# Ken-n-Nancy's Lawn Journal 2018-19 - "War on Triv"



## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

This thread is intended to document our 2018 Front Lawn Renovation. Before getting in to the log of what we're doing, though, a little background is probably in order...

As of 2015, we had completed renovations of all of our lawn areas over the course of the prior 3 years:

2013 Front Lawn Renovation (Northern Mix)
2014 Back Lawn Renovation (Fine Fescue / Prosperity KBG Mix)
2015 Side Yard Renovation (Bewitched KBG)
In 2016, we did some unexpected mini-renovations due to septic tank replacement and an oil spill from an electrical transformer.

In 2017, we commenced a war on _poa trivialis_, which is hopefully now reaching the turning point with this fall's renovation of the front lawn!

We've been planning this front lawn renovation for about a year. Our desired result is a front lawn of dark green, compact Kentucky bluegrass which self-repairs from winter damage and is free of weeds, particularly _poa trivialis_.

We actually have three different renovation projects going on this year:

1 - Front lawn renovation to a 50/50 blend of Bewitched and Prosperity Kentucky bluegrass on a total of about 5300sqft. The prior front lawn had been a northern mix, which got us started on our lawn care hobby, but in which we were starting to have trouble with _poa trivialis_.

2 - Side lawn patch repairs of about 350sqft to the Bewitched KBG monostand. The bare spots were the result of a combination of (a) killing off _poa trivialis_ patches and (b) transplanting sod to repair other _poa trivialis_ patches in other areas of the lawn.

3 - Front driveway-side lawn experiment to see if the fine fescue in a northern mix can be mostly eliminated by the use of Tenacity at 8oz/acre dosages. We are also experimenting with a KBG overseed into this northern mix at the same time even though my past experience with overseeding KBG into a dense northern mix has always been ineffective.

We'll talk about each of these projects in this thread. Hopefully it won't be too confusing to have the different mini-projects interspersed. Please feel free to provide encouragement, ask questions, or hurl ridicule at our attempts, odd approaches, and mistakes!

Below: Front lawn on 1-year anniversary (9 Oct 2014) after prior renovation (fall 2013).


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

In 2016, we had been pretty happy with the front lawn. Even though it was a northern mix, our front lawn had excellent color, was thick, and earned us the reputation on the street as "the people with 'the lawn.'" Just mowing, fertilizing, and controlling weeds was a sufficient hobby.

Below: front lawn on 2016-09-07:









However, what we hadn't anticipated would be the devastation caused by the truck that delivered our new septic tank getting stuck in the soft soil of our front lawn on 2016-10-05:









Due to the late date in the fall of the septic tank installation (October 5th) combined with our comparatively early autumn in New Hampshire (our average first frost is September 26th), we weren't able to get much new seed established before the winter of 2016-17.

Our seed-down date was October 11th:









And we had the first of many autumn hard frosts just four days later on October 15th:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

What we didn't realize at the time was that somewhen during the next six months, maybe due to our very late fall "germination watering," or maybe our spring sowing of more seed in that area along with early spring watering and no pre-emergent on those areas of the front lawn, that _poa trivialis_ found its way into our front lawn.

It didn't look so bad from the street, but there were some pretty significant _poa trivialis_ patches. They're not easy to see in the photo below, but if you look carefully, you can see the light green patches in quite a few places near the large tree in the middle of the lawn.









Knowing that the only way to get rid of the _poa trivialis_ permanently was spraying with glyphosate, that's exactly what we did:









Interestingly enough, about a week after spraying glyphosate on the _poa trivialis_ patches and an area about 8 inches further around the patch, the "good grass" looks quite dead, but the _poa trivialis_ takes a fair bit longer to succumb to the glyphosate:


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## Mdos (Jul 17, 2018)

Looking forward to this! Best of luck!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

At this point, you're probably wondering what in the world we were going to do about all those dead patches?

Well, another project we'd had in mind was to remedy recurring challenges with maintaining the grass immediately against the roadside. We have pretty harsh winters here in NH, at least compared to most of the USA. (But quite similar to those those in Minnesota, Michigan, and the Adirondacks in New York.) The last couple feet of lawn nearest the road suffers from snowplow and salt damage every spring. We had tried maintaining turf all the way to the edge of the asphalt, but it was a losing battle.

Below: Roadside edge next to driveway on 2017-10-04.









Below: Far roadside edge on 2017-10-04.









Quite a few years earlier, on the short roadside edge on the other side of our driveway, we had laid a border of cobblestones (more accurately, Belgian block) to separate the lawn from the road, with a sacrificial dirt/gravel "nitpack" area between the cobblestones and the road which would just remain a "shoulder" that is free of vegetation.

We liked the way this looked and found that it wasn't too difficult to keep the grass growing right up to the cobblestone edge. Each winter, road salt/sand would end up in the sacrificial area which would make it a pretty inhospitable environment for weeds. A little bit of hand weeding or glyphosate kept that "sand & gravel" area looking desolately bleak.

Below: Laying the cobblestone road border on the other side of the driveway in 2014.









Below: The short cobblestone road border in 2017.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Our plan was to use the sod from the roadside edge to fill all the now-killed _poa trivialis_ patches in the lawn.

To do that, we rented a sod cutter to cut out the long strip of sod along the road for the length of our road frontage, and to cut the dead sod out of all the _poa trivialis_ patches.



















However, while we were at it, we also wanted to fix a "too-high" area along the road that wasn't graded properly when the front lawn was renovated in 2013. The plan for this area was to lower that section of lawn by cutting the sod off the top, then excavating a couple inches of soil, and finally putting the sod back again. One would think that isn't too difficult of a task with a sod cutter, but it turned out to be a lot more work than we envisioned!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

However, what we had not anticipated was that we had *too many poa trivialis patches*! The sod we cut out from the roadside border wasn't enough to fill in all the dead spots.

In hindsight, this turned out to be a good thing, as we ended up having two different approaches for battling the _poa trivialis_:

1 - spray glyphosate on dead patch, replace with transplanted sod, or

2 - spray glyphosate on dead patch, allow to "fallow" until next year.​
We ended up learning that either approach worked, except that "option 1" resulted in a repaired _poa trivialis_ patch by the end of the following spring which was practically indistinguishable from the rest of the lawn. We've since decided that this will be our technique for dealing with future _poa trivialis_ patches, but more on that later...


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

We then spent a lot of the remaining time before winter laying cobblestones. We knew we would love the way this would turn out as we had done the other side of the driveway a few years prior. However, this was a huge investment of time.

Ken is quite detail-oriented, so getting each cobblestone properly straight, level, and set on a firm-packed base so that it won't shift excessively during a New Hampshire winter took about 10 minutes each.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

There ended up being 164 cobblestones in that line of blocks.

Ken didn't get the last one set in place until the 2nd of December.


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## GrassFarmer (Sep 21, 2017)

If you did that around here the snow plow would have them all rolled up in the yard lol.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

These photos record the condition of the lawn on the last day before spraying glyphosate.

The lawn shows a lot of summer stress as we'd neglected the lawn a fair bit in the month or so leading up to this time because we knew we'd be killing it all off...

We are planning to regularly capture these three views during the course of the renovation.

Mailbox View as of 2018-07-27:









Lamp Post View as of 2018-07-27:









Far End as of 2018-07-27:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

This is the "day of no return." The evening before, I had cut the lawn to a 3.25" height - one notch (a half-inch) lower than the height at which I had been maintaining the lawn during July.

Killing off the lawn is a bittersweet occasion.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

GrassFarmer said:


> If you did that around here the snow plow would have them all rolled up in the yard lol.


Yup!

That is a real concern. After the ground is frozen hard, they're not going anywhere, even if the plow blade hits them -- the blade will just ride up on top of them.

However, before the ground is frozen, any granite blocks that are above grade are vulnerable to being disturbed by the plow. Our solution to that was to put "driveway markers" a few inches outside of the cobblestones. (Between the blocks and the road.) The plow operators in Bedford seem to be very good -- they will plow within an inch or two of the markers but (usually) avoid them.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Three days after the glyphosate was sprayed, I did an initial lowering of the height-of-cut from the pre-glyphosate height of 3.25" to a height of 2.25" as there would be a lot of grass to remove and I didn't want to take it all off in one go, as I've had trouble with that in the past.

Notice how the effects of the glyphosate are more pronounced in the sunnier areas. Even though the grass in the shade is just as doomed as that in the sun, the grass browns more quickly in the sunny spots.

Mailbox View as of 2018-07-31:









Lamp Post View as of 2018-07-31:









Far End as of 2018-07-31:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Five days after the glyphosate, death's irreversible approach is unmistakeable.

Dying grass sure stripes nice, though!

Mailbox View as of 2018-08-02:









Lamp Post View as of 2018-08-02:









Far End as of 2018-08-02:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Following the prior set of photos, our family went on vacation for a couple weeks. When we returned, the dead grass had become matted down too much in order to easily scalp it at our planned 1.25" cut height.

We first "fluffed up" the matted grass using a leaf blower for most of the lawn. In some particularly stubborn areas, we needed to resort to using a rake to fluff up the grass which had been matted down with nearly 5" of thunderstorms in the prior two weeks. After fluffing the grass up, we scalped it all down to a 1.25" height in preparation for seeding.

Over the course of the next couple days, we shaved the topsoil off some high areas and used it to fill in some low spots to make the lawn surface a little more level.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

At long last -- about 10 months after spraying glyphosate on the _poa trivialis_ patches, it's finally *seed-down day*!

Today we started out by making an additional pass of glyphosate on any areas which seemed like they may have had some just-germinating weeds. Spread a 50/50 Bewitched/Prosperity seed blend across the entire front lawn, rolled in the seed, sprayed Tenacity at a 4oz/acre rate (0.55tsp/ksqft), spread peat moss on the bare soil areas, and started "germination watering" to just wet the top surface of the soil six times a day (at 7:30am, 10am, noon, 2pm, 4pm, and 6:30pm.)

Now the waiting begins with prayers that any summer thunderstorms and accompanying downpours stay away from us for at least 7 days and hopefully 10-14 days!

Mailbox View as of 2018-08-26:









Lamp Post View as of 2018-08-26:









Far End as of 2018-08-26:









Airplane Rock as of 2018-08-26:


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## SNOWBOB11 (Aug 31, 2017)

Nice. Nothing like killing off the best lawn in the neighbourhood. Looking forward to updates on how it goes for you. Love the pavers that you installed too. Great idea to deal with the problem with the snow plow.


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## Vito (Aug 27, 2018)

I can already tell this thread is going to be epic. Best of luck Ken-n-Nancy, I'm definitely following this one.


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## rob13psu (May 20, 2018)

This is going to be good. Following!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

We now have _*baby grass*_!

Baby Grass on 2018-08-31:









Germination is really only visible in a few of the areas that had the most peat moss - presumably those areas retained moisture better than areas without the peat moss coverage. The bulk of the lawn did not have peat moss applied, but is instead relying upon the dead, scalped grass to provide some moisture retention. We've had success with that approach in the past, but it's always a bit nerve-wracking to be sowing seed into dead grass, never being quite sure if the seed is getting the right conditions to germinate.

I can't _*see*_ any significant germination in the areas of old, dead grass, but am hoping there is some germination going on there that just can't be seen under the old grass.

With seasonably cool temperatures in the forecast for the coming Labor Day weekend (daytime highs in the 70s and overnight lows in the 50s) hopefully we'll get more germination and maybe enough growth from the baby grass that we'll be able to see those tender, young blades peeking up above the old, brown grass!

Below are the standard photos from this morning...

Mailbox View as of 2018-08-31:









Lamp Post View as of 2018-08-31:









Far End as of 2018-08-31:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

SNOWBOB11 said:


> Nice. Nothing like killing off the best lawn in the neighbourhood. Looking forward to updates on how it goes for you. Love the pavers that you installed too. Great idea to deal with the problem with the snow plow.


 Thanks for the encouragement for the thread and the appreciation of the granite blocks. They were a lot of work but we like the way they look and they've held up well where we've installed them previously.



Vito said:


> I can already tell this thread is going to be epic. Best of luck Ken-n-Nancy, I'm definitely following this one.





rob13psu said:


> This is going to be good. Following!


Oh boy, now the pressure's on to keep regular updates coming and hopefully have this renovation turn out to be a success!

In our prior renovations, washout from thunderstorms has been the bane of our efforts. Today is now the 7th day since seed-down, and, thankfully, still no rain. Yay!

If we can have 7 more days with no rain, we'll have no excuses!


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## llO0DQLE (Dec 4, 2017)

Wow you guys have been busy! Looking forward to how this turns out. I know you've had challenges in the past - disease, damage etc. I'm hoping for a smooth sailing reno for you guys this time.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

We were away for a 4-day Labor Day weekend, during which we trusted upon the automatic sprinkler system to take care of the baby grass and continuing seed germination. One of the first things Ken wanted to do, even with our 9pm return, was to rush outside with a flashlight and check to see how germination coverage is doing on the lawn! Seems hopeful!

Even more importantly, when we returned from our mini-vacation, we found that the rain gauge was still bone dry! No washouts so far this year! (Our past renovations have all endured significant washouts to complicate matters.) We've been very blessed by no rain in the 10 days since seed-down. Definitely a longer-than-average dry spell for late August in NH which has come at the perfect time for our front lawn renovation.

Coverage is looking pretty good. We clearly have good coverage in the previously bare areas. We seem to have pretty good germination in the thinner dead grass areas. It's hard to tell if we have good germination coverage in the thicker dead grass areas -- can't really tell if there's baby grass growing in there that just hasn't grown tall enough to get above the old dead grass, or if there's poor germination there. In any case, we'll just have to keep waiting and praying!



llO0DQLE said:


> Wow you guys have been busy! Looking forward to how this turns out. I know you've had challenges in the past - disease, damage etc. I'm hoping for a smooth sailing reno for you guys this time.


 Thanks for the encouragement -- if our reno produces half the results that your spring renovation has this year, we'll be in great shape!

Now, the photos. First, a close-up of one of the bare spots, and then the standard three photos. It's easier to see the grass in the previously-bare areas, as the light green baby grass doesn't show up as well against the tan background of the old dead grass.

Closeup of Previously Bare Patch on 2018-09-04:









Mailbox View as of 2018-09-04:









Lamp Post View as of 2018-09-04:









Far End as of 2018-09-04:


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## Sinclair (Jul 25, 2017)

Oh yeah, it's happening now! :banana:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

We're now just one day shy of 2 weeks. The "no rain" weather conditions have continued, although the last three days have been hot and humid for September in New Hampshire -- three days of highs in the low 90s, with overnight temps around 70F with a dew point around 70F, too! We did receive about 0.05 inches of natural rain last night, but that's really not enough to even count. So thankful that we've not had to deal with any washout issues this time around!

It's nice taking the photos every few days, as it helps us be encouraged with progress, and also lets us compare our status to that of prior awesome KBG renovations. (Yes @Pete1313, we're thinking of you!) Being able to compare what our lawn looks like now compared to what Pete's looked like at about the same time (Day 15 at https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=436&start=220#p18020) is helpful to provide a reference point. In sum, it seems like we're on a similar pace, which is VERY encouraging to us!

It's still hard to tell if we have good germination coverage in the thicker dead grass areas -- we're going to presume that the new baby grass is there, nestled down in the old grass, partly because we don't know what we could do about it at this time anyway -- if the dead grass is too thick in those areas and has impeded germination, then just broadcasting more seed now over the top won't really help without clearing out more of the old dead grass, and there's no way we could clear out the old grass without killing any new baby grass that has germinated in those places! So, we're just going to stay the course that we're on, because the other options are all so unpalatable.

In any case, on to the photos...

Mailbox View as of 2018-09-07 (Day 13):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-09-07 (Day 13):









Far End as of 2018-09-07 (Day 13):


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

We're now just one day past 2 weeks. We've had two days of cooler temperatures (highs in the 70s-80s, with overnight lows in the 50s), and an even cooler night (mid-40s) forecast for tonight. We also have an anticipated rain deluge starting tomorrow afternoon, with forecasted rainfall of 2-3 inches in 24 hours. As a result, our impression is what has germinated is what we'll have and anything that hasn't germinated will likely wash away.

I'm still worried about coverage in the areas that had the thickest grass previously. It appears that I probably didn't clear out enough of the old grass in the previously-thickest sections. I mowed to 1.25" but that may not have been enough, at least for the areas that were very thick with dead grass. However, there is some new Bewitched + Prosperity spread sparsely throughout even those thick dead grass sections, so I'm hoping we'll be okay after spring spreading gets a chance. There definitely isn't anything more we can do about it now, anyway, so we'll just have to stay the course until spring. (Raking the dead grass out of those areas would rake out all the seedlings, too, so we can't do that, especially since we're basically out of time to re-seed with our average first frost being Sept 26.)

This photo update is primarily to provide comparison against other renovations at the 15-day mark.

Mailbox View as of 2018-09-09 (Day 15):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-09-09 (Day 15):









Far End as of 2018-09-09 (Day 15):


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

Looks good!

Have you begun the high rate Tenacity/fine fescue suppression experiment yet? If so, what specifications are you using for your mix and application?


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Green said:


> Have you begun the high rate Tenacity/fine fescue suppression experiment yet? If so, what specifications are you using for your mix and application?


Thanks for asking about the high rate Tenacity / fine fescue experiment. I've been delinquent in regard to posting about that, even though the experiment is ongoing and I have been taking some pictures along the way. I've also realized that I probably shouldn't have really called it an "experiment" as there's no scientific aspect to it -- no control, no separate patches with different application rates and intervals, and no careful measurements of relative success.

The quick summary is that the results so far have been not what I had expected. Nonetheless, I'll at least explain what I've done, and how it's going. I'll probably have to split my write-up into a couple different posts and might not be able to finish them all tonight.

The area being "experimented" upon is approximately 1500sqft on the "other side" of the driveway. This area was seeded in a northern mix (PRG, FF, KBG) in the fall of 2013. It is primarily shaded until about 9am in the morning, but gets good mid-day and afternoon sun. The area nearest the road gets the most sun.

Each spring the area nearest to the road develops significant bare spots from what I think is a combination of winterkill and road salt, primarily affecting the PRG as far as I can tell. These bare spots get filled in by KBG over the course of the spring and summer, so that by fall, there is an ever-increasing amount of KBG in that area, with the exception of patches of fine fescue, which go dormant in the summer. (The fine fescue in my lawn may look fragile and goes dormant in the heat of the summer, but it is one tough grass that doesn't seem to be killed by anything, and comes roaring back each fall once the temperatures cool off enough.) Accordingly, after five years, the area nearest to the road is primarily KBG, but still with a fair bit of fine fescue intermingled.

The issue I have is that during July and August, the fine fescue largely goes dormant, resulting in a brown "understory" of fine fescue below the thriving KBG grass that loves the New Hampshire summer. The effect this has upon the visual appearance of the lawn is that when I mow the lawn, the brown "understory" gives the lawn a brownish color. However, as the KBG grows taller in the days following mowing, the lawn looks pretty good right before it is cut. Below is a photo of the area right before mowing on July 27th of this year. Looking across the grass from this angle, all that is seen of most of the grass is the tips of the KBG. The brown "understory" of fine fescue is hidden, with the exception of some that can be seen right along the roadside cobblestones. (The fine fescue really can't stand the heat of that area, but doesn't get killed -- it just goes dormant waiting for fall.)










My plan, based upon having read various articles from about a decade ago concerning the tolerance (or lack thereof) of fine fescue to higher rate Tenacity applications, was, while applying the Tenacity to control listed weeds on the label, to also "thin out" the fine fescue in this section of my lawn by making two applications of Tenacity at 8oz/acre at a 14-day interval. I was seeking to make the first Tenacity application just as the heat of summer was ending (basically at "seed-down" time for a renovation) so that the fine fescue would get hit just as it was coming out of dormancy. The hope is that in addition to killing off traditional weeds, this would kill off much of the fine fescue, without adversely affecting the Kentucky bluegrass. This hope is largely based upon the study described in a study conducted at Washington State University a decade ago: http://turf.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Tenacity-NewHerbTurfEstab-DeptSeminar.pdf The relevant slide is #24, which is shown below.










There's also a similar relevant article, titled "Safety of Tenacity to Creeping Red Fescue Grown in the Northeastern United States" from the University of CT on page 46 of the following publication, which also shows significant injury to fine fescue in repeated heavier doses of Tenacity (two treatments of 5oz/acre at a 21 day interval): http://www.turf.uconn.edu/pdf/research/reports/2007.pdf


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

Ok, because I am considering something similar, but slightly different conditions, and with several lower concentration apps starting in a few days and continuing for a month or so.

I am also considering adding Triclopyr for its reduction in the whitening, but I don't have any info on that...the advantages, downsides, or guidelines.

Based on my accidental kill of some fine fescue last year using Tenacity, I'm hoping it will thin it out.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

A couple posts above, I described the plan for the "Fine Fescue Thinning Experiment." In this post is a summary of what has actually been done to date.

The date of my first application of Tenacity at 8oz/acre was August 24. My experiment was further complicated by a concurrent effort to fill in a couple depressions (sunk spots from prior tree removal) in this area, and also experiment with overseeding KBG (Bewitched+Prosperity 50/50 blend) in this area, just in case the FF-thinning attempts were wildly successful. As a result, this area would be getting frequently watered to allow for seed germination. In hindsight, I think this may have been a bad idea, as the increased watering for seed germination may have altered the effectiveness of the Tenacity application.

Below is the summary of actions to date:


August 24: Mowed (and bagged) to 2.75" (from normal HOC of 3.75"), overseeded KBG at 2#/ksqft, applied Tenacity at 8oz/acre. Commenced "germination watering" of 6 times a day for 7 minutes each time.

August 29: Mowed (and bagged) to 2.75"

Sept 4: Mowed (and bagged) to 2.75"

Sept 7: Mowed (and bagged) to 2.75". Applied Tenacity at 8oz/acre.

What have I observed? Well, first off, the reduction of the height of cut (HOC) from 3.75" to 2.75" made the lawn look pretty ugly, as it exposed the brown "understory" of fine fescue. Also, the "germination watering" tends to yellow the existing grass from being overwatered.

About 5-7 days after the initial application, I observed whitening of two patches of _poa trivialis_ in the area being treated. I also observed sporadic, widely distributed partial whitening of some of the blades of KBG. I did not observe any whitening of the fine fescue. Fine fescue that had been brown was still brown. Fine fescue that was green remained green. These conditions continued until about 10-12 days, at which point the whitened turf started to show recovery to better color (both the _poa trivialis_ and the KBG).

I still haven't observed any whitening of the fine fescue. I don't know if the fine fescue has a different apparent response to the Tenacity. Could it be that the dormant brown fine fescue just remains brown rather than recover or show whitening? I don't know and haven't been able to find this described in the articles I've found. In hindsight, I wish I had not done the concurrent overseeding with germination watering and wish I had not altered the HOC during the experiment. If I try this again next year, I would continue normal maintenance practices and have the application of the Tenacity be the only intentional difference. This is obvious, but when making multiple changes at one time, observed effects cannot be ascribed to any particular one of the changes.

I made the second (final) application of Tenacity at 8oz/acre on Sept 7; I have not yet observed further changes in the grass appearance, but am still a few days away from when I would expect to have observable effects. Photos are below.

2018-08-26: Day 2 after 1st application of Tenacity (image below)









2018-08-30: Day 6 after 1st application of Tenacity (image below)









2018-09-07: Day 14 after 1st application of Tenacity; Day of 2nd application (image below)









2018-09-09: Day 16 after 1st application; Day 2 after 2nd application (image below)


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Green said:


> Ok, because I am considering something similar, but slightly different conditions, and with several lower concentration apps starting in a few days and continuing for a month or so.


Good luck! Please report what you try and how it works out for you. Given that I started to observe recovery of whitened grass (_poa trivialis_ and KBG) about 10 days after the prior application, I would be inclined to make multiple applications at 10 day intervals, rather than my previously chosen 14 day interval. I'd also be inclined to try 3 applications of 5.3oz/acre, rather than the 2 applications of 8oz/acre that I did.



Green said:


> I am also considering adding Triclopyr for its reduction in the whitening, but I don't have any info on that...the advantages, downsides, or guidelines.


I thought about adding Triclopyr with my applications of Tenacity to minimize whitening to desirable grasses. However, I was concerned that this would also lessen the intended injury to the fine fescue. Accordingly, I intentionally did not apply triclopyr. I haven't been able to find any good information on what the Tenacity+triclopyr combination would do to the fine fescue. As a result, I played the hunch that since triclopyr seemed to lessen Tenacity's effect upon KBG, that it would also lessen the effect upon the fine fescue.



Green said:


> Based on my accidental kill of some fine fescue last year using Tenacity, I'm hoping it will thin it out.


Did your accidentally-killed fine fescue turn white after the application of Tenacity? Or did it just die out (turn brown) without first turning white?

I can't really draw final conclusions yet from my experiment this year. If the brown fine fescue never recovers but simply dies off, then this will have definitely thinned out the fine fescue a fair bit. We'll wait and see what happens in the next week or so now that the 2nd application has been made.

Given my preliminary observations, if I do this again, I would make the following changes to what I did previously:

Wait for the fine fescue to come completely out of dormancy. (i.e. start around Sept 10-14.)
Make 3 applications of 5.3oz/acre at 10 day intervals.
Keep my normal height-of-cut and watering practices.


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## Mrotatori (Aug 13, 2018)

my day 14 of kbg ( 30% blue note, 30% bedazzled, 20% beyond, and 20% midnight ) looks very similar to yours. I am still seeing seeds germinate in areas that are bare. I had a lot of dead grass too. My front lawn is germinating in sections. It's a slow process. Everyday, I see more and more little baby grass, and coverage.

Day 1 Pic 


Day 14 Pic


Day 17


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

It's not clear to me exactly what Triclopyr might do.

As far as whitening, I'm not sure, but it seemed like the FF shriveled and died, and may not have gone white first.

The problem is that the FF that was green was planted a year before. The partly dormant stuff was old. However, I must have been at around 10oz per acre Tenacity concentration, because KBG was killed as well.

So not a direct comparison to your current or my current situation.

I have a side slope that's small, where the FF burns out and goes dormant in Summer. Last Fall, I overseeded with TTTF and KBG so I know there's enough other grass there. It came in very well. I will leave the FF alone near the trees, but I want to reduce it on the slope that burns out...it's not the right grass for the area.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Mrotatori said:


> my day 14 of kbg ( 30% blue note, 30% bedazzled, 20% beyond, and 20% midnight ) looks very similar to yours. I am still seeing seeds germinate in areas that are bare.


Our status does look very similar at the same time -- thanks for sharing your photos!

I'm still not sure if the problem in my "denser old grass" areas is lack of germination, or too little moisture on the seeds, or too much moisture on the seeds, or the seeds rotting away due to being too shaded, or ???

We've received a fair bit of natural, gentle rainfall in the prior 24 hours, so maybe that will help encourage more germination (or not...)


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## social port (Jun 19, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> I'm still not sure if the problem in my "denser old grass" areas is lack of germination, or too little moisture on the seeds, or too much moisture on the seeds, or the seeds rotting away due to being too shaded, or ???


I'm growing KBG for the first time this year, and those questions circle my head about ten times every day. 

Enjoying your thread, K-n-N :thumbup:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

No photo updates tonight (I usually take the pics in the morning before the sun gets high enough to get above the trees across the street), but I figured it was time for at least another status update.

I've had the irrigation turned off for the last 48+ hours, as we've been getting natural rain. I dumped 1.85 inches of rain out of the rain gauge tonight, which was probably about 0.6 inches of rain on each of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, given the readings from our nearby airport.

That's more rain than I would have wanted, but the grass is sufficiently established in the bare areas that it's pretty resistant to washout at this point. Alas, I have seen standing water in the low areas following periods of heavy rain. Hopefully it hasn't remained flooded long enough to kill any of the baby grass.



Mrotatori said:


> My front lawn is germinating in sections. It's a slow process. Everyday, I see more and more little baby grass, and coverage.


I'd been mostly giving up on some of my areas of "thickest dead grass," but having looked at the lawn a bit tonight after 2.5 days of rain, I think there is definitely more green showing in the "thickest dead grass" areas. Could be due to the extra rain, or maybe just a little extra time, or maybe a break from the prior heat, I don't know. Seems like Mrotatori's observation may be absolutely right that germination and initial growth is just proceeding at slower rates in those areas, but that we really shouldn't consider them a loss yet!



social port said:


> I'm growing KBG for the first time this year, and those questions circle my head about ten times every day.


Yup!

I'll try to take some pictures in the morning as I'm eager to compare the new pics to the prior ones to be able to better observe any progress!


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I think you should be fine from the rain. I had 5in on a slope and it survived. I think the thick areas have less seed to soil contact, so they lag. I like to remove the dead material but leave the roots.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Took some photos this morning after the total of nearly 2 inches of rain we had from Monday through Wednesday.

There is definitely continuing progress with green becoming the predominant color in more and more areas. The grass seems to have survived the rain and puddling pretty well. Most of the grass is standing up with the exception of the areas that were in puddles. Maybe we'll try to use the leaf blower to gently lift the grass in those areas, but we'll let the soil surface dry out a little more before walking on the grass.

I'll also need to decide if we should make any irrigation changes from our 6-times a day plan. Not yet sure about that.

Mailbox View as of 2018-09-13 (Day 19):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-09-13 (Day 19):









Far End as of 2018-09-13 (Day 19):


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## Mrotatori (Aug 13, 2018)

the last photo looks really good. The other areas are coming in. Did you do anything different in the preparation of the front section compared to the other areas?


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## llO0DQLE (Dec 4, 2017)

Looking good! Seems like everything is coming along nicely.



ken-n-nancy said:


> Thanks for the encouragement -- if our reno produces half the results that your spring renovation has this year, we'll be in great shape!


Thanks for the compliment but even though it's technically a spring renovation, it's not what you guys down south would think of as a spring reno and the challenges that that normally brings. In my opinion and experience, in my part of the world, spring is the best time to seed rather than the conventional practice of seeding in the fall due to our short growing season. We hardly get any rain so washouts are not really an issue and summer temps are fairly mild, almost like fall temps down south. We also seem to have less difficult weeds to control. I don't think I've seen Poa Trivialis here. Seems like the worst weed I've seen in residential areas is Poa annua. Also, my front lawn is only 320 sq ft, so it's pretty easy to micromanage any issues.

Thanks for detailing your experience with using Tenacity to kill FF. I am considering doing the same to my backyard next year. I think I remember in jg's thread on ATY "Killing Fine Fescue" that someone said one app of 8oz./A killed their fine fescue. I'm not sure how I'm going to proceed next year. I was going to start with 8oz./A and see how it goes from there. My thought is that sustaining the bleaching for a prolonged amount of time is likely key to killing anything with Tenacity. I think I'm going to shoot for bleaching it for 21 - 28 days.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Time for the 21-day photos.

Germination is definitely thinnest in the areas that had the thickest old grass. I'm thinking I didn't scalp low enough in those areas. Live and learn. Seems like there will still be enough coverage to fill in by the end of next spring. I'm not going to try to add more seed, as there's no time for that, and the extended "germination watering" wouldn't be good for the new grass.

Longest blades are about 1.5" tall. Still too short for my rotary mower, which really can't cut below about 2.5" without scalping issues given the irregularity of my soil surface. I won't fertilize yet, either. 
Hoping that maybe by next weekend (4 weeks) I can mow and fertilize.

I'll be starting to dial back irrigation from the 6-times a day, probably reducing it to 4 times a day for a few days or so to see how it does with that.

Mailbox View as of 2018-09-15 (Day 21):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-09-15 (Day 21):









Far End as of 2018-09-15 (Day 21):


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## iowa jim (Jan 22, 2018)

It looks great [email protected], big difference in your day 21 pics. By the looks of the color i would say that the kbg is really starting to kick in.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

In the last three weeks, we have now applied 16oz/acre of Tenacity to 1500sqft of a northern mix section of our lawn, in an experiment to see if that reduces the Fine Fescue in the mix. As discussed in prior posts in this thread, we applied two doses of 8oz/acre: the first on August 24th and the second on September 7th. Today is the ninth day since the second application, which is in the time frame of 7-10 days after application when we typically see maximum bleaching from Tenacity.

2018-09-15: Day 22 after 1st application; Day 8 after 2nd application (image below)









The lawn looks quite white. There is noticeable bleaching of most blades of grass. You can see areas where we were a little sloppy in our 2nd application of not getting complete coverage with light areas between passes and an area of newly-seeded grass that we avoided in the 2nd pass. In the far distance (adjacent to the garage), you can barely see the darker green area where Tenacity was not applied.

In the photo below, you can see the difference where the Tenacity was not applied (on the left) and where it was applied (on the right.)

2018-09-15: Day 22 after 1st application; Day 8 after 2nd application (image below)









Strangely enough, the fine fescue blades don't really seem to whiten like the KBG ones do. Rather, the fine fescue blades seem to either stay green, or sometimes just turn brown -- we're not sure why the response is different and haven't seen it described by others in our reading.

As to whether or not this experiment is working, we don't really know yet. We'll have to wait for the grass to recover and see if the fine fescue makes it. We're hoping for results of injury to the fine fescue like those reported in the Washington State University study mentioned and pictured previously in this thread.

Cooler weather is coming fast here in NH; it's only 10 more days until our average first frost (Sept 26). We think that should give us enough time for the KBG to recover before winter. In the last couple years, lawn growth has slowed markedly in the 1st/2nd week of November, with cessation of top growth around Nov 15th-20th or so. The plan is for the KBG to have completely recovered before then!

Below are a couple close-ups showing the effect on the grass in more detail.

2018-09-16: Day 23 after 1st application; Day 9 after 2nd application, Spot 1 (image below)









2018-09-16: Day 23 after 1st application; Day 9 after 2nd application, Spot 2 (image below)


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## LawnNeighborSam (Aug 14, 2018)

Beautiful renos keep up the great work


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Mrotatori said:


> the last photo looks really good. The other areas are coming in. Did you do anything different in the preparation of the front section compared to the other areas?


Just realized that I never replied to this question, as it got lost as the last posting on the prior page -- I wasn't intending to ignore the question!

I'm not entirely sure I understand the question, but I'll have a go at trying to answer it, presuming it is asking if we did anything different for the different portions of this year's renovation. In short, the answer is that the preparation was all the same -- glyphosate the existing grass, mow to 1.25" height, then on seed-down day, a final glyphosate application, sow seed, roll in the seed, spray Tenacity, spread peat moss, and then start germination watering.

The areas which germinated the best were the prior bare spots which received peat moss. The peat moss really helped with germination. I think the distinction was that there was peat moss in these areas, not that the soil had been completely bare beforehand.

The next best areas were the sections that had moderate (neither real thin or real thick) prior grass, then followed by the previously thin areas of grass, and lastly the areas which previously had very thick grass. The areas with very thick grass germinated poorly, in my opinion, while the other areas all had sufficient germination to be acceptable.

I think in the areas of the thickest old grass, I think the issue was that I did not scalp the dead grass low enough -- the 1.25" scalping height in the thickest dead grass areas seems to have somehow impeded the seed from germinating. Whether this is because the dead, dry grass kept the watering from really getting to the soil/seeds, or kept the seeds from falling all the way to the soil, or because they shaded the miniscule seedlings, I don't know. In any future renovation, I think I'd scalp thick areas of dead grass still lower, even though that would have meant having the mower blade hit the soil in places.


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## samjonester (May 13, 2018)

I found the same was true this year for me. The areas where the crabgrass was lush are thinner. I am thinking I didn't get enough seed to the soil, and much of it got caught up in the grass remnants. I really wish I had taken a second or third pass with the thatch rake + scalped those areas again.


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## Mrotatori (Aug 13, 2018)

ken-n-nancy said:


> Mrotatori said:
> 
> 
> > the last photo looks really good. The other areas are coming in. Did you do anything different in the preparation of the front section compared to the other areas?
> ...


thanks, you answered my question. I was trying to determine the difference between your front lawn by the road and the other areas. I think the same applies for me too. It was my first time growing kbg. I have seen the areas closest to my walkway, near the house, are not growing as much. I definitely had more crabgrass there, and i did not cut the dead grass down enough.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

In our experiment to see if high-rate Tenacity applications can be used to reduce the Fine Fescue in a Northern Mix, today is now 2 weeks since our second application of Tenacity at 8oz/acre, and 4 weeks since the first application.

The Kentucky bluegrass is starting to improve from the worst of the whitening. It does seem like some of the fine fescue has been killed off, but definitely not all of it, by any means! Photos are below.

2018-09-21: Day 28 after 1st application; Day 14 after 2nd application, before mowing (image below)









The lawn is starting to recover. I think it actually looks better in the above "before mowing" photo, than in the "after mowing" photo, as more of the dead grass "underlayer" is visible after mowing. Our uneven application of the 2nd dose is becoming more apparent (embarrassing!) but that's the way it is...

2018-09-21: Day 28 after 1st application; Day 14 after 2nd application, after mowing (image below)









The photo below shows the the difference where the Tenacity was not applied (on the left) and where it was applied (on the right.)

2018-09-21: Day 28 after 1st application; Day 14 after 2nd application (image below)









Still hoping that the KBG completes its recovery before top growth stops!


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

Thanks for the Tenacity update. I'm planning to give it a shot next week using the 5oz rate, and then repeat that once it whitens, but possibly add Triclopyr the second time around. My fine fescue is not totally out of dormancy yet, but I understand it's susceptible while it's coming out of dormancy, I may also try with Triclopyr for both rounds in another area. Or possibly make it even simpler than that. I will have an untreated control section, too.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Green said:


> Thanks for the Tenacity update. I'm planning to give it a shot next week using the 5oz rate, and then repeat that once it whitens, but possibly add Triclopyr the second time around. ... I may also try with Triclopyr for both rounds in another area. Or possibly make it even simpler than that. I will have an untreated control section, too.


I'm very interested in how it ends up going for you. I'm also curious as to how the triclopyr affects the experiment. I know that the triclopyr is supposed to lessen the whitening of the KBG, but I have no idea what effect it would have on the fine fescue. I'm not keen on the whitening of the KBG, but I was concerned that the triclopyr would lessen the damage to the fine fescue. However, I couldn't find any information on that in the literature.

If the Tenaticy+triclopyr combination doesn't reduce the damage to the fine fescue, but reduces the whitening of the KBG, that would be fantastic!

I think that if I try this experiment again, I'm likely to try it in springtime, maybe even right at the beginning of the spring, when the fine fescue has awoken from winter, but the KBG is still largely asleep, as the fine fescue in my lawn greens up before my cultivars of KBG (Bewitched & Prosperity), which are both late for spring green-up. In that way, maybe the fine fescue would be thinned out with less whitening of the KBG.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Time for the 28-day photos.

This past week has been a wild one -- first there were a couple days of temperatures in the high 80s, which is summer weather for here. Then on Tuesday the remains of Hurricane Florence came through and dumped 4.1" of rain on our lawn in a span of about 8 hours. We had ponding in a few spots of the front lawn renovation for about a half-day or so. The baby grass in those areas definitely suffered - I think about half of it just plain died, but there still seems to be uniformly sparse grass with about one spindly grass plant about every square inch or so. I'm hopeful that those sections will have enough grass plants to fill in during the spring, presuming the remaining grass recovers and gets strong enough to tolerate winter and more inevitable puddling during the spring thaw.

The latter portion of the week has been pretty good cool season grass weather, with daytime highs in the upper 60s. Due to the combination of cooler temperatures and generally overcast skies, evaporation is way down compared to just a week ago; I've dropped watering back to just once a day.

On Friday, I decided that the 8-10 feet of baby grass nearest to the road could use mowing; the rest of the front lawn still isn't tall enough to mow, excepting a few other small spots. I mowed at 2.25" which is the lowest I dared mow to be sure not to scalp the grass -- my seedbed isn't as flat as many of the other lawns here, and I usually mow pretty high, so 2.25" seems real short to me!

I also applied the first fertilizer -- I applied a blend of urea (46-0-0) at 0.5#urea/ksqft (0.23#N/ksqft) mixed with Bay State Fertilizer (4-3-0) at 8#BSF/ksqft (0.32#N/ksqft). That may seem like a lot of N, but the Bay State has a lower percentage of water-soluble (quick-release) nitrogen than even Milorganite, and with the cooler temperatures, most of that N will be released very slowly. We've done this enough times that I was pretty confident I could spread the blend sufficiently evenly to avoid any burning. I did water in the fertilizer application immediately afterwards just to make sure that none of the urea prill harm grass plants they happened to nestle up against.

We're very excited that the grass seems to now be growing pretty quickly -- on all of our prior renovations, we've never really seeded early enough to have significant growth and corresponding mowing before winter, so we're enthused about the possibility of some vigorous growth before winter!

Our average first frost is coming up real quick -- just 4 days away on September 26th. We don't yet have any sub-40F nights in the extended forecast, but we do have plenty of nights forecasted to be in the mid- or low-40s. Typically, we'll continue to get strong growth for nearly a month after that.

Anyway, I'll stop here with my thousand words and let the pictures tell the story more succinctly.

Mailbox View as of 2018-09-22 (Day 28):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-09-22 (Day 28):









Far End as of 2018-09-22 (Day 28):


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Was thinking a bit about goals and objectives for our lawn during the next 4 weeks, which is all that I have left to do fertilization before winter. By the last week in October, our lawn is starting to slow down in growth and the main lawn chore becomes regular mulch mowing of the lawn to take care of the steady stream of leaves falling from the trees.

Below is what I came up with for summary goals/plans for each of the four distinct areas of our lawn, each in different stages of renovation, experimentation, or maintaining the status quo:

1 - Front Lawn: Undergoing full renovation to a 50/50 Bewitched/Prosperity blend. Just now leaving "sprout and pout." Goal is to continue watering, mowing, and fertilizing so that it is as established as possible before winter. Would like to encourage growth now so that no spring seeding is required in sparse areas. Have some areas that are much sparser than I would like, but adding more seed now would be counterproductive, so I'm looking to maximize what is there. Planning weekly 0.5#N/ksqft fertilizer applications until "The Pause."

2 - Side Lawn: Bewitched monostand of 3500sqft, with about 350sqft of patch repair which is just now leaving "sprout and pout." Same goals as front for patch repair section. The established grass suffered some fungus damage this summer; looking to encourage regrowth in those damaged areas without introducing any new problems - fungal or otherwise. Planning weekly 0.5#N/ksqft fertilizer applications until "The Pause" -- however, this pause starts a week earlier in the side lawn than our (sunny) front lawn, based upon prior experience.

3 - Back Lawn: Fine-Fescue/KBG mix. Heavily shaded in fall. No major changes planned here. Area near house gets too much shade and has thinned out over last 4 years. Interestingly, the only grass remaining in the deepest shade areas is very thin Prosperity KBG (1 grass plant in about every 4"x4" space -- I should probably actually count plants in a few different 1sqft areas to quantify). The FF has completely disappeared in the deepest shade areas. Planning weekly 0.5#N/ksqft fertilizer applications until "The Pause" -- however, this pause starts a week earlier in the back lawn than the (sunny) front lawn, based upon prior experience.

4 - Front, Far Side of Driveway: A northern mix (PRG/FF/KBG) in which I experimented with a pair of 8oz/ksqft Tenacity applications at the end of summer/beginning of fall. In recovery from the 2nd Tenacity application. Goal is to have KBG completely recovered from Tenacity bleaching in order to look good, spread a bit into thin areas, and have good food storage for over the winter. Planning weekly 0.5#N/ksqft fertilizer applications until "The Pause."

After "The Pause" commences, we just keep up with mowing every 4 days to mulch in the falling leaves while grass growth steadily slows down and usually stops completely about 1-2 weeks before Thanksgiving, depending upon how much sun that area gets.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Yesterday was a "rain day" during which most of the rain was pretty gentle, but during which there were occasional downpours. We picked up a total of 1.4 inches of rain altogether.

Seems like the grass has nearly all survived, although we have a couple "ponding areas" in the front that we'd rather not have, but remedying them would require more re-grading than we'd like to undertake now that the grass has been recently seeded! That said, the ponding issues in the front are definitely better now than they used to be, so at least we've made a step in the proper direction!

It seems that the grass that was mowed previously has grown enough more to warrant another mowing. It also seems that some grass that wasn't tall enough to reach the mower last time would be tall enough now. We'd like to be able to mow tonight if Ken can get home before dark and the rain forecasted for tonight hasn't moved in yet -- it's getting more challenging to do lawn care in the evenings now -- the 9pm sunsets are practically ancient history and it's now getting pretty dark by 6:45pm...


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Today, when I pushed the mower over to the side lawn, I was dismayed to see a whole bunch of small fallen branches, bark pieces, and twigs with healthy leaves under the huge white oak tree at the edge of our lawn, particularly as I had just picked up a whole bunch of fallen oak tree parts this morning! Indeed, this has been the case practically every day for the past week. I've been worried that the tree had some sort of disease or something, although a lot of the twigs have appeared as if they've been broken off, rather than died.

Then, just as I was standing there, trying to find the encouragement to pick up another batch of fallen oak tree parts, a small branch comes fluttering down next to me from out of the tree, so I look up into the tree, and there's a black bear in the tree! Wait, there's not just one black bear, there's two!

I decided I better head into the house to continue my observation of the bears and ended up filming the video linked below.

Turns out, there were actually 4 bears in two big trees in our yard! Guess I need to put "look for bears" on my "getting ready to mow the lawn" checklist! 

Video of Bears in Ken-n-Nancy's Oak Tree - http://www.solidrocksolutions.com/aty/2018/2018-09-27-Bears-in-Trees.mp4


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## LawnNeighborSam (Aug 14, 2018)

Wow how high were they?!


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## rob13psu (May 20, 2018)

That's nuts!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

LawnNeighborSam said:


> Wow how high were they?!


That's a very big oak tree. The tree may be about 80' high. I'm guessing that the bears were probably about 45'-50' off the ground. We were filming them out of our 2nd floor bedroom window.

I'm curious as to if they come back again tonight or tomorrow. At least now I know that if I have a whole bunch more bark and twigs on the ground under the tree, the bears have been back!

PS: Sorry if the video download takes a while -- I don't have a non-identifying youtube account to which to upload the video, so downloads may take a while. I did just reduce the video file size to about 1/3 of what it was originally, so if you started trying to view it earlier, but gave up because it was too slow, it may work better now.


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## LawnNeighborSam (Aug 14, 2018)

Yeah it took me like 5 try's and I finally waited to watch it haha. But bears in backyard that's a first for me lol


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Haven't seen any more bear activity since seeing the 4 bears in our huge oak tree a few days ago. Maybe our presence near them kind of scared them away for a while?

The squirrels and chipmunks, however, don't seem to be deterred by anything. There's enough squirrel-dug holes visible in the front lawn under renovation that it practically looks like we did core aeration on it!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

In a different thread, somebody had asked "Does the kbg get darker green as time goes on?" https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5434&hilit=color&start=40#p106410

I figured that a picture might help illustrate the difference, so I took a picture of the patch repair areas in our side lawn Bewitched KBG monostand. The color difference between the 4-week old Bewitched patches and the 3-year old established KBG is apparent even to those that aren't crazy about their lawns!

I reckon the patches probably won't really blend in to the rest of the lawn until the end of next spring.


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## pennstater2005 (Jul 17, 2017)

Well, there goes my plan to run up a tree if I see a bear.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

This past week has been the first one during this renovation with what I'd call typical fall weather for here in New Hampshire, although a bit wetter than most weeks. Daily highs typically in the 60F-75F region, with overnight lows in the 45F-60F range.

We also had rain on about 4 out of 7 days; I actually had the irrigation system off for the entire workweek of Monday - Friday. The temperatures are cool enough and the grass sufficiently established that in this coming week (forecast to be drier) I'll plan to irrigate on mornings when it hasn't rained for 24 hours, but otherwise leave the irrigation system off. Hopefully by next week I'll move to only watering on the 2nd day since the prior watering event (whether irrigation or natural). Irrigation system blowout is scheduled for Oct 29th.

I mowed mid-week, 6 days after the prior mowing, again at 2.25" height (the lowest I dare go). The grass had not grown as much as I had hoped by that mowing, but about 4 of those 6 days had been completely overcast and rainy, so the grass didn't receive a whole lot of sun. Baby bluegrass needs sun to grow!

At some point during this week, I think the lawn switched from looking like "a dead lawn with new grass starting to grow" to "a new lawn with some bare spots in it" -- I always think that's the exciting transition point in a renovation, where one can take a step back and say "this is going to be a success -- just needs some more time, but it's gonna' work!"

Fertilized again today, this time with just urea (46-0-0) at 1.0#urea/ksqft. With the cooler temps and dry conditions today, I'll wait until early morning tomorrow to water it in.

We're now 3 days past our average first frost (September 26th) and the lowest temp we've had so far is 45F, so even the summer flowers are still growing.

Big event of the week was the bears in the big oak tree: http://www.solidrocksolutions.com/aty/2018/2018-09-27-Bears-in-Trees.mp4 We haven't seen them back since that day when we must have scared them off.

Oh, and all the apparent divots in the lawn are from the gray squirrels - digging everywhere! No need for mechanical aeration in this lawn -- the gray squirrels are doing it for us! 

Below are the 5-week pics:

Mailbox View as of 2018-09-29 (Day 35):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-09-29 (Day 35):









Far End as of 2018-09-29 (Day 35):


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## Mrotatori (Aug 13, 2018)

Looking better every week. I like to see your pictures. We are pretty close in days since seed down. I am geetiing tons of those squirrel holes too. We have three huge trees in our front yard and are surrounded by trees.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> No need for mechanical aeration in this lawn -- the gray squirrels are doing it for us!


Yeah, I call them the "free aerators".


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## iowa jim (Jan 22, 2018)

Ken-n-nancy: I think you have a advantage over the rest of us, with all that bear scat for fertilizer. ha ha


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Today, fertilized the entire lawn as part of the fall nitrogen blitz. Applied 0.5#urea/ksqft = 0.23#N/ksqft on the front lawn new renovation area, and 1.0#urea/ksqft = 0.46#N/ksqft on the established lawns in the back and to the side of the house.

Also mowed the renovation area to 2.25", the side lawn to 2.75", and the back lawn to 3.25" to match the mowing heights we've been using for the past few weeks. The front lawn renovation continues to look better; today's mowing probably cut at least 75% of the blades. However, the areas that have sparser grass also have less vigorous grass, too.

I'll try to get some "looking down from standing height" pictures of the thinner areas tomorrow to let others doing renovations see what the thinner areas that I haven't re-seeded look like, in hopes that they'll be able to fill in during spring.



iowa jim said:


> Ken-n-nancy: I think you have a advantage over the rest of us, with all that bear scat for fertilizer. ha ha


  I do have a couple patches of what I think are "bear barf" underneath the big oak tree. It doesn't seem to be particularly helping the grass, though -- might be a little too thick and smothered it a bit. Oh well, that's okay -- getting to see those bears in the tree like that may have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Having done all the week's work on the lawn yesterday (mowing and fertilizer), today's only lawn maintenance task was to take the weekly photos!

Weather this past week was seasonable - neither hot or cold, but generally pretty gray without much sunlight. Without much light, this week's growth seemed to be somewhat lessened.

The gray squirrels continue to be obnoxious, digging everywhere -- it's particularly visible in the barer spots, but exists throughout the entire lawn - they don't appear to be selective about whether they dig in a bare spot, the renovated lawn, or the established lawn. Of course, their holes are most evident in the bare spots!

Below are the 6-week pics:

Mailbox View as of 2018-10-06 (Day 42):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-10-06 (Day 42):









Far End as of 2018-10-06 (Day 42):


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

With other activities on our calendar for Saturday, we didn't get to lawn care tasks until this afternoon. Ken had mulch-mowed leaves over the renovation area on Friday afternoon, but more new ones had fallen, so Nancy took advantage of the drying sun and cool, crisp air to blow the latest leaves off of the renovation area for our weekly pics.

Nancy Blowing Leaves off the Renovation Area









We're quite happy with the way the renovation has turned out -- there are still some pretty big thin spots, but given our past experience with KBG in the spring, we won't be adding any more seed in those areas, but will let the KBG "do it's thing" in the spring while protecting against weeds with a spring pre-emergent.

Weather this past week was pretty good for growing grass in the fall, with better sun than the week before. The established lawn has great color; growth is starting to slow a bit with the cooler temperatures. Because our average first frost is Sept 26, (although no actual frost yet) and this coming week is forecast to be quite cool with no highs over 56F and overnight lows typically in the 20s-30s, we've decided to cease our weekly urea fertilizer treatments as of the prior application on Oct 5.

The improvement from week to week is less noticeable now, but the maturity, density, and color of the grass is continuing to move in the right direction! The spots which germinated first look the best, starting to take on some of the darker color that we know will eventually show itself in the Bewitched+Prosperity blend.

Below are the 50-day (7-week) pics:

Mailbox View as of 2018-10-14 (Day 50):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-10-14 (Day 50):









Far End as of 2018-10-14 (Day 50):


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Looking good. We also went form summer to winter in indy.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

Very good. Are you planning to use N again in the Spring soon after you start mowing?

Also, would you please explain why the lamp post view is at day 50 on a different week than the mailbox view? I thought they were part of the same section and planted in the same day...no?


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

g-man said:


> Looking good. We also went form summer to winter in indy.


Thanks for the kudos. After I made the post last night, I've been waffling on whether or not to really not do the one more urea application that I had planned as of a few weeks ago. My 4 years of past "lawn logs" have cessation of top growth in the lawn varying between about 1 to 2 weeks before Thanksgiving, which would indicate that I should still make one more "spoon feeding" urea application this week. Maybe I'll take a look at the lawn tonight and re-assess.



Green said:


> Very good. Are you planning to use N again in the Spring soon after you start mowing?


Yes. I'm not yet sure of the details, but I'll probably be using a biosolid fertilizer (Bay State Fertilizer) after green-up has taken place. My thought with the biosolid fertilizer is it won't start being available to the grass until the microorganisms are breaking it down, which should be at the same time as the grass is starting to grow, so it shouldn't "push topgrowth" before it's ready. I know that a new KBG lawn benefits from fertilization in the spring -- the trick is letting off the gas pedal at the right time so that the lawn isn't overfertilized when the summer heat arrives in July.



Green said:


> Also, would you please explain why the lamp post view is at day 50 on a different week than the mailbox view? I thought they were part of the same section and planted in the same day...no?


Oops. That's a cut-and-paste error. All photos in the most recent set were taken on the same day, 2018-10-14, which is day 50 after seed-down. I'll edit the post to fix that! Thanks for mentioning it!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Many, many leaves blew off the trees last night - definitely enough to make about 85% coverage of the reno area.

In order to keep the sunlight available to those young blades of grass, tonight we mulch-mowed all the leaves on the renovation area so that they're down in the lawn instead of covering up the grass.

It looks better to show all green again, too!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Just had to share a picture of the frosty renovation from this morning...

Frost on the New Grass - almost 8 weeks old - on 2018-10-19!


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## social port (Jun 19, 2017)

^ I really like this picture.
For 8 weeks old, you must really be pleased with how this turned out. It looks so good.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

social port said:


> ^ I really like this picture.
> For 8 weeks old, you must really be pleased with how this turned out. It looks so good.


Thanks for letting us know you like the pic -- it makes the renovated grass look better than it does in real life!

We are pretty happy with the renovation. There are a few spots which are very thin, for which we'll show some (embarrassing) closeups below, but which will hopefully provide encouragement / hope to others having similar challenges with their renovations and wondering what to do...


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Not much news to report in the last week. Grass growth is slowing down (but still far from stopped) with cooler temps in the past week, with overnight lows having typically been in the 30s and daytime highs in the 50s.

The leaves are also starting to fall - we've mulch-mowed a couple times this week, even on the renovation area, where we're counting on the mulched leaves to help provide important organic material for the soil.

We didn't make our weekly urea fertilizer treatment last week, so it's now 2+ weeks since our prior application on Oct 5. Color is starting to look pretty splotchy, with some darker green areas and some lighter green areas. We're not sure if that's because some sections are darkening with maturity, or if other sections are losing color due to the fertilizer running out, or if it's just color loss due to the shorter days and cooler temperatures. In any case, with it having been 2 weeks since our last fertilizer application, we'll be expecting grass growth to slowly taper off in a pretty natural way.

Below are the 56-day (8-week) pics:

Mailbox View as of 2018-10-20 (Day 56):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-10-20 (Day 56):









Far End as of 2018-10-20 (Day 56):









FF Thinning Area as of 2018-10-20:


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## pennstater2005 (Jul 17, 2017)

Looking great!!


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Just read through this, and I wanted to say that Ken did a great job on the cobblestones. Those look awesome.

And I appreciate your being thorough with pictures and descriptions of your renovations, and even providing the bear necessities. :airquote:


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## Alex1389 (May 23, 2018)

Looks great! Curious to know if you stop mulching leaves at any point? Do they still break down even if microbial activity significantly slows?


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

pennstater2005 said:


> Looking great!!





Alex1389 said:


> Looks great!


Thanks for the kudos. It really helps me to have the pictures, as when I was walking the lawn the other evening, it seemed like the thin areas kind of in the middle of the open section, not far from the driveway, were pretty depressing. Looking back at the pictures shows that the lawn still is making progress. I had to remind myself that it looks pretty good from the side (the view you see in the photos) and will fill in a lot more in the spring once each KBG plant develops some rhizomes to spread a bit!



Colonel K0rn said:


> Just read through this, and I wanted to say that Ken did a great job on the cobblestones. Those look awesome.
> 
> And I appreciate your being thorough with pictures and descriptions of your renovations...


Thanks for the appreciation of the cobblestones. They were a lot of work, but we really like the way they came out. Usually, I keep all living stuff out of the "dead zone" between the cobblestones and the road, but haven't been doing that while the renovation is under way. (Didn't want any herbicides to overspray onto the new grass.) Similarly, a lot of the new grass seed germinated in the gaps between cobblestones, which needs weeding, but we haven't gotten to that, either.

Thanks also for letting us know you appreciate the pics and descriptions. I just hope that some of this will be useful to others in doing their renovations -- seeing that a renovation doesn't complete in a day, but that steady, measured progress bears the desired results in the end!



Colonel K0rn said:


> ... even providing the bear necessities. :airquote:


Of course! That's why a bear can rest at ease!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Alex1389 said:


> Looks great! Curious to know if you stop mulching leaves at any point? Do they still break down even if microbial activity significantly slows?


Basically, we keep mulching leaves into the lawn all autumn, even after the grass has stopped having top growth, and even after we've had our first snowfall, presuming that the first snowfall melts away again sometime before everything freezes up for the winter.

Yes, we'll usually continue to have some leaves fall that late -- our white oaks continue to retain some leaves nearly all winter (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcescence) and will drop some leaves from time to time even in January, February, and March.

If we get a nasty stretch of cold, damp days when lots of leaves fall and the leaves don't have a chance to dry out enough that I can mulch them up (wet leaves don't mulch well), I'll blow all the wet, damp leaves into the woods with the leaf blower, but I prefer to be able to mulch them into the lawn. Sometimes we'll also do that if we don't have enough time to mulch-mow them.

For us, blowing the leaves into the woods is faster than mulch-mowing, as we don't have to collect and bag the leaves, but can simply blow the leaves off into the woods all the way around the perimeter of the lawn. For folks that would otherwise have to collect and bag their leaves, mulch-mowing them can be a real time-saver.

One of the key aspects of our approach is that we don't worry about mulch-mowing all the leaves until they're invisible every time we mow. In autumn, I mow to mulch up leaves every 4 days or so (basically the same frequency as my springtime mowing). Because there are leaves falling on my lawn every day for about 4-6 weeks, there's no point in getting every last leaf mulched up during any given mowing, as a couple hours after I've finished, there will be quite a few more on the lawn again.

So, we just strive to get about 80% - 90% of the leaves mulched up during any single mowing. The ones that get missed will get another shot at getting mulched up in a few days during the next mowing. As an example of this, see the "before" and "after" pictures below. I should note that in the "after" picture, we're only about 2/3 done with mulching that section, but that should be obvious.

"Before" Mulching Leaves (photo from 2015)









"After" (well, 2/3 done) Mulching Leaves (photo from 2015)


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Alex1389 said:


> Curious to know if you stop mulching leaves at any point? Do they still break down even if microbial activity significantly slows?


I just realized that my post above may not have addressed the real concern raised in your question -- what happens to the leaves that are mulched up too late in the fall to decompose before winter?

Well, those little leaf bits stay down in the lawn all winter, and are still there in the spring. Obviously, they can't decay at all over a NH winter, but are just frozen solid like everything else. In the spring, however, they'll decompose rapidly; I haven't found a disadvantage to their presence there. The newly-greening grass will quickly grow up around all the little leaf bits and you won't even know the leaf bits are there unless there's a bare spot.

Below are some photos of my northern mix lawn a few years ago in early spring (for NH, May 1 is still early spring) where you can see that there are quite a few mulched bits of oak leaves in the bare spots. Those bare spots were areas of mostly perennial ryegrass that suffered winterkill over the NH winter. In any case, you can see the little leaf bits in there. They don't do any harm -- they're present in the green areas too, but are hidden by the green grass.

By the way, over the course of the next 6 weeks, the KBG spread back into those dead areas, so that by the end of June, one would never even know those dead areas had happened...

(Below photo from 1 May 2015.)









(Below photo from 1 May 2015.)


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

:thumbup: I do like K&N. I've mowed in Christmas day just to mulch the leaves.

Alex, while decomposition will be slowed down, earthworms will still move up to eat the leafs too if the soil temps is not too low.


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## Alex1389 (May 23, 2018)

@ken-n-nancy Thanks for the info and write-up!

I was concerned about the leaves potentially causing some die off in the lawn over the winter, but you and @g-man have alleviated those concerns at this point. I still try to get the leaves as fine as possible when mulching (sometimes so fine it's like dust that I can quickly blow around if it gets too heavy in some areas). Thanks again!


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## Miggity (Apr 25, 2018)

I finally found my way into the lawn journal section as the season winds down for me and wanted to say thank you for documenting this so well. I wish I had found this earlier as it has addressed several questions I had.

I can add one thing to your leaf mulching discussion. Two years ago while having a landscaping crew deliver dump-trailer loads of leaves to fill new raised garden beds, their truck and trailer got stuck in the wet ground. Worse, it got stuck while crossing two of my neighbor's lawns (a lower, less used area prone to flooding, mowed but untreated in any way). Because it was too late to seed, I simply over-filled the ruts with well-mulched leaves from 4-8"deep and about 8" wide, compacted them with my feet and refilled them again to 5" above soil level. While I did throw some seed in spring, the neighbors didn't want me watering it so it went unattended but remained fairly wet due to sump pump discharge following the ruts. The surrounding NoMix contractors garbage filled in the ruts over the next spring/summer and today, 24 months later the lines of the former ruts remain visible but only due to the much darker green color. I now know that mulched leaves do not hurt KBG mixes if left over the winter in any quantity that does not completely smother entire areas.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

@ken-n-nancy, I'm ending my Triclopyr/fine fescue experiment for this year, but will pick up again in April or May. I've put down two 5oz rate apps, and it's hard to tell if there's going to be any residual benefit. I think it got too cold for it to fully work.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Miggity said:


> I finally found my way into the lawn journal section as the season winds down for me and wanted to say thank you for documenting this so well. I wish I had found this earlier as it has addressed several questions I had.


Glad to be of help! We appreciate your letting us know that our write-ups have been interesting and helpful!



Miggity said:


> I can add one thing to your leaf mulching discussion. Two years ago ... I simply over-filled the ruts with well-mulched leaves from 4-8"deep and about 8" wide... 24 months later the lines of the former ruts remain visible but only due to the much darker green color. I now know that mulched leaves do not hurt KBG mixes if left over the winter in any quantity that does not completely smother entire areas.


 Glad to hear of the success story!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Green said:


> @ken-n-nancy, I'm ending my Triclopyr/fine fescue experiment for this year, but will pick up again in April or May. I've put down two 5oz rate apps, and it's hard to tell if there's going to be any residual benefit. I think it got too cold for it to fully work.


Thanks for letting us know how the experiment went for you. I think my experiment with trying to thin out fine fescue with Tenacity was pretty inconclusive. Hopefully I'll be able to make time to write up a before/after summary this coming weekend...


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

This "weekly update" is a few days late, as the weekend was just too wet to do anything in the lawn. Plus, we were busy with a robotics tournament, too... 

The prior week was cool and cloudy, with high temps lower than typical for this time of year, but overnight lows pretty much on track. Grass growth continues to slow down, but the mature grass still has excellent color -- maybe the darkest it has been all year. The new grass looks like it may be yellowing a bit, but it's hard to tell if it's actually getting yellower or just looking more yellow in comparison to the darkening mature grass. Leaves continue to fall at a steady rate; the young birch, beech, and witch hazel are getting pretty bare, but the big oaks are just starting to drop their first leaves now.

The irrigation system was blown out yesterday (Monday, Oct 29th) so we won't be using that any more this year. Turns out we haven't had it on in about two weeks anyway, as we've had regular rain every few days and when the grass gets wet, it dries out a lot more slowly than it did back in July and August!

Mulch-mowed leaves tonight for the first time in 8 days. Needed to "double mow" in order to get the leaves diced up into small enough pieces, given how many there were. Took a picture of the mulch-mowing "half-done" like the ones we posted recently from back in 2015.

With the slowdown in grass growth, I'm glad we made our last urea application on Oct 5 -- seems like we're just about on track for our typical fall growth stoppage just before Thanksgiving. Very thankful that we haven't had any snow yet!

Below are the 66-day (9½ weeks!) pics:

Mailbox View as of 2018-10-30 (Day 66):









Lamp Post View as of 2018-10-30 (Day 66):









Far End as of 2018-10-30 (Day 66), Halfway Done Mulching Leaves:









Far End as of 2018-10-30 (Day 66):









FF Thinning Area as of 2018-10-30:


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> Green said:
> 
> 
> > @ken-n-nancy, I'm ending my Triclopyr/fine fescue experiment for this year, but will pick up again in April or May. I've put down two 5oz rate apps, and it's hard to tell if there's going to be any residual benefit. I think it got too cold for it to fully work.
> ...


You're welcome, and thank you as well, Ken, for your reaction to your experiment as well. However, I made an error when I posted that earlier. I had Triclopyr on the brain, but meant Tenacity. I will probably try an area using both in the Spring, but only used Tenacity so far.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> The fine fescue in my lawn may look fragile and goes dormant in the heat of the summer, but it is one tough grass that doesn't seem to be killed by anything, and comes roaring back each fall once the temperatures cool off enough.)


Ken,

I wanted to comment on this quote from your original FF Thinning Experiment post.

Normally, I find a similar result. However, this Summer in CT was like an upper transition zone Summer...even a few degrees hotter than Boston and your area in Southern NH was on average this Summer. Not to mention a lot of lower transition zone and Florida level dew points 75 or higher (which you experienced a lot of as well this year in your area...I'm not missing being soaked during mowing now!)

I don't know if you've visited my lawn journal recently, where the low input area has been getting the most attention. But this Summer, a lot of my fine fescue in that area actually died. (So did KBG, and everything else.) A huge factor was no doubt irrigation...there were some drought periods; I did not water on a regular schedule, so the lawn was in a moderate to large irrigation deficit much of the time. I don't have in-ground irrigation in the low input area, and oscillating sprinklers take hours, while my I-20 head with 6 gpm nozzle on a spike base covers only a relatively small area of the total at a time. Add all that up, and it was insufficient water and more ET as well as less rain. I still thought I was watering enough to keep it alive through dornancy...giving it a half inch or more every 2-3 weeks in the absence of sufficient rain.

Thankfully the overseed (with some Tall Fescue seed as well other types) finally went halfway decently after the third attempt this Fall (courtesy of washout from heavy rain twice).

I also think some of the issue was the Tenacity mishap in August 2017, plus winterkill from standing water/ice in Winter 2017-18. There were bare spots going into Spring 2018 already, and the Summer seemed to add insult to injury.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

This post shows our first "lawn photos" of spring 2019, following the fall 2018 renovation of our front lawn to a Kentucky Bluegrass blend of Bewitched and Prosperity. As of when these photos were taken on 7 April 2019, the lawn was just barely starting to think about greening up. Given our prior experience with Bewitched KBG in our area, it probably won't look fully green until the very end of April and won't need mowing until about the middle of May.

We are encouraged about how the grass survived the winter. There's a lot of filling-in the grass will need to do this spring, but it's definitely good enough that we will be applying a pre-emergent rather than even considering any additional seeding!

Below are the first spring pics, taken 226 days (approx 7.5 months) after seed-down :

Mailbox View as of 2019-04-07 (Day 226):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-04-07 (Day 226):









Far End as of 2019-04-07 (Day 226):









FF Thinning Area as of 2019-04-07:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

This post shows our second set of "lawn photos" of spring 2019, a week after the prior set. As of when these photos were taken on 14 April 2019, the lawn was a little more awake than the prior week, but still mostly just thinking about greening up.

Mailbox View as of 2019-04-14 (Day 233):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-04-14 (Day 233):









Far End as of 2019-04-14 (Day 233):









FF Thinning Area as of 2019-04-14:


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## iowa jim (Jan 22, 2018)

Your border still looks good after the winter with no frost heaving.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

iowa jim said:


> Your border still looks good after the winter with no frost heaving.


Yes, the new granite cobblestones / Belgian block did hold up very well through the winter.

The year before, we had some issues with the town plow disturbing them along the road, but we didn't have that problem this year.

I haven't seen any trouble with frost heaves with the granite cobblestones, as they've been great in that regard along a shorter section of our roadside border where they've been in place for about 4 years now. I think frost heaves would be a problem if the granite cobblestones were in a local low spot, where water / ice could build up. However, there is good drainage away from the road on all of our property, so frost heaves are not a significant issue there.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

This post shows our third set of "lawn photos" of spring 2019, a week after the prior set. Almost all waking up as of when these photos were taken on 21 April 2019, but still some spots here and there that haven't greened up yet. Notice that none of the deciduous trees have leaves yet, and the liliac bushes (last photo) are just showing a few unraveling baby leaves. Spring comes late up here in New Hampshire!

Also took a photo of our magnolia at essentially "peak bloom."

Magnolia Blooming as of 2019-04-21:









Mailbox View as of 2019-04-21 (Day 240):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-04-21 (Day 240):









Far End as of 2019-04-21 (Day 240):









FF Thinning Area as of 2019-04-21:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

This post finally catches us up to the current week of lawn photos, with this set taken on 12 May 2019. All the grass seems to be awake now, but the renovated KBG in the front lawn (Bewitched & Prosperity) hasn't shown significant growth yet -- not yet enough new growth to be worth mowing.

Part of me is disappointed that the KBG is not growing faster. Another part of me thinks this bodes well -- isn't slower vertical growth some of the reason for choosing a "compact" grass type? 

I do think the grass looks a bit nitrogen-starved; there are a few small sections where the grass is really taking off in patterns that look like they may have received fertilizer overlap in the fall. I speculate that the decomposition of the multitude of grass roots from the former turf may be tying up the nitrogen in the soil, leaving insufficient nutrients for the new grass. I'm planning to drop additional nitrogen fertilizer, probably via a combination of Bay State Fertilizer and urea, in a few days, along with other soil amendments based upon soil test results.

You'll note from these photos that only about half of the deciduous trees are starting to produce immature leaves. Other types (e.g. the white oaks) aren't ready for new leaves yet. Even the lilac bushes don't yet have full foliage, although future flower stalks are developing. Our springtime lawn definitely runs way behind those of most other cool season folks on this site, but that means that even after most of you are going into summer "survival mode," we can continue fertilizing about a month later into summer.

Mailbox View as of 2019-05-12 (Day 261):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-05-12 (Day 261:









Far End as of 2019-05-12 (Day 261):









FF Thinning Area as of 2019-05-12:


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## llO0DQLE (Dec 4, 2017)

Looking good KNN! Hearing some folks down south having late springs is consoling to me. lol I always thought everybody greened up at least 2 months earlier than me. Looks like you're only a couple weeks or so ahead of me this year. You do get a longer fall season though as I'm usually covered in snow by November. Even if there was no snow, the temps are pretty cold, daylight hours are so short and the sun too low that the grass looks fugly by then. I'm actually happy when I get snow in November because the grass is protected.

It's interesting to hear about your experience with the cobblestones and frost heaves. I didn't know that water accumulation was a major factor with frost heaves. I wanted to install cobblestone pavers to the edges of my lawn by the fence as I end up mowing a rut in those areas anyway but was always worried about frost heaves. I do get water accumulation in those areas from snow melt due to the slight slope for drainage. I would hate to put in all that work installing pavers and then have them all wonky after the first winter!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

llO0DQLE said:


> Hearing some folks down south having late springs is consoling to me. lol I always thought everybody greened up at least 2 months earlier than me. Looks like you're only a couple weeks or so ahead of me this year.


Thanks for reminding me that "up north" and "down south" are relative terms! It's easy to forget that you're enough farther north of me to be even 2-3 weeks further behind!


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## llO0DQLE (Dec 4, 2017)

Hahaha and we now have a member that's even farther north than me. He's in Grand Prairie! lol


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Once again, we've fallen behind on lawn photos. These are photos from 10 days ago, on 19 May 2019, one week after the prior photos. The grass is all awake, but the renovated KBG in the front lawn (Bewitched & Prosperity) still hasn't grown enough to mow yet.

The grass seems to be responding well to the nitrogen that I applied - some patches have gotten beyond greening up and are showing new spring growth. I can't wait for it all to grow vigorously and start to fill in the bare spots. It's so hard to be patient!

Most of the trees now have leaves and the lilac bushes are developing flowers, but aren't really in bloom yet. At least all the pollen from the trees hasn't covered everything in yellow yet!

Mailbox View as of 2019-05-19 (Day 268):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-05-19 (Day 268):









Far End as of 2019-05-19 (Day 268):









FF Thinning Area as of 2019-05-19:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

What a difference another week makes!

The "slow to green up in spring" Bewitched & Prosperity has now finally awoken and is growing. I do think the lawn had been nitrogen deficient; having remedied that with fertilizer has enabled it to be growing pretty much everywhere!

Color is still spotty with slightly different maturity and growth rates throughout the renovated area, but I dare say that will balance out by the end of June.

Now I just hope the bare spots will fill in fast -- there's already been some progress in that area, and I know that historically June is about the best month of the year for growing grass in my lawn. This month is the fun one for lawn care in New Hampshire!

Mailbox View as of 2019-05-28 (Day 277):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-05-28 (Day 277):









Far End as of 2019-05-28 (Day 277):


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## rob13psu (May 20, 2018)

ken-n-nancy said:


> Far End as of 2019-05-28 (Day 277):


Beautiful!


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Is the wheel cover from the car in the background?


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

g-man said:


> Is the wheel cover from the car in the background?


Ha! I wish it were! :lol:

I wondered if somebody would ask about that. Turns out it is kind of one of those sad ironies of life...

A couple weeks ago while on a road trip, we hit a massive pothole somewhere along I-80 in Pennsylvania. The impact managed to bend the rim of the wheel a bit and apparently busted the hubcap off the car, which is quite an accomplishment, as on our Ford Focus the hubcaps are retained by the lug nuts (i.e. one has to remove all the lug nuts to take the hubcap off) so the hubcap must have broken to have been ejected from the wheel! (Of course, we didn't realize we had lost the hubcap until many miles later when we stopped for gas, so we couldn't exactly go back for it...)

Ironically, a couple days after returning from our trip, we discovered that somebody on our street must have lost a hubcap in the vicinity of our house and somebody else must have found it in the road and propped it up against the telephone pole there, hoping to make it visible to the owner. It's been a couple weeks now, though, so I don't think it's going to be claimed.

The hubcap on the pole is actually for a Ford vehicle, too, but is a different style than those on our car (and is a traditional mounting type, rather than retained by the lug nuts), so sadly, although it is _*almost*_ the right hubcap for our car, it won't match the others. Sigh.

The good news is that the replacement hubcap I ordered arrived yesterday, and I'm hoping to have some time to put it on the car this weekend, so hopefully this will be the last day we drive around with a missing hubcap!


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> What a difference another week makes!


Following the mowing line from the mailbox partway into the frame, that lighter spot to the right of it...I'm hoping it's not Triv making a comeback...is it just the unevenness of the KBG color at this point, and maybe where someone stepped while mowing?


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Green said:


> ken-n-nancy said:
> 
> 
> > What a difference another week makes!
> ...


First thought is that you have a good eye!

Second is that, fortunately, the lighter areas are unevenness of the KBG color - I think due to a combination of differing rates of maturation of different areas of the new grass and uneven fertilization on my part, which is accentuated by the fact that I think the grass has been a bit nitrogen starved. I need to make a trip to Quincy, MA to get some more Bay State!

I haven't identified any _Poa trivialis_ in the renovation yet. However, as I've mentioned before, I'm not really good at seeing it until it makes a patch about saucer-sized...

I have plucked out quite a few _Poa annua_ plants, particularly in the areas that were wettest and sparsest germinating in the fall, but I find them to be easy to identify and am keeping ahead of those.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

Ken,

Good to hear. I have Triv that looks a bit more like KBG. It produces seedheads at a 5 inch height just like KBG, and it's a coarse blade. It blends in with KBG better than the fine stuff. My thinking is, that's a common type, whereas the fine bladed stuff that segregates better into patches is the turf type. Both are bad!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Green said:


> I have Triv that looks a bit more like KBG. It produces seedheads at a 5 inch height just like KBG, and it's a coarse blade. It blends in with KBG better than the fine stuff.


I've definitely had different-looking variations of _Poa trivialis_. I don't know if they are different phenotypes, or just different phases of development, or just one type of plant responding to different growing conditions, but it's definitely not all the same. I've definitely had some that was more prolific on stolons and wanting to grow more horizontally, and other patches that looks more like KBG. The stuff that I have that looks more like KBG tends to have blades that are almost banana-shaped, in gentle arcs like a tarantula's legs (although not segmented like a tarantula's legs) although quite floppy. I never see the desirable KBG in my lawn having blades that are quite so banana shaped.

One of the things I really like about the KBG-only sections of our lawn, in contrast to the northern mix, is that it's easy to tell if there's "weed grass" that should be plucked out -- it doesn't matter what it is, if it looks markedly different from the desirable KBG, then I pull it out. Since there's no need to wonder about what type of grass it is, it's easier to decide to pull it. Reminds me of the song from Sesame Street days... "One of these things is not like the others; one of these things doesn't belong..."


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

I'm not sure what you mean by banana shaped blades, but they're definitely floppy and dull gray-green on the Triv (even when dark green...and some are). And the seedheads (quantity exacerbated with Tenacity use if anything) look very similar to those of KBG. It also has a longer ligule most of the time. Finally, it always passes the string test..pick a blade off and then pull on it and try to stretch it laterally. It'll snap, but when it does, 1 to 3 lateral veins will produce strings. I've never seen KBG do that, but annua does, too. That's my go-to diagnostic to rule out KBG. The blades on the thicker version of Triv also seem a little more pointed than those of KBG, but not as pointed as ryegrass. I've also mistaken very fine Triv for FF.

I don't remember that song from Sesame Street.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Today's photos show that the renovated lawn continues to improve. The sparse areas are less noticeable from a distance, but still very apparent when actually standing in them.

I fertilized yesterday, but the effect of the additional fertilizer hasn't yet shown in the grass. I'm hoping that the "pale stripes" from previous uneven fertilizer application will be gone in a few days, but only time will tell.

Still hopefully that this will look pretty good in a few more weeks -- our lawn tends to peak for the year right around the 4th of July weekend, so there's only a few weeks of prime time left!

I'm disappointed with the bare spots right on the cobblestone edge, but I know those will fill in soon enough -- generally the problem is the grass trying to grow out over the tops of the cobblestones -- it's just a matter of time! Be patient, grasshopper!

Mailbox View as of 2019-06-09 (Day 289):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-06-09 (Day 289):









Far End as of 2019-06-09 (Day 289):









Closer View of Sparse Spots and Pale Stripes as of 2019-06-09 (Day 289):


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Didn't have a chance to take the "regular lawn photos" this week, as we were too busy getting ready for the high school graduation party of our daughter!

The lawn was key to the graduation party!

Front Lawn for Graduation Party on 2019-06-15 (Day 295):









Side Lawn for Volleyball on 2019-06-15 (Day 295):









Side Lawn for Volleyball on 2019-06-15 (Day 295):


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## ericgautier (Apr 22, 2017)

^ looked like everyone had a good time and enjoyed the lawn! Nice job.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Our experience is that our lawn tends to peak at around July 1st each year. That's tomorrow, but here are photos from yesterday, which will probably be the "peak" this year, unless the lawn manages to attain to this same level again in mid-September.

We clearly chose the right course of action to let the KBG "do its thing" to fill in the sparser spots. By avoiding additional seeding this spring, we were able to apply a pre-emergent and keep weed pressure to a minimum. The only weed control we've done in the front lawn has been via hand-pulling -- nothing sufficiently widespread to necessitate spraying.

The bare spots right on the cobblestone edge continue to fill in. I speculate they will be completely filled in by September.

Not our best pics - didn't blow the clippings off the cobblestones and still need to spray glyphosate on the KBG which is growing in what is supposed to be the "barren wasteland" between the cobblestones and the road. Some brown is also starting to show up in the lawn - seems like a combination of disease pressure and summer stress. It is what it is... only so much time to work on it...

Mailbox View as of 2019-06-29 (Day 309):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-06-29 (Day 309):









Far End as of 2019-06-29 (Day 309):


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Two weeks ago, I had reported that our lawn usually peaks around July 1st. That seems to have been true for the northern mix section this year, but the KBG front lawn that was renovated last fall continues to improve. I think this week's photos are better than last week's, even though high temperatures so far for every day in July have been in the 83F to 93F range, with the minimum low in that stretch being 60F, with most nights in the mid-60s.

Mowed today and applied another application of Serenade. Currently planning for Serenade applications of 3oz/ksqft every 10 days while this heat and humidity continue.

Sprayed the "barren wasteland" between the cobblestones and the road with glyphosate about a week ago -- that area is looking dead, as desired.

There are some patches of _Poa annua_ in the front lawn -- I've been whittling away at them by hand pulling, but need to spend a bit more time on that one day this week before they get big enough to spread more seeds. It's also clearly an indication that I need to get pre-emergent down again soon to prevent _Poa annua_ germination as fall approaches.

Took a few "bonus pics" this week, shown below before the normal pics.

Front Lawn as of 2019-07-13 (Day 323):









Roadside View as of 2019-07-13 (Day 323):









Mailbox View as of 2019-07-13 (Day 323):









Lamp Post View as of 2019-07-13 (Day 323):









Far End as of 2019-07-13 (Day 323):









Northern Mix (FF Thinning Area) as of 2019-07-13:









The browning of the fine fescue and perennial ryegrass in the northern mix can be seen. Some patches of FF or PRG nearest the roadside cobblestones are also brown and entering dormancy, despite receiving the same watering as the KBG in the front lawn.


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## Mrotatori (Aug 13, 2018)

Looks great, especially for July.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Mrotatori said:


> Looks great, especially for July.


Thanks! The front lawn KBG is still growing well and looking good, other than increasing amounts of _Poa annua_, particularly in the shadier (thinner) spots.

I mowed last night, which was 5 days after my prior mow, at a height of 3.25" and was probably taking off about 2" which breaks the 1/3 rule a little. I had to go real slow in the sunnier areas to keep from bogging down the mower due to the thickness of grass and the amount being cut off.

I'm expecting growth to slow down a bit over these next 3 days with forecasted highs in the mid-90s and overnight lows only getting into the mid-70s.

I probably should make another Serenade app tonight, as disease pressure will be very high with the heat and humidity.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Mowed today, five days since the prior mowing -- one day later than the normal "every 4th day" we have been doing lately. Due to the extra growth, raised the mowing height one notch (1/2") for the front lawn which grows the fastest due to more sun than the rest of the lawn. So, cut the front lawn at 3.75" instead of our normal 3.25"

Front lawn still seems to be growing well, despite the three days of 95F high temperatures over the weekend. Grass seems to have coasted right through the heat wave -- surely helped by the fact that the past 36 hours have been cool and rainy. We received 2.1" of rain in the last two days, with today's high temperatures just barely breaking 70F.

Lawn also clearly needs more fertilizer, but every time I get an opportunity to get some Bay State Fertilizer, I call ahead and learn that they're out of stock -- seems like the popularity of Bay State has gone up quite a bit in the past few years. Might have to substitute something else again.

Took advantage of a little bit of free time and thinned the weeds out of an area of our woodsy border where I transplanted some ferns last fall. Have been very glad to see that the ferns have all survived the transplanting -- some online sources I had read before doing that said that wild ferns were difficult to transplant, but the ones I moved all seemed to make it! Also trimmed the lower branches off our magnolia, as they are getting in the way of mowing.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Today we applied the first application of pre-emergent to stop _Poa annua_ from germinating this fall: Prodiamine 65 WDG at a 3-month rate (0.5 Tbsp/ksqft).

The new Bewitched+Prosperity front lawn continues to improve, even through the heat. Very thankful that our renovation has turned out so well!


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

:thumbup: 
Since you mentioned that you were due for fertilizer, I'm curious, when did you last apply some (and what did you use)?

It looks beautiful!


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Chris LI said:


> :thumbup: It looks beautiful!
> Since you mentioned that you were due for fertilizer, I'm curious, when did you last apply some (and what did you use)?


Thanks for the kudos.

I've been having trouble getting Bay State Fertilizer all year - my schedule just hasn't lined up with availability. As a result, I've skipped some applications of things that I usually apply by mixing with Bay State Fertilizer (SOP and micronutrients) and have done piecemeal fertilization by substituting other things that I had on hand or happened to see on sale.

My most recent fertilization on the renovated front lawn was on 8 June 2019, at which time I applied Scotts GreenMax (27-0-2) at a rate of .66#N/ksqft. I also sprayed 1.25# of Miracle-Gro Lawn Food (36-0-6) that I've had left over for many years on the driveway edge and front lawn "trouble spots" (thin areas which have needed more filling in.)

Before that, the only prior fertilization that I did on the front renovation this year was way back on 7 May 2019, which was a mix of Urea at 0.46#N/ksqft and Bay State at 0.64#N/ksqft, for a total application of 1.1#N/ksqft.

So, the front has received only 1.76#N/ksqft this year, which is a lot less than I had planned, but it is what it is. There are clear light/dark stripes on the lawn from uneven fertilization, running parallel to the road, and particularly evident near the big white oak in the front lawn. They've been bugging me, but the stripes aren't particularly evident to most people that aren't lawn crazies. The uneven fertilization stripes are most apparent when looking down on the lawn from the upstairs windows of the house.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Sprayed Serenade at approximately 2.5oz/ksqft to all KBG as part of our preventative biogfungicide plan.

Spot-sprayed triclopyr in the form of Ortho CCO (Clover, Chickweed, and Oxalis Killer) to all weeds throughout the lawn, which are primarily clover and wild violet. Planning to re-apply a second application in about 10 days.

Diagnosed some wierdness (much thinner but darker turf) in the KBG side lawn as having been an overapplication of propiconazole (PPZ41) in a few portions of the side lawn from when I made that application back on June 27. Back at that time, I measured out the desired amount of PPZ41 for the square footage I would be covering, loaded it into my Earthway S25 sprayer and applied as I normally do, but I ended up with a fair bit left in the sprayer after I'd made a first pass over the entire side lawn. Figuring that I would give the sections of the side lawn experiencing the most disease a bit of an "extra curative boost" I made a couple extra passes over a few of those sections, in a kind of odd pattern, as I was targeting the worst disease areas.

The disease has now cleared up throughout the entire side lawn, however, some areas have thinned out significantly. In previous weeks, I had presumed this was due to the disease, as this is in the places where the disease had been worst. However, looking at it today, it is clear that the thinner turf is also significantly darker turf and is in the pattern of sprayer-wide swaths that exactly match the places that I made the extra two passes with the sprayer. It's only since I made the propiconazole application that I learned that DMI fungicides have a growth regulation effect and can result in turf that is darker, slower growing, and less dense than untreated turf. The overapplication has clearly magnified that effect to the point of being detrimental. Oops! Sometimes the cure is nearly as bad as the disease! (Well, at least when the cure is over-administered -- I should have known that it's not always the case that "more is better.") Live and learn!

I would post a photo of the damage, but with mottled sunlight through the trees on the grass right now, it's pretty hard to see in a photo. I'll try to get a pic later when filtered sunlight is no longer on the portion of the lawn having the problem.


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## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> Spot-sprayed triclopyr in the form of Ortho CCO (Clover, Chickweed, and Oxalis Killer) to all weeds throughout the lawn, which are primarily clover and wild violet. Planning to re-apply a second application in about 10 days.


@ken-n-nancy do you know how long you need to wait after applying before you can safely seed? 30 days? I checked the label but didnt see that mentioned.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

jessehurlburt said:


> ken-n-nancy said:
> 
> 
> > Spot-sprayed triclopyr in the form of Ortho CCO (Clover, Chickweed, and Oxalis Killer)..
> ...


OK, I'll spare you most of my boilerplate diatribe on people asking for answers on the forum when the answers are better found on the product label -- because you've already looked on the label, so it's fair to ask for help.

However, I *know *the information you are asking about is on the label, as I just saw that information myself recently when re-reading the label to answer somebody else's question. Turns out the reason it may have escaped your notice is that it is phrased a little wierd on the label: "Bare spots can be planted with grass seed 1 week after application."

As an aside, this reminds me that I generally detest the Scott's labels, as they are not well organized to supply information but are more of marketing materials. I much prefer the labels on most professional products as being easier to find the needed information, even if they tend to be much longer labels.

Oh, and just for reference, the diatribe is below...


> Asking for help on this forum is good. However, as a general rule, don't let the answers from people here be a substitute for reading the label yourself. People here (myself included) may miss important details like your grass type, your location, your experience level, etc. Always read the label. It may seem like a waste of time to read the label, as most of the contents will be stuff you don't care about or doesn't apply to your case, but the label will also include important details like temperature restrictions, whether the application should be watered in or applied when it's dry, and how long one needs to wait before seeding after an application. Manufacturer's websites are great for linking to labels. domyown.com generally always links to the label, too. In this case, the Ortho CCO label at https://www.ortho.com/sites/g/files/oydgjc116/files/asset_images/products/ortho/weed_killers/weeds_in_lawn/pdf/WBGChickweedCloverOxalis_042009.pdf answers your question: "Bare spots can be planted with grass seed 1 week after application."


Along those lines, don't just take my word for it, but check the label yourself to verify it. "Trust but verify."

Good luck and have fun!


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## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

Thanks for skipping the diatribe- I just missed it since they tacked it on to the end of a statement about spraying near ornamental shrubs. :dunno:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

ken-n-nancy said:


> I'll try to get a pic later when filtered sunlight is no longer on the portion of the lawn having the problem.


Below are the promised pics. First pic shows the worst of the damage. Second pic is the same as the first one, but marked up to show the linear boundaries between good and bad, where too much propiconazole was applied in the "extra bonus" passes, causing damage that clearly follows the straight-line paths I pushed the sprayer.


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## Mark B (May 30, 2019)

How's things looking?
Hope the lawn recovered for you.
Been adding any N yet?


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Realized today that we haven't made any updates to this thread at all this year. We've been taking lawn photos regularly, but just haven't been updating the thread. Figured I should post some updates to finish out this renovation journal, as it's time to open up a new one. (But I'm getting ahead of myself with that...)

Below is what the lawn looked like in early spring in the standard photos from 6 April 2020. The lawn actually looked much better at this point of the year than most years, due to a lawn-friendly winter with no extended snow cover, meaning that we had zero snow mold that I could see, and also a very early thaw, without much of a "mud season" either.

Mailbox View as of 2020-04-06:









Lamp Post View as of 2020-04-06:









Far End as of 2020-04-06:









Side of Driveway as of 2020-04-06:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Realized today that we haven't made any updates to this thread at all this year. We've been taking lawn photos regularly, but just haven't been updating the thread. Figured I should post some updates to finish out this renovation journal, as it's time to open up a new one. (But I'm getting ahead of myself with that...)

Below is what the lawn looked like in early spring in the standard photos from 6 April 2020. The lawn actually looked much better at this point of the year than most years, due to a lawn-friendly winter with no extended snow cover, meaning that we had zero snow mold that I could see, and also a very early thaw, without much of a "mud season" either.

Mailbox View as of 2020-04-06:









Lamp Post View as of 2020-04-06:









Far End as of 2020-04-06:









Side of Driveway as of 2020-04-06:


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Fast-forward another few months and we're at a good time to have some "second year after renovation" photos.

In sum, we're very happy with how the front lawn renovation to a blend of Bewitched KBG and Prosperity KBG turned out. So far, I think we're remaining free of _Poa trivialis_ in the front lawn, although we have had some appear in the side lawn and did have a small patch in the shadiest area of the front lawn this spring, which we pulled out by hand right at green-up (the _Poa trivialis_ greened up before the KBG, making it easy to spot) which seems to have gotten rid of it, or at least made its presence small enough to not be noticed (at least until fall...) We know the battle will never really be over!

In any case, on to the photos...

Front lawn as of the height of summer on 2020-07-18:









Mailbox View as of 2020-06-14:









Lamp Post View as of 2020-06-14:









Far End as of 2020-06-14:


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## Sinclair (Jul 25, 2017)

Looking great!

I hand pulled two small patches of Poa Trivialis in late April - it was lime green and an inch taller than everyone else.

I just pulled it out again from the same two spots and now the stragglers are white from tenacity.

Going to have to be vigilant and heavy handed!


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## rob13psu (May 20, 2018)

Good to hear from you! The lawn is looking great.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Sinclair said:


> Looking great!
> 
> I hand pulled two small patches of Poa Trivialis in late April - it was lime green and an inch taller than everyone else.
> 
> ...


Thanks, Sinclair! We absolutely do need to remain "vigilant and heavy handed" with regard to staving off future _Poa trivialis_ onslaughts!



rob13psu said:


> Good to hear from you! The lawn is looking great.


Thanks!

FYI, we have started a new "lawn journal" thread for our 2020 renovation. Seems like some folks are moving over to new journals each year or each project, while others keep the same one for multi-year efforts. We aren't really sure which is preferred, but we have the new one now...


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