENC_Lawn

Yeah those runners kind of surprised me too but the area by the shed is going to be pavers eventually and by the back fence I'm turning into a shrub/flower bed, since it's on the North side of the fence, that area has always been a PIA to keep grass growing there healthy.

Hopefully it will recover quickly but I haven't really fertilized it a lot so I want to see what it can do on it's own without any help.


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## Redtwin

Judging from the way it looks post-drag your prep work paid off. There aren't too many deep spots except in the corners as expected.


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## Mightyquinn

I hope you're right!


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## Mightyquinn

Since it had been over a week since I last mowed, I decided to give it cut as it was looking rough from all the dragging and spots were starting to grow a little long. It's starting to fill in slowly as I haven't fertilized it in a few weeks as I don't really want a flush of growth as that can lead to other issues. I decided to drop it to .40" as that is where I would like to keep it for the rest of the season or at least until it all thickens up and matures. Hopefully if things keep going like they are I plan on spraying it with PGR next weekend to help it tighten up some more. It was nice to mow and not have the mower bounce all around and actually put down some OK stripes


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## Amoo316

*COUGHCOUGHCOUGH*

Oh excuse me, sorry, didn't mean to disturb the quiet. Since I'm here though @Mightyquinn according to the last 25 pages I just read you guys put that Rubber mulch down in 2017/2018. I typically put down 25-2yd bags of Cedar Mulch a year. How is that stuff holding up, would you do it again?


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## Mightyquinn

Amoo316 said:


> *COUGHCOUGHCOUGH*
> 
> Oh excuse me, sorry, didn't mean to disturb the quiet. Since I'm here though @Mightyquinn according to the last 25 pages I just read you guys put that Rubber mulch down in 2017/2018. I typically put down 25-2yd bags of Cedar Mulch a year. How is that stuff holding up, would you do it again?


LOL!!!!

Yes, it's still going strong and I have ZERO regrets. It's so nice not having to re mulch every year. Once it settles and locks in it doesn't really move too much either. I do get an occasional piece out in the lawn but since it's rubber I don't really worry about it with the reel mower as hitting it doesn't do any harm. The rubber smell goes away after awhile and you don't ever smell it.


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## Amoo316

Mightyquinn said:


> LOL!!!!
> 
> Yes, it's still going strong and I have ZERO regrets. It's so nice not having to re mulch every year. Once it settles and locks in it doesn't really move too much either. I do get an occasional piece out in the lawn but since it's rubber I don't really worry about it with the reel mower as hitting it doesn't do any harm. The rubber smell goes away after awhile and you don't ever smell it.


Well damn. I was in Lowes last week and saw that stuff and it was like $9 a bag, and I was like, yeah no way that would be worth it. Thanks for shattering my dreams. Now I'm going to have to think about the mistake I made all year until it's time to remulch next year and swap over.

Thanks.


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## Mightyquinn

If it was me, i would start stock piling the stuff over the winter. Go buy a few bag here and there over the Winter and then when Spring arrives you have a good stash to start with and you didn't have to break the bank all at once.


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## Amoo316

Mightyquinn said:


> If it was me, i would start stock piling the stuff over the winter. Go buy a few bag here and there over the Winter and then when Spring arrives you have a good stash to start with and you didn't have to break the bank all at once.


This is actually a really solid suggestion, unfortunately there are two problems with this approach:

1. The BOSS would kill me if I tried to stay any more crap then the 10lbs of potatoes I already have in the 5lb bag.

2. If/When I get around to starting a lawn journal, you all will get to see that If I start a project I have to finish it, because if I don't something will break or I'll "oh squirrel" and move onto something else and completely forget about it.

In all seriousness though, with our discount at lowes we auto get the 6 months no financing instead of the 5%, hence 3 or 4 times a year we'll go buy a bunch of stuff we can't afford then pay it off before the interest hits. Lowes hasn't taken our card away yet and it's back at $0 balance (well was before last weekend) so it must be working for us :lol:


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## Mightyquinn

Ok, haven't really updated this in awhile. I did run into some issues after the sanding as there were some areas that just weren't responding well to water and fertilizer like the rest of the lawn so I was starting to get worried. I couldn't quite figure it out at first as I was going through all the possible things that it might be so I started with the basics of fertilizer and water and that didn't really seem to do anything so I finally was pretty sure it could be a fungus but wasn't sure what kind as it was something I hadn't really seen before as it was affecting large areas of the lawn but was spread out over the whole lawn. I was also getting a ton of mushrooms in the lawn too which I thought was strange since I hadn't added any organic matter to the soil and had pretty much removed anything that would have caused them. I think I had Anthracnose as most of the symptoms matched that description. So I sprayed Propiconazole and Chlorothalonil together at max rates and after a few days the lawn started waking up again and was responding to fertilizer applications and water. All the mushrooms were gone to which I was more than happy about. THIS is the reason I DO NOT like mushrooms in the lawn as I take them as a warning sign as to things are NOT right in your grass.

I also had a weed outbreak in the lawn during all of this too so I sprayed the Celsius/Certainty/Prodiamine combo which took out some of the weeds but realized after everything else started to die off that I had a major infestation of Goosegrass so I reached out to friend that hooked me up with some MSMA which seems to have taken care of most of the Goosegrass. I applied the Prodiamine to get me through until Fall and prevent any other weeds from growing. The lawn is finally thickening up now and I am glad to be over that hurdle as I was really concerned for a little bit.










































I am currently cutting it at .5" and I am on my 3rd round of PGR. Just using T-Nex alone really slows the growth down on TifGrand as I can almost get away with cutting once a week and barely fill up 1.5 grass catchers full of clippings. My plan right now going forward is just to maintain what I have for the rest of the season and then get a soil test done once it goes dormant for the Winter. I am definitely going to need to do another sand leveling next year but I also plan on incorporating an aeration/asphalt roller project in the Spring as I think that will go a long way to getting everything smooth and level and to take down some minor high spots in the lawn too. I'm also getting low on fertilizer so I plan on taking a trip on Friday to stock up for the next few years.


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## jayhawk

Looking on point...nice color of course. You gotta love the lower demands too.

Excited to follow along the rolling, it's something I want to do just to get 'next level' smooth


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## Herring

Looks like a dark green carpet!


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## Mightyquinn

Yeah, I'm really enjoying how dark green it gets with minimal inputs. It would be a challenge to get 419 this dark without excessive growth. I still think this is the perfect grass for reel mowing.


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## HungrySoutherner

Mightyquinn said:


> Ok, haven't really updated this in awhile. I did run into some issues after the sanding as there were some areas that just weren't responding well to water and fertilizer like the rest of the lawn so I was starting to get worried. I couldn't quite figure it out at first as I was going through all the possible things that it might be so I started with the basics of fertilizer and water and that didn't really seem to do anything so I finally was pretty sure it could be a fungus but wasn't sure what kind as it was something I hadn't really seen before as it was affecting large areas of the lawn but was spread out over the whole lawn. I was also getting a ton of mushrooms in the lawn too which I thought was strange since I hadn't added any organic matter to the soil and had pretty much removed anything that would have caused them. I think I had Anthracnose as most of the symptoms matched that description. So I sprayed Propiconazole and Chlorothalonil together at max rates and after a few days the lawn started waking up again and was responding to fertilizer applications and water. All the mushrooms were gone to which I was more than happy about. THIS is the reason I DO NOT like mushrooms in the lawn as I take them as a warning sign as to things are NOT right in your grass.
> 
> I also had a weed outbreak in the lawn during all of this too so I sprayed the Celsius/Certainty/Prodiamine combo which took out some of the weeds but realized after everything else started to die off that I had a major infestation of Goosegrass so I reached out to friend that hooked me up with some MSMA which seems to have taken care of most of the Goosegrass. I applied the Prodiamine to get me through until Fall and prevent any other weeds from growing. The lawn is finally thickening up now and I am glad to be over that hurdle as I was really concerned for a little bit.
> 
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> 
> I am currently cutting it at .5" and I am on my 3rd round of PGR. Just using T-Nex alone really slows the growth down on TifGrand as I can almost get away with cutting once a week and barely fill up 1.5 grass catchers full of clippings. My plan right now going forward is just to maintain what I have for the rest of the season and then get a soil test done once it goes dormant for the Winter. I am definitely going to need to do another sand leveling next year but I also plan on incorporating an aeration/asphalt roller project in the Spring as I think that will go a long way to getting everything smooth and level and to take down some minor high spots in the lawn too. I'm also getting low on fertilizer so I plan on taking a trip on Friday to stock up for the next few years.


Did you take any pictures of what the Tifgrand looked like when you were addressing what you thought was fungus. I've seen my Tifgrand do strange things, and then like magic it clears itself up. Also its such a slow grower that when I buried mine in sand after the resod last year it took a long while to recover. I'm very curious though about what your turf was looking like, was it short of shedding?


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## Mightyquinn

Sorry, I did not take any pictures. Just look up the symptoms and pictures of anthracnose and that's pretty much what my lawn was doing. It wasn't over the whole lawn but in large patches. The leaves were brown but didn't really have any lesions on them. Yeah, it was taking forever for the grass to fill in some areas after the sanding which caused me to start thinking of what could be wrong.


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## HungrySoutherner

Mightyquinn said:


> Sorry, I did not take any pictures. Just look up the symptoms and pictures of anthracnose and that's pretty much what my lawn was doing. It wasn't over the whole lawn but in large patches. The leaves were brown but didn't really have any lesions on them. Yeah, it was taking forever for the grass to fill in some areas after the sanding which caused me to start thinking of what could be wrong.


I've seen a little bit of that in the Tifgrand


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## Mightyquinn

I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.

I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.


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## Herring

Mightyquinn said:


> I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.
> 
> I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.


Did they have any other of the 20-20-20 or water soluble fertilizers? I've been using that Southern Ag with excellent results but the farm supply I found it at only had the one bag in stock. I stopped by another store in Wilmington and they had a Ultra Sol 20-20-20 that looked similar on the label.


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## Mightyquinn

I think that's the only kind they had but you would need to call to be sure. I do believe they had plenty of it though.


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## SeanBB

@Mightyquinn you gotta paint that fence! your grass is unreal


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## Mightyquinn

SeanBB said:


> @Mightyquinn you gotta paint that fence! your grass is unreal


Thank You!!

Yeah, it's on the list of things to do but I am thinking about replacing most of the fence as it's starting to show it's age quite a bit.


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## SeanBB

I just sprayed mine...quite satisfying and shockingly easy! But ya...if you are getting a new one then I totally get it


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## rjw0283

Mightyquinn said:


> I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.
> 
> I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.


I need to do the same. I need to hit this place up for some Potassium Nitrate. I have called around everywhere around Fayetteville and no K products. This is hard to believe considering the sand, and EVERYONE is probably very deficient in K.
I've been ordering SOP online for about 65 bucks for a 50 lb bag shipping included. Which isn't horrible, but it's a PITA to mix and spray. Anything over 2 lbs in the sprayer and it bogs it down. It's not very soluble. And you have to use Hot Water. 
That new grass is looking awesome!


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## Mightyquinn

rjw0283 said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.
> 
> I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.
> 
> 
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> 
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> 
> 
> I need to do the same. I need to hit this place up for some Potassium Nitrate. I have called around everywhere around Fayetteville and no K products. This is hard to believe considering the sand, and EVERYONE is probably very deficient in K.
> I've been ordering SOP online for about 65 bucks for a 50 lb bag shipping included. Which isn't horrible, but it's a PITA to mix and spray. Anything over 2 lbs in the sprayer and it bogs it down. It's not very soluble. And you have to use Hot Water.
> That new grass is looking awesome!
Click to expand...

It's definitely worth the trip up there as they have everything you could think of and it was a pretty painless process. I was probably in and out of there in less than 10-15 minutes as I knew exactly what I needed. Yeah, finding SOP around here is almost impossible let alone some water soluble stuff. Have you tried looking at Nutrien AG, they have one in Salemburg and another larger one in Clinton.


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## rjw0283

MQ, 
What rates are you spraying that Potassium Nitrate at?


----------



## Mightyquinn

1lb/M every 2-4 weeks


----------



## rjw0283

Thank you. I just made the journey up to Southern Seeds today. Your invoice helped since it had all the product #s on it. I was in and out in 10 minutes. That place is awesome. I just wish I knew everything they had in their warehouse.


----------



## Mightyquinn

rjw0283 said:


> Thank you. I just made the journey up to Southern Seeds today. Your invoice helped since it had all the product #s on it. I was in and out in 10 minutes. That place is awesome. I just wish I knew everything they had in their warehouse.


You can ask to walk around and see what they have, that's what I did the first time I was there. I ended up getting additional things that I saw that I wanted but now I know what I want so it's just as simple as calling before going up there :thumbup:


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Hey MQ…how's the lawn looking?

I always enjoy your updates!

I'm sure that TifGrand is looking awesome!


----------



## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn Hey MQ…how the lawn looking?
> 
> I always enjoy your updates!
> 
> I'm sure that TifGrand is looking awesome!


I might do an update on Sunday. I did a mini scalp about 2.5 weeks ago but it has recovered quite well. We have only had .11 inches of rain since the 23rd of August.


----------



## Mightyquinn

It has been very dry here since August 23rd which is the last time we had any decent rain. Since then we have had only .1 inches and we just got .12 inches yesterday. So needless to say it's been dry here and I have been using my irrigation about every 3-4 days. I have gone longer between waterings because I was "suppose" to get some rain but obviously that never happened  I have also been using some H2O Maximizer in the Underhill Pellet Pro to hit some of the drier spots in the lawn to help even things out a bit. Right now, I think I just need a good soaking rain from Mother Nature to really help perk up the lawn a little more. Even though it's green and lush right now, there is nothing like a good heavy rain event to help things along.

About 2.5-3 weeks ago I had some discoloration from some MSMA I applied to get the last bit of weeds that were left so i decided WTH, I will give it a small scalp since it will take about the same amount of time to recover regardless. So I was at .5" HOC at the time and took it down to .4" and I also set the dethatcher attachment on the Baroness at .000" to help remove some dead material in the grass. I have since gone back to .5" and plan to maintain at that HOC for the rest of the season. It took a good 2 weeks to recover since I was getting no rain but it is finally getting back to where it was at. We have been steady in the 80's and 90's since the scalp.

I have been noticing with the use of PGR that when it starts to wear off that the seed heads start coming back which is usually around 225 GDD. I have been using 250 GDD but think I may back that down some more just to help with the seed heads. I'm still trying to figure out what works best since this is my first season with TifGrand. I have only been using T-Nex so far but will probably throw in some Paclo next season since I do have some on hand.


----------



## Keepin It Reel

Mightyquinn said:


> It has been very dry here since August 23rd which is the last time we had any decent rain. Since then we have had only .1 inches and we just got .12 inches yesterday. So needless to say it's been dry here and I have been using my irrigation about every 3-4 days. I have gone longer between waterings because I was "suppose" to get some rain but obviously that never happened  I have also been using some H2O Maximizer in the Underhill Pellet Pro to hit some of the drier spots in the lawn to help even things out a bit. Right now, I think I just need a good soaking rain from Mother Nature to really help perk up the lawn a little more. Even though it's green and lush right now, there is nothing like a good heavy rain event to help things along.
> 
> About 2.5-3 weeks ago I had some discoloration from some MSMA I applied to get the last bit of weeds that were left so i decided WTH, I will give it a small scalp since it will take about the same amount of time to recover regardless. So I was at .5" HOC at the time and took it down to .4" and I also set the dethatcher attachment on the Baroness at .000" to help remove some dead material in the grass. I have since gone back to .5" and plan to maintain at that HOC for the rest of the season. It took a good 2 weeks to recover since I was getting no rain but it is finally getting back to where it was at. We have been steady in the 80's and 90's since the scalp.
> 
> I have been noticing with the use of PGR that when it starts to wear off that the seed heads start coming back which is usually around 225 GDD. I have been using 250 GDD but think I may back that down some more just to help with the seed heads. I'm still trying to figure out what works best since this is my first season with TifGrand. I have only been using T-Nex so far but will probably throw in some Paclo next season since I do have some on hand.


That Tifgrand looks great, man. I envy the flat front yard. I have a slight incline and the Toro wants to slide a bit especially mowing diagonally.


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn Looks great...and man then pavers look good too! :thumbup:


----------



## jayhawk

Looks great. I'd encourage anyone who appreciates details, you need to see TG in person (managed like this). Photos don't do the 'micro' details justice

Mine has barely grown vertically ...I ran the trucut as low as I could after 10 days, 1/8" came off maybe in spots (.24 primo 3 weeks ago). It's only seen Feature and SOP in 60 days as inputs.

You seem to prefer straight lines -the curvy bed edging counter....?


----------



## Mightyquinn

jayhawk said:


> Looks great. I'd encourage anyone who appreciates details, you need to see TG in person (managed like this). Photos don't do the 'micro' details justice
> 
> Mine has barely grown vertically ...I ran the trucut as low as I could after 10 days, 1/8" came off maybe in spots (.24 primo 3 weeks ago). It's only seen Feature and SOP in 60 days as inputs.
> 
> You seem to prefer straight lines -the curvy bed edging counter....?


+1 on seeing TifGrand in person, to me if you are going to go REEL LOW there is nothing better out there.

I agree that the top growth with PGR just shuts TifGrand down. It had been 3-4 days since I mowed last and 2 irrigation cycles and I only got a 1.25 baskets worth of clippings, I could barely see where I mowed. I don't think i have ever broke the 1/3 rule since I have had it besides when I scalped on purpose.

I do prefer straight lines nowadays but when I had the curbing installed I was enjoying the curves and thought it would help break things up a little. Now I have a little of both


----------



## HungrySoutherner

Mightyquinn said:


> It has been very dry here since August 23rd which is the last time we had any decent rain. Since then we have had only .1 inches and we just got .12 inches yesterday. So needless to say it's been dry here and I have been using my irrigation about every 3-4 days. I have gone longer between waterings because I was "suppose" to get some rain but obviously that never happened  I have also been using some H2O Maximizer in the Underhill Pellet Pro to hit some of the drier spots in the lawn to help even things out a bit. Right now, I think I just need a good soaking rain from Mother Nature to really help perk up the lawn a little more. Even though it's green and lush right now, there is nothing like a good heavy rain event to help things along.
> 
> About 2.5-3 weeks ago I had some discoloration from some MSMA I applied to get the last bit of weeds that were left so i decided WTH, I will give it a small scalp since it will take about the same amount of time to recover regardless. So I was at .5" HOC at the time and took it down to .4" and I also set the dethatcher attachment on the Baroness at .000" to help remove some dead material in the grass. I have since gone back to .5" and plan to maintain at that HOC for the rest of the season. It took a good 2 weeks to recover since I was getting no rain but it is finally getting back to where it was at. We have been steady in the 80's and 90's since the scalp.
> 
> I have been noticing with the use of PGR that when it starts to wear off that the seed heads start coming back which is usually around 225 GDD. I have been using 250 GDD but think I may back that down some more just to help with the seed heads. I'm still trying to figure out what works best since this is my first season with TifGrand. I have only been using T-Nex so far but will probably throw in some Paclo next season since I do have some on hand.


Looking good. Tifgrand will decide to throw up seed if you look at it wrong, but its also that time of year where it wants to give it onelast shot. I'm noticing some seed head in mine as well. I'm sure others will throw out the word of caution as well but Tifgrand regulates and over regulates super easy. If you start messing with Paclo and Tnex combo make sure you have your big boy pants on because it can get sideways quick. I've monkeyed with a bunch of combos on my Tifgrand this year and had to look at some ugly grass for a good 6 weeks waiting on it to come out of regulation. I know @Thor865 has dialed his combos in pretty good and only mows his Tifgrand 2 x a summer (I'm kidding but just barely).


----------



## Mightyquinn

I have used the Paclo/Tnex combo on the 419 last year and was getting 300 GDD out of it and it pretty much shut it down for growth so I can imagine what it would do with TifGrand. You just have to reduce your rates of both when applying.


----------



## HungrySoutherner

Mightyquinn said:


> I have used the Paclo/Tnex combo on the 419 last year and was getting 300 GDD out of it and it pretty much shut it down for growth so I can imagine what it would do with TifGrand. You just have to reduce your rates of both when applying.


Yeah I locked mine down so bad it was looking rough and that was at stupid low rates. It got grey and started shedding. I was easily getting 300-350 probably 400 gdd but it was sketchy. I bailed out at 350 gdd and scalped it to wake the grass back up and get it growing again. I should have scalped it at 300 gdd to get it moving again.


----------



## Jagermeister

Mightyquinn said:


> I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.
> 
> I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.


Does anyone know if there is a place like Southern Seeds closer to the Atlanta area? Willing to even travel to AL, TN, SC, Western NC. I am struggling to find a place that has this type of selection and competitive pricing.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Try Pestrong/KORUSA. Pestrong

I think they are in your local area and should have a warehouse. I would think there prices would be cheaper since they aren't shipping it. I'm not 100% sure though, just an idea.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I thought I would post my soil test here so everyone who cares can see what I'm working with. I hadn't gotten a soil test since 2019 which I will post for comparison. I do have to say that the results were a little surprising since I added so much Potassium last year. It amazing how my sandy soil just won't hold on to anything really but it's good to see the pH is starting to get up to optimal levels since I haven't really added any Lime in forever 

I keep a log of everything I do to the lawn on my computer so these are the totals of Nitrogen and Potassium from last year.

3.79 lbs/M of Nitrogen for 2021
5.82 lbs/M of Potassium for 2021

Front Yard 2022









Front Yard 2019









Backyard 2022









Backyard 2019









I plan on starting my scalping this weekend to get the season started :thumbup:


----------



## Monocot Master

DoMyOwn was out of Headway G so I ordered it from Winfield. Received it very quickly. I was pretty impressed with their soluble nutrient selections.

https://winproonline.com/collections/water-soluble-plant-nutrition


----------



## Monocot Master

Mightyquinn said:


> I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.
> 
> I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.


DoMyOwn was out of Headway G so I ordered it from Winfield. Received it very quickly. I was pretty impressed with their soluble nutrient selections.

https://winproonline.com/


----------



## Mightyquinn

@Monocot Master yeah, I ordered some Anuew PGR from them earlier this year as I found a 20% off coupon from them. They are definitely another online option for lawn chemicals.


----------



## Monocot Master

I need to collect my soil samples this weekend. Going to try Waypoint. Need to figure out the order process since their platform is not best to say the least


----------



## Mightyquinn

Monocot Master said:


> I need to collect my soil samples this weekend. Going to try Waypoint. Need to figure out the order process since their platform is not best to say the least


I just filled out the sheet for Wilson,NC and sent them a check with the soil samples. It was $16.50 per test, I had the results 1 day after they received my soil. Pretty simple process. I got the S3M test BTW.


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn I am eager to follow along this year! I know you are going to have that TifGrand looking great!


----------



## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn I am eager to follow along this year! I know you are going to have that TifGrand looking great!


Thank You for your interest :thumbup: I hope to get it looking pretty good this year but hope to finally get things zeroed in by next year for sure. Definitely plan on doing at least one sanding this year to help get things smoothed out some more.


----------



## touchofgrass

Mightyquinn said:


> Definitely plan on doing at least one sanding this year to help get things smoothed out some more.


Boo!!!! I already am dreading this sanding project with you. Haha. Thanks for the heads up, MQ!!


----------



## touchofgrass

My account was hacked. I am sorry for the inappropriate signature link.

I have changed my password and corrected my signature.

Thank you to those that told MQ about it.


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn You guys getting any green up with the TifGrand yet?

I am starting to get a little green up today in Eastern NC.

Didn't know if the TifGrand Short HOC was waking up yet?


----------



## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn You guys getting any green up with the TifGrand yet?
> 
> I am starting to get a little green up today in Eastern NC.
> 
> Didn't know if the TifGrand Short HOC was waking up yet?


Yeah I'm getting a little bit of green up but I beat up my lawn pretty good so it's on the thin side so not as much as if I had left it alone I think.

I've been meaning to post an update, I don't have any pictures right now but we all know what a scalped dormant bermuda lawn looks like :lol: It took me a few weeks to get it done but I think I'm done for now. I don't remember ever removing the much material before but there was A LOT over that past few weeks. I am currently down to .200" but I was picking up a lot of sand with the clippings at that height so I have decided to hold off until the lawn thickens up some more. I also laid down 40lbs of lime on the front and on the back yard to help raise the pH some more as per the soil test. So right now I am in a holding pattern and just trying to get all the other things tidied up are the lawn and house for when the lawn is ready to go. I do plan on aerating and taking an asphalt roller over the lawn once everything is starting to green up but that probably won't be until around April.


----------



## Mightyquinn

I want to say thanks to @SGrabs33 for letting me borrow his Plugger Aerator. This thing is SO MUCH better than the Classen or Ryan that you can rent from Home Depot. It's so much easier to use and operate and you don't feel like you are getting beat up while operating it. I feel like it does a much better job too at putting more holes in the lawn. Took me less than a hour to do the whole lawn and then another hour to collect all the cores. @touchofgrass started to collect the cores with a flat/blade rake that I had while was doing the rest of the lawn and then once I finished, I got the Stihl BR600 out to blow them into manageable piles to collect and put out with the yard waste. I feel like the blower is the way to go as it leaves a cleaner product when you are done.

Since my last post all I have done is mow the lawn about a week and a half ago and I have applied 1 lb/M of Potassium and .3 lbs/M Nitrogen. Looks like the temps are starting to go in the right direction finally so it shouldn't be too long before it's starting to take off. I am probably around 60-70% greened up right now. Just anxious to get this season going as I am curious how it will turn out.

Hopefully if everything works out tomorrow I will be able to show what Step 2 looks like. Here are some pictures of the after effects.


----------



## Ware

Looking good MQ. :thumbup:


----------



## SGrabs33

Glad it could come in handy. Lawn looks as good as always!!!


----------



## Mightyquinn

SGrabs33 said:


> Glad it could come in handy. Lawn looks as good as always!!!





Ware said:


> Looking good MQ. :thumbup:


Thank You gentlemen for the kind words :thumbup:

Part 2 to this whole plan was to rent an Asphalt Roller and go over the lawn to help smooth it out some more and push down a few minor high spots that I have. I called the rental place and they said the trailer they have won't work since it is currently raining today (which would have been perfect for the job). He said the roller would slide off the deck since it's one of those tilt trailers which I didn't factor in to the equation. I still plan on doing this eventually, maybe later in the season as I want to really see how well it will work at smoothing things out.

I will probably just aerate the high spots again and then go over the whole lawn with the level rake and then wait for the lawn to get into gear and do a sand leveling sooner rather than later.


----------



## Mightyquinn

So, Part 2 of my plan is permanently on hold as I may go another direction and it looks like my soil is already firm enough and can't be compacted too much more. Just the logistics of getting an asphalt roller and spending the $400 to "try" it out didn't seem worth it. I did rent a plate compactor from Home Depot to see what kind of results I could get from that and it was less than impressed with it as it did little to nothing on the lawn. So I decided to say screw it and was planning on leveling the lawn with sand 2 weeks ago when it was suppose to be nice and cool outside in the 70's but we also had high percentages of rain in forecast so decided to wait it out. I still had the aerator so I went over the lawn again last weekend to punch fresh holes in the lawn and help loosen it up a bit more as I feel like my soil is very compacted and firm which is a blessing and curse as it will take a few years for it to loosen up a bit more since it is basically all sand. I need to add that using this Plugr/Billy Goat aerator is a night and day difference between the Classen/Ryan aerator they rent at Home Depot. It is SO MUCH easier to use and does a better job and you don't feel all beat up after using it. They are definitely the way to when it comes to aerating a lawn.

Well, I ordered 8 yds of masonry sand from the local sand supplier for $197 delivered and they delivered it on Friday. I get off work early on Friday's so myself and TOG(Touch of Grass) started getting to work on the sand about 3:00 pm and put about 3 hours of work in before calling it a night and decided to start fresh the next morning. With the sun going down it was taking longer for the sand to dry out and make it more manageable to spread out. We started again about 9:00 am the next morning and finally were all finished up around 4:00pm with taking breaks and lunch.

Our process was basically me filling the garden cart up with sand, with it attached to a JD riding mower borrowed from the neighbors, and then I would take it to spots in the lawn where TOG would dump the cart and then rinse and repeat. While I was filling the next cart up, TOG would be knocking the sand piles down with a come-a-long(concrete rake) after dumping several cart loads, I would go and switch out the garden cart for the drag mat and drag out the piles so they could dry out in the sun and heat. Oh, I need to add that it was in the mid 90's both days while doing this so that didn't help any except for drying out the sand faster. Dry sand spreads so much easier and nicer than wet sand does but there isn't much you can do about it when the sand is stored outside. It does seem like the sand I get from this place does hold onto moisture quite well for what it's worth. I feel like we did a pretty good job all together and I'm anxious to see the final results as I think I got most of the low spots and everything should be pretty close to smooth and level. Don't get me wrong, the lawn was already in decent shape but it can always be smoother. I forgot to mention that I have been maintaining the lawn at .300" and I just mowed it on Monday before the leveling, I probably should have mowed again before starting but didn't think it would make much difference.


























































































I will try and update this thread weekly with the progress of the lawn growing through the sand. I'm hoping for about mid June for it to be almost back to normal and I can finally start some PGR.


----------



## ENC_Lawn

@Mightyquinn WOW...at the maintaining at .300. That's awesome. How often will you be cutting the lawn with TifGrand at that HOC?

Looking great as always! :thumbup:


----------



## Mightyquinn

ENC_Lawn said:


> @Mightyquinn WOW...at the maintaining at .300. That's awesome. How often will you be cutting the lawn with TifGrand at that HOC?
> 
> Looking great as always! :thumbup:


Thank You,

From my experience last year with just T-Nex, I was mowing twice a week but not really taking much off with each mow. I plan on adding Aneuw and eventually Paclo to the mix to really lock it in. I will probably still mow twice a week but I guess time will tell.


----------



## HungrySoutherner

Mightyquinn said:


> ENC_Lawn said:
> 
> 
> 
> @Mightyquinn WOW...at the maintaining at .300. That's awesome. How often will you be cutting the lawn with TifGrand at that HOC?
> 
> Looking great as always! :thumbup:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank You,
> 
> From my experience last year with just T-Nex, I was mowing twice a week but not really taking much off with each mow. I plan on adding Aneuw and eventually Paclo to the mix to really lock it in. I will probably still mow twice a week but I guess time will tell.
Click to expand...

I can tell you if you use edgeless or Cutless and Tnex you can shut Tifgrand down for 4 weeks and mow twice the whole time.


----------



## Mightyquinn

HungrySoutherner said:


> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ENC_Lawn said:
> 
> 
> 
> @Mightyquinn WOW...at the maintaining at .300. That's awesome. How often will you be cutting the lawn with TifGrand at that HOC?
> 
> Looking great as always! :thumbup:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank You,
> 
> From my experience last year with just T-Nex, I was mowing twice a week but not really taking much off with each mow. I plan on adding Aneuw and eventually Paclo to the mix to really lock it in. I will probably still mow twice a week but I guess time will tell.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I can tell you if you use edgeless or Cutless and Tnex you can shut Tifgrand down for 4 weeks and mow twice the whole time.
Click to expand...

I'm anxious to see how Aneuw works with seedhead suppression and I'm really not looking into shutting it down until everything is looking really good but I will keep that in mind. Looks like Cutless isn't cheap :lol:


----------



## Falcon64

How's this 22 season going?? My second year with TifGrand has been a battle against seed heads.


----------



## Humbert810

Mightyquinn said:


> HungrySoutherner said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mightyquinn said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank You,
> 
> From my experience last year with just T-Nex, I was mowing twice a week but not really taking much off with each mow. I plan on adding Aneuw and eventually Paclo to the mix to really lock it in. I will probably still mow twice a week but I guess time will tell.
> 
> 
> 
> I can tell you if you use edgeless or Cutless and Tnex you can shut Tifgrand down for 4 weeks and mow twice the whole time.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I'm anxious to see how Aneuw works with seedhead suppression and I'm really not looking into shutting it down until everything is looking really good but I will keep that in mind. Looks like Cutless isn't cheap :lol:
Click to expand...

Not sure how I haven't seen your journal before but love the progress and the flagpole looks GREAT


----------



## typed by ben

spying that mini split on the shed.......


----------



## Mightyquinn

Falcon64 said:


> How's this 22 season going?? My second year with TifGrand has been a battle against seed heads.


It's been going and kind of interesting to say the least. After the leveling the lawn, it was slow to fill in so I kept hitting it with Nitrogen but got minimal results. Finally figured out it was a fungus(most likely Anthracnose) so I sprayed some fungicide on it and the lawn bounced back within a few days plus we finally got some much needed rain. Now, I am dealing with some weed pressure since I didn't apply any pre emergent this Spring as I wanted the lawn to knit together as I think I applied it too early and too heavy last year as it never seem to tack down really well. I just sprayed some MSMA and Certainty and that definitely took some color out of the lawn.

I am currently mowing at .400" every 4 days or so and only filling about 2 grass catchers full of clippings. I know once I get things dialed in it won't be a whole lot of maintenance as the TifGrand seems to be easy to care for especially with reel mowing.

I agree the seed heads are an issue but can be mitigated with some PGR and making sure it's getting enough Nitrogen. I've noticed that the spots where my dog didn't pee in here designated spot tend to stay greener and never have any seed heads. When I had the fungus it was seed heads everywhere and after I sprayed they all went away after about a week. I starting to think that Tifgrand will throw seed heads when there is something wrong but it's up to you to figure it out.



Humbert810 said:


> Not sure how I haven't seen your journal before but love the progress and the flagpole looks GREAT


Yeah, I have been slacking on updating this year as it's been kind of hectic around here. I too really love the flag pole and it's so much nicer than the tree I use to have there! 



typed by ben said:


> spying that mini split on the shed.......


LOL!!! I need to do a post about that too and the shed!! It's so nice after mowing to go in the shed and cool off in nice 70F weather year around  Just FYI, It's a Mr. Cool 12,000 BTU HVAC I ordered from Home Depot and installed it with just me and my wife (Touch of Grass).


----------



## jayhawk

typed by ben said:


> spying that mini split on the shed.......


Good eye. I just had a 12k Mitsubishi...mid tier (24 seer?)for my over insulated basement. Would be interested in knowing more, how they hold up over time etc


----------



## Falcon64

Thanks for the Update! I fortunately have been able to work on the East Coast this Spring/Summer so I threw another 2.5k sq ft of Ken's TifGrand on my front yard a couple weeks ago; so I typically referenced back to your journal for prep and yard goals with the same cultivar. I've noticed my TifGrand is a bit of a waterhog and likes a balanced fert diet &#128514;. Whats your go to aerated?


----------



## JRS 9572

@Falcon64 and @Mightyquinn 
That's my only complaint with TifGrand in my 7th summer with it. Seed heads. They start before it's really time to put down PGR, and they eventually go away. But it's a battle. I love it otherwise. And you guys are right. You put the TNex to it. The vertical growth almost completely shuts down. I'm talking 2,000 square feet 3 days after previous cut. You may have 2" of clippings in the Tru Cut grass catcher.


----------



## Mightyquinn

Falcon64 said:


> Thanks for the Update! I fortunately have been able to work on the East Coast this Spring/Summer so I threw another 2.5k sq ft of Ken's TifGrand on my front yard a couple weeks ago; so I typically referenced back to your journal for prep and yard goals with the same cultivar. I've noticed my TifGrand is a bit of a waterhog and likes a balanced fert diet 😂. Whats your go to aerated?


Not sure I exactly know what the question is? "My go to aerated?" I tend to feed my TG more Potassium than Nitrogen on an annual basis but my Potassium is on the low end and I collect my clippings so I give it around 1 lbs of K a month with Potassium Nitrate. As far as the water hog issue, I have not really noticed that as it doesn't seem to require any more water than my old 419 did and once it's established I think it may even use less but that's just from my casual observation.



JRS 9572 said:


> @Falcon64 and @Mightyquinn
> That's my only complaint with TifGrand in my 7th summer with it. Seed heads. They start before it's really time to put down PGR, and they eventually go away. But it's a battle. I love it otherwise. And you guys are right. You put the TNex to it. The vertical growth almost completely shuts down. I'm talking 2,000 square feet 3 days after previous cut. You may have 2" of clippings in the Tru Cut grass catcher.


Yes, I agree that the seed heads are the only downside to TifGrand but in all reality they are not that bad as I have noticed if you keep it fed with Nitrogen and put some PGR on it that really knocks out almost all the seed heads. I am hitting mine with the Trifecta(T-Nex, Anuew and Paclo) and getting about 250-275 GDD out of the application. I think I can push 300 GDD but I will have to wait and see on that as my last application got messed up with some unexpected rain shortly after application so I had to reapply the T-Nex and Anuew.

Other than the seed head issue I can't see another bermuda cultivar that is better to reel mow and maintain under .5". The color is amazing and it doesn't seem to get puffy and want to scalp like 419. To me, TifGrand on it's bad days is almost as good as 419 is on it's good days.


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## Victor Von Lawn

Got here from another post.... I really like the paver border. I am considering something like that, but not bricks, but larger square pavers. That should halve the number needed and speed the process.


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