# Buchanan's 2020 Front Lawn Reno & Journal



## Jdotbuch (Aug 11, 2020)

I logged my 2020 Lawn Reno mostly for myself but completed it online for anyone I wanted to share this information with. It has been very useful as I was able to get a few insights along the way.

Now that I have completed my lawn renovation, I'll start with an after post-completion shot.

_Oct. 31, 2020_







*Journal Start*

Bought house in late 2018

Spent the 2019 season getting acquainted with lawn care and the positives and negatives of my existing lawn

Threw Down some pre-emergent in the spring

Fert End of spring

More Fert in the Fall

Didn't experience much crabgrass but some other broadleaf friends, sedges, Kalinga, and some bunching grassy weeds

For 2020, I geared up for a more intense schedule of selective herbicides, Macro and Micro Ferts, Fungicides, and Insect control

Got the lawn looking great in the spring and not bad for the summer

Could not help but becoming picky about the plethora of weedy grasses I just couldn't get rid of with a non-selective herbicide. The lawn looked pretty good from a distance, but up close I was seeing all the inconsistencies. Think bunching and non-bunching fescues just make a target-based approach unreachable.

After taking in a lot of information, it seems that trying to correct the issues would likely end up spending a lot of money and time to never be fully satisfied and eventually embarking on a lawn reno. I decided with all the at-home hours this year, it made sense to do it now, and here we are...

*Lawn Renovation 2020*

Before shot - Lawn in Spring of 2020








Soil Test - Completed a soil test before putting down Glypho. The results were decent. I was a bit low on P and K.

2 Weeks After Glypho shot - 8/20/20








Post Scalping & Power Rake - 8/24/20








​
Preparing the Bed

I have a lot of soil exposed but I would like to complete some leveling. The soil is not overly compacted and it doesn't seem I need to aerate. I did purchase a leveling rake. I am on the fence between the following options and welcome recommendations.


tilling and leveling - will it bring up seeds, make for an even more unlevel bed than it is already? will it be too hard to level?

scarifying and leveling - will it loosen the dirt enough and be hard to level?

putting on some screened soil and compost mix then leveling and spraying with Meso - would be the easiest but is there enough time left will it take me too far into Sept.

Leveling 8/27/20 - I went with option 3 and rolled it. Completed over two days where I had time. I will let it 'fallow' as long as I can. (Advice was taken from a commenter below) I limited the amount of topsoil I brought in. Most of the suppliers that delivered said their minimum is 6 cubic yards, which would have been fine if they had better screening. I had a funny conversation with one about rocks of an unspecified size and a rationalization mentioned about drainage. I didn't seek perfection and just went after the larger dips with about 1.5 cubic yards I picked up from the orange box store.

I may be able to let it fallow longer if I go with more of a Rye yard. I am including a question and response I got back from Barenbrug. (trying to keep my decision affecting notes in one place)

Q: What % ratio should 'Turf Blue Pro' be mixed with 'Turf Atar RPR'? will a 10-pound bag of each cover 2000 square feet, with some extra leftover for fixes
A: _Mixing these two products in equal parts will be plenty to cover 2,000 square feet. Combined, the seeding rate would then be about 5 pounds per thousand square feet.

The ratio of the mixture ultimately depends on the type of turfgrass experience you are looking for. Do you prefer the benefits of one product more than the other? Do you live in an environment outside of the ideal zones for each species? Low ryegrass/high bluegrass is often used to give a jump start in establishment while retaining more bluegrass qualities down the road. This also makes the mixture more affordable to the end user. High ryegrass/low bluegrass often means the end user wants more of a ryegrass lawn, but may live in areas that are stressful to ryegrass, meaning the bluegrass is there to fill in thin areas, or at least prevent a total loss of turf during extreme seasons. This mixture may also be used in typical ryegrass growing parts of the world that want to see more turfgrass recovery and/or traction through bluegrass rhizome production, but environmental/economical factors limit larger amounts of bluegrass to be utilized.

One of the major concerns of mixing these two species has been texture differences. Thankfully these bluegrass genetics have progressed over time to become finer textured, or with thinner leaf blades, meaning they now mix much better alongside ryegrass._

Fallow Period - 8/27 - 9/9/20

As recommended and from reading through a number of different sources. Allowing the bed to fallow after leveling for about 2 weeks seemed like the best way to reduce weeds from the topsoil I brought in and in my native soil.

I was going to spray on the 10th but we were expecting heavy rains. I was able to spray about 12 hours before the rain came.

Sprinkler Calibration ;

I used the fallow period to test and calibrate my sprinklers for even coverage. I believe the extra water is good for fallowing. I felt it was also a good time to replace a few heads that seemed old and had questionable water dispersion.
I used these little spiked measuring cups, placing 10 all over my lawn to compare rates. I had 3 heads overlapping the same area, so I adjusted those and removed the overlap. I never sought perfection with even rates, but I want to make sure some areas weren't soaking while other areas were getting spritzed.

I found many useful Youtube videos for how to replace sprinkler heads, valves, and fix lines.










Seeding - 9/12/20

On the morning of the 12th I sacrificed to loosen the top half-inch of soil. Gave it a hard raking and a little bit of a leveling.
I put down the Barenbrug RPR at about 70% and 30% Barenbrug True Blue(based on coverage, not weight).

Seed down image







I put down a 3-18-18 fertilizer. All that I had read said you don't need much nitrogen for germination. Also, my soil test had shown I was low in P and K.

RPR Germination - 9/17/20
I saw germination on the 5th day. Here's a photo from 9/18.








9/21/20 - Not sure I have seen any of the *** come up yet.








9/27/20 - First Cut - with a Scotts 14 inch manual reel

I know 2 weeks after seed down is early, but I already hade Ryegrass at 3 inches in some areas and didn't want to choke our the little baby ***'s. Also, all the guys with Youtube channels do it, just with a light manual reel, not a regular mower.

I wasn't expecting to get a little striping action







10/03/20 - Second Cut - with a Scotts 14 inch manual reel

Three weeks following seed down
















10/09/20 - Third Cut - with my Troy Built 160 with Checkmate striper

It is so soft it somewhat makes me want to take a nap on it. For insight on how soft it is, you can see my footprints from walking behind the mower. I eventually figured out that if a walked on the uncut part of the grass, the footprints would not be visible.















*Journal End* - 11/1/2020

I am super happy with the result. There we a couple of spots that took a bit longer to fill in, and I had a couple of yellow areas that I guessed the grass was not as mature. I spot treated with some new grass fert, humic acid, and micronutrients and they greened up to match the rest of the grass in about a week.

Let's hope all goes well with dormancy over the winter and it comes out strong in the spring. I have winter fertilized with leftovers I had from the year.


----------



## Zcape35 (Sep 17, 2019)

No matter what you do you are going to have to fallow for a couple weeks, unless you just put seed down without doing any leveling and even then a bit of fallowing would be good. I would get leveling asap if that's a goal of yours.
How unlevel is it? If it's only a few spots you could bring in some topsoil, level it out and then fallow for as long as you can without pushing the seed down date too far out.


----------



## Jdotbuch (Aug 11, 2020)

Thanks. It is not very unlevel. In a few spots there's a couple dips. I mostly wanted to use this opportunity to improve the level. I will see if I can get a delivery tomorrow.


----------

