# South Carolina Arden 15 Renovation



## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

Hi all! Been a lurker for a while and soaking up all the info. Bought a house in Murrells Inlet SC last May and had a spotty centipede yard. It doesn't put up with the kids traffic so I decided to brave a spring renovation. I went with Arden 15 and spent Feb and March killing off most of the remaining centipede and generally making a miserable looking yard (wife has some skepticism :lol: ). I raked and removed a ton of dead centipede, but wish I did a bit more. I aerated and did some top dressing and leveling with top soil and sand (lessons learned here with layering/mixing). I got a soil test done via my local SiteOne and amended the soil accordingly. It needed everything basically as well as a lime drop to correct the Ph. I also repaired an irrigation system that was not used for some time, this included replacing a shallow well pump and some line/head work.

After monitoring soil temps, I decided to seed on April 5th with 10 lbs of Hancock seed (~7k yard, only back for this project as front is still centipede...we'll see how this goes and tackle front) to start and a round of starter fert, and hoped for the best. As of this post, i'm 9 days in and had my first germination signs at day 3. I was impatient and dropped a couple more pounds in areas that didn't jump up. I have strong areas that are almost 2 inches and green hairs all over. I dropped Milorganite at day 6 and have been pulling weeds as I see them and as I can, but I think that's just going to be the battle this season since weed control doesn't seem to play with new Bermuda. I've taken pictures daily during the process and I wanted to share for input as well as hoping others can learn from my mistakes/successes. I've enjoyed reading up on @supriselawn and @Coldsprings, so I hope to entertain someone else down the line. Pics inbound and I'll keep this journal for logging :thumbup:


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

Couple from this afternoon.

I've noticed an algae issue in some areas that had a washout and I think developed during my water schedule workout for germination.

I was watering for 10 mins every 2-3 hours but scaled back night watering, not sure where I'm landing on this yet...germination was great then but algae trade off it seems


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## ENC_Lawn (Sep 9, 2018)

I spent a entire summer renovating to Princess 77 Bermuda and Arden 15.

It will take off around the 6 to 7 week mark.

If you don't want to kill off the centipede yard.

You could SOD a small section and plug into the Centipede lawn...keeping a green lawn the entire season.

Once the Bermuda gets established Centipede is pretty easy to spray out...this way you wouldn't have bare dirt the entire time.


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

I was thinking the same with the plugs in the front. The wife bought a play set for the kids that will be here in June, so I've seeded it's spot and was thinking of taking that area as plugs down the road.

Btw, thanks for posting! I've read through your journal more than once during this planning! Your yard turned out fantastic


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## ENC_Lawn (Sep 9, 2018)

ronjonbomber said:


> I was thinking the same with the plugs in the front. The wife bought a play set for the kids that will be here in June, so I've seeded it's spot and was thinking of taking that area as plugs down the road.
> 
> Btw, thanks for posting! I've read through your journal more than once during this planning! Your yard turned out fantastic


Thanks for the compliment!

Either way will work. If it's not to late to consider SOD...I would.

Honestly seed seems cheaper but by the time to calculate the time, weed battle, water expense. Fertilizer (from pushing new Bermuda growth)...reseeding the bare areas...you will have close to the same expense of SOD.

Not to mention SOD is a better cultivar and a instant lawn.

Just something to think about.

I'm looking forward to following along.

The Bermuda will literally leap out of the ground by end of July!


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## Herring (Sep 19, 2020)

I will be following and doing a centipede to Arden 15 renovation this year also. I'm starting with a low PH and low across the board soil test and a sandy soil. Lime has been applied and 10-10-10 at 1lb/1000 to the centipede so far. It's great to see germination at three days!


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

Herring said:


> I will be following and doing a centipede to Arden 15 renovation this year also. I'm starting with a low PH and low across the board soil test and a sandy soil. Lime has been applied and 10-10-10 at 1lb/1000 to the centipede so far. It's great to see germination at three days!


Hope I don't disappoint lol!
I had the same scenario, with an identical lime application. I also used 10-10-10, cheap stuff from big box, to correct my soil tests. I've read that all this will stress any remaining centipede, so hopefully that will be the case. I'm currently juggling my water schedule and beginning some spoon feeding soon. I got some American Hydro 19-0-0 for the first app, see how it goes...

@ENC_Lawn I can definitely see sod being affordable in certain scenarios based on these fert costs pushing new growth, thanks for the heads up. TBD I suppose, having too much fun with this back yard project to worry about the front for a bit :lol:


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

Help!

So see above first...

I think all is going well and I've posted germination pics above, however, I backed water off a bit since yesterday and come home to do my first spoon feeding to find what looks like new germination everywhere:



This looks entirely different than my previous posts. This is low and fatter, while previous was long and skinny...

Do I have a mixed bag here, which is the imposter?? Could one be my old centipede trying to come back?

New stuff:

Old stuff:

Both in one pic:


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## sam36 (Apr 14, 2020)

The small stuff is certainly bermuda. Not so sure about the long stringy stuff. 3 days is insane for germination. It is very rare to see germination at less than 7 days. For a project last year, I got germination at 10 days. But this year, with the same seed, it took 17 days.

This thread has some good pictures of baby bermuda


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

sam36 said:


> The small stuff is certainly bermuda. Not so sure about the long stringy stuff. 3 days is insane for germination. It is very rare to see germination at less than 7 days. For a project last year, I got germination at 10 days. But this year, with the same seed, it took 17 days.
> 
> This thread has some good pictures of baby bermuda


I'm afraid you're right, the small stuff is clearly matching up with that other baby Bermuda thread. Today is 11 days since seeding, so the new stuff fits that timeline. Thanks for the response and the link.

So the tall stringy stuff....anyone have thoughts? Returning centipede or some other weed invasion?


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

While I'm waiting for some sort of good news, I came up with a backup plan...
https://youtu.be/o9uTIKvTUmw


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## GrassDad (Sep 18, 2019)

The small stuff looks like baby sedge. Likely from all the watering. I wouldn't spray anything until the baby bermuda (anyone else sing baby beluga in their head when saying this - blame it on years of raising kids) wakes up.


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

Yikes...if that's Sedge, I have a huge amount...all that green in the pics below.

Since I have Bermuda coming up now how do I handle that much sedge? I hadn't really intended on using herbicides until late summer/fall to protect the new Bermuda. Am I just SOL? I knew I was going to have to deal with weeds with a spring seeding but dang this is a new sedge lawn lol


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

I've embraced the weeds and moved on...
Treated some perpetually dry spots with peat moss and over seeded some spots. Spoon feed some nitro on Saturday at .25/1k.


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## Topher0402 (Mar 2, 2021)

I am also planting Arden and I just noticed the same type of grass that appeared. I just started seeing it 4 days after seeding


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

Interesting...
I chatted with the guy at my local SiteOne today and he said it looked like fescue got in through seed or soil prep. He said it should die out when it gets hot, but I don't know how accurate his assessment is. Correct me if I'm wrong, does Arden come exclusively from Pennington seed, then resold? I'm curious if contamination is true and where it came from...me or seed. I expect some weed content from seed but I got a lot in this one.
Either way...in for the long haul now and the real Bermuda is coming in nicely!


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## JRS 9572 (May 28, 2018)

@ronjonbomber are you down in the Lowcountry?


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

@JRS 9572 Murrells Inlet 👍👍


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## JRS 9572 (May 28, 2018)

ronjonbomber said:


> @JRS 9572 Murrells Inlet 👍👍


Sorry I didn't mean to insult someone from The Grand Strand! Love that area.


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

20 day update:
Fixed some bare spots that washed out and pulled a bucket of weeds. .25lb/k spoon feeding but not landing on a product...thinking about getting straight urea and going that route with mix, thoughts?


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

Filling in! Switched to Urea for my spoon feeding and it's growing like crazy. I used 3lbs of 46-0-0 in 6 gallons of water, let it set for a couple hours then did an irrigation run. I've been trimming to HOC 1" a couple times a week now.


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

Quick update…
Urea .25 weekly, grows so fast…filling in very quickly and mowing every other day. Trying to stay at 1" HOC but I might have to mow every day now to stay in the 1/3 rule. May lay off urea and move away from spoon feeding because of this growth rate. Thoughts?


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## Topher0402 (Mar 2, 2021)

I had good germination but I've been stuck at this stage for 10 days or so. I've already put down 10-10-10. Still watering 3x a day for about 10 min. Any idea on how to improve the growth?


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## sam36 (Apr 14, 2020)

Topher0402 said:


> I had good germination but I've been stuck at this stage for 10 days or so. I've already put down 10-10-10. Still watering 3x a day for about 10 min. Any idea on how to improve the growth?


Not sure what to tell you. Sometimes young bermuda seems to get "stuck" for 20 days or so. Perhaps due to soil, or fertility, or just temperature issues. I planted monaco over 5k sqft last June 2020 and I did the same thing this year only over 10k sqft but I planted at the end of March. My day 20 of last year looks like my day 40 this year. I'm thinking due to temperature. 
The purple hue is due to low phosphorus. But it's probably better to be purple rather than yellow.


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

I used a dose of starter fertilizer (Scott's) right before seed and again about 20 days after in some spots. The purple should be resolved with some starter (you'll find this problem/solution in other threads as well). I had about a 10 day stall too but then it took off.


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## Topher0402 (Mar 2, 2021)

Thanks, it's still getting down in the 50's at night here so I am hoping once we average out in the 90's it will take off.


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## ENC_Lawn (Sep 9, 2018)

Looking Great!

The lawn will be filled in nicely by 4th of July.

Great job!

Try to keep up the mowing schedule if you can...that seems to really push the Bermuda for lateral growth.

I think .5 pounds of Nitrogen every 15 days would be sufficient as well.


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## Topher0402 (Mar 2, 2021)

ENC_Lawn said:


> Looking Great!
> 
> The lawn will be filled in nicely by 4th of July.
> 
> ...


Isn't it too early for me to cut? I'm worried about stressing out the new grass.


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## ENC_Lawn (Sep 9, 2018)

What week are you on?

You could always wait another week or two you just don't want your vertical growth to get to tall and then you stress the new seeded lawn by scalping it.


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## Topher0402 (Mar 2, 2021)

ENC_Lawn said:


> What week are you on?
> 
> You could always wait another week or two you just don't want your vertical growth to get to tall and then you stress the new seeded lawn by scalping it.


Almost 4 weeks. It took a little longer to take off. I just added some 10-10-10 and I'm seeing a boost.


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## ENC_Lawn (Sep 9, 2018)

Topher0402 said:


> ENC_Lawn said:
> 
> 
> > What week are you on?
> ...


Ok..I got your lawn confused with another picture of a lawn in this thread.

Yes you DO NOT want to mow yet.

Sorry for the confusion.


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## Topher0402 (Mar 2, 2021)

ENC_Lawn said:


> Topher0402 said:
> 
> 
> > ENC_Lawn said:
> ...


Thanks,
Sorry for blowing up your thread ronjonbomber.


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## sam36 (Apr 14, 2020)

Topher0402 said:


> Thanks, it's still getting down in the 50's at night here so I am hoping once we average out in the 90's it will take off.


With my own project, I've noticed super slow germination I think due to temps dropping into the 50's several times. I planted on March 28 and I thought everything had germinated by May 1st. But just the last week, I've been finding a lot of bare spots have magically started germinating/growing.


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

It's been a minute since my last update..
Growing like crazy and I'm transplanting runners into the holes.
I have to mow every other day and once it's finished filling in I'm gonna look into PGR.
Overall, pretty happy with results.

Question…
I'm consistently pulling weeds, especially crabgrass and some sedge. I know everyone says no weed control (chemical) until after the first growing season, but investigating what I can do. Anyone have thoughts?


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## Herring (Sep 19, 2020)

Wow that looks great! I'm hoping for the same success. Greendoc recently talked about herbicides on newly seeded Bermuda here...
https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28525&p=393058#p393058


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

@Herring thanks for the link!


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## Mtsdream (May 2, 2019)

ronjonbomber said:


> It's been a minute since my last update..
> Growing like crazy and I'm transplanting runners into the holes.
> I have to mow every other day and once it's finished filling in I'm gonna look into PGR.
> Overall, pretty happy with results.
> ...


I sprayed sedge a little under 60 day mark for mine


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## littlehuman (Jun 10, 2020)

How's your progress now that we've had a few hot growing months?


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

littlehuman said:


> How's your progress now that we've had a few hot growing months?


I'll post some pics later, it's been a while since I've updated…thanks for the reminder!
It's been a challenging summer and I can appreciate those that recommend doing a new seed renovation in the fall. 
I've had several setbacks this summer with some windows of great looking grass: a crabgrass explosion, handled, a sedge problem, ongoing, and an armyworm invasion, handled but a couple days later than I should have.


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## ronjonbomber (Apr 14, 2021)

littlehuman said:


> How's your progress now that we've had a few hot growing months?


Just starting to recover from armyworm damage.


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## littlehuman (Jun 10, 2020)

Not bad at all! That's pretty good progress for the same season that you seeded in.


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