# Building a backyard golf course



## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Figured I'd post here and keep track of this project and see how far it goes. I've been meaning to make a journal for a year. The plan is to build a backyard golf course but that title feels like clickbait.

We bought this rural property a few years ago and are now building a house. We got lucky and the parcel was a large piece. Its mixed forest and hills, but there is an open area that was a gravel and aggregate pit decades ago. Probably 50+ years ago.

What they left after they abandoned the sand and gravel quarry, was a fairly flat and open area with some sweeping grades. As soon as I saw it I thought of two words: golf course. Not huge, but two holes and maybe a handful of different tee decks. Should be able to get 130 or so yards between pins for good iron play and hopefully keep the kids outside for hours.

So I'll try and find some older pictures from a year or two ago up until now. We recently ripped the entire flat area up to run geothermal piping for heating and cooling the house. The land is leveled back out after the pipes were buried 5 feet down and looks good, but is sandy base with some river rock in it. Thats where we sit today.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I also dug a pond, because, well I love backyard ponds and we also needed good clean backfill for the house and I gambled that there was good clean sand in the ground.

This area was always wet in the spring for a few months with about 6 inches of water. The guys years back stopped at that level when they were taking sand/gravel from the property as it was near the water level of the river thats not far from the new pond.

I figured if the low area was wet for a few months it should hold water all year if we dig it down. It was a great gamble and dig and the pond turned out great.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I started doing YouTube videos to document the landscape project that starts with and centers around a pond dig. This video gives a good look at the overall property.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Grabbed some pictures today of the property. Here's the pond current day. Ice came off about 3 weeks ago.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Of course when you see that view, you can't help but think of a grabbing a club and teeing it up.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

You know when you do something dumb/crazy landscape related but you just can't help it? I started that strip of grass in the middle of nowhere with no power, water or anything close by. I just wanted to see grass on the property. I'm sure everyone here has the same "problem".

It was torture staring the seed with watering cans filled from a river close by. That was two years ago. Those pictures are of a re seed after I painfully watched it scorch in a dry run and couldn't get enough water to it.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I used a gas water pump and long hoses and did get it back to established. This past summer the turf was really nice and thick as the bluegrass started to take hold and mature. This photo is from 2019 re-established after the drought.

I did learn that KBG is tough when pushed to the limits as in no water and hot sun for 3 weeks straight.

I used 100% KBG

25% Legend
25% Blue Note
25% Arrowhead
25% Bolt


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

There's a house on the property soon to be complete so I feel spoiled to have running water and electricity. This little patch of grass is a total waste of time and should never have been started 3 years ago, but hey its my little patch of KBG that I've been putting through the ringer and learning from.

I'll green it up again this year for no reason whatsoever, but someday it will be the #1 tee deck that gets the inaugural 9 iron drive taken from.

Here's a picture of some late 2019 tufts of bluegrass starting to spread. No pond on property at this point.

By no means a great "lawn" but I love that late season green in the bluegrasses, even on this wild plot of grass.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Up to date now, and most of the property was ripped up to bury geothermal pipe 5 feet under the surface for the homes heating/cooling system late this past fall.

What we're left with is an empty canvas ready to be worked on.

Here's a few before and after pictures of the old shape of the quarry and whats now been cleaned up.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)




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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Here's a view from the house to the end of the property. Going to take lost of prep, shaping, soil, irrigation and seed but you gotta admit it kinda naturally looks like a tiny two hole 150 yard golf course?


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

That's a great looking property and project. I'll be following along.


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## Lawndress (Jul 9, 2020)

In areas I can't reasonably water, I just suck up the lower stand thickness and throw on extra seed.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Looked at cleaning up around the three dwarf neon blue spruce that I planted as the first thing on the property two and a half years ago.

There's also a natural choke cherry tree in that plot that you can see that I didnt want to move so I kept it there with the spruce.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I didn't want to add too much soil around them and hurt the root system, so I went with a thin layer of topsoil and to get some more nutrients into the area around the trees, I put down a ring of 3 year old compost that I've had stored on the property. Basically pure maple leaf compost. Will probably show pics on that compost set up sometime.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Topped it off with some cedar mulch that we made with wood chipper from cedar on the property.

I put down some fescue. Chewing and creeping. Was looking for a low maintenance area around the trees and I low the way the natural fescue "tufts" itself. Theres some old pasture fescue on the property that grows all year in the sandy rough conditions. Stays small and tame.

This was 10% ryegrass in mix that I didnt want but couldn't get pure fescue.

30% cardinal creeping red fescue
20% compass chewing fescue
20% beacon hard fescue
20% sheeps fescue
10% slider perennial ryegrass


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## bernstem (Jan 16, 2018)

Looking nice. The pond will be a nice centerpiece. PRG/Fine Fescue is often blended together and it looks great cut low if you eventually ge the golf course going.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

bernstem said:


> Looking nice. The pond will be a nice centerpiece. PRG/Fine Fescue is often blended together and it looks great cut low if you eventually ge the golf course going.


Thanks, hoping the pond holds up. Water quality has been good, but it's a young pond. Trying to get the eco-system balanced.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Stocking the pond:


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Pond through the ice:


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## MarineOh3 (Feb 26, 2021)

Such a cool project. Would kill to have a stocked pond like that.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Back again. Started some late work on the backyard just recently. The house is pretty much done so next spring will be mostly landscaping. Front of house first then the backyard golf course.

I wanted to snap a few pics before snow flies up here. I had some extra fill moved from one area of the property and started to ramp a green area that id like to become a nice elevated green instead of the flat land that it was. This is an open area where I can pretty much do what I want.

The second green area is much tighter and falls off a slope as we need the bottom of the slope to drain water and it can't be altered. This green is also butting into a hill and is also maybe too close to the house which I may pay for from the wife when the kids smash a window. BUT I need a second green, right?


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Here's that future green area that has been raised up with 15 or so loads of fill. Will need more fill and should have some coming next year from another area of property.



This green area is a wide open canvas. I'd like to add some slope and rolls with some mounds off the green in the rough cut areas.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

This is the other end of the course, close to house. Its going to be a trickier area to get a green on there with the hard drainage slope to the right and hill to the left.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I dug a fairly large hole to bury some rocks. This property has a lot of rocks and I find the medium sized rocks to be of little use. They're too large to handle by hand, but two small for nice landscape rocks.

So the plan is to bury them and make a soil mount above the rocks.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

It didn't take long to fill the hole so I'll dig another one before freeze up and get more rock buried.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Spring is finally here up north. Still a cold spring so far but the ground has dried. Starting to get anxious thinking about getting two greens built this summer. The first job is getting the front lawn done so there is something clean for the kids to use. Sand and mud everywhere since we moved in. Must get the front lawn set up, so that's first, then hit the greens. Excited.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Had my brother stop by to hit some shots just to see the ball flight from different angles. I can squeeze out maybe 110 yards on a couple tee decks, which I'm happy with. Will be nice to have some full swings with wedges. High shots should hold close to the greens as well as I'm pushing them as far a apart as the land will allow. The second flag is way down in distance and doesn't show well in the picture.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Soooo, front yard needs to get done before the two golf greens. So much sand and dirt and dust blowing around and coming in the house with the kids, it's been a mess for a year since we've been here.

This was the "lawn" last fall. Totally natural woodlot. Some trees, lots of a rocks and brush and stumps to remove. Hard to believe that this was a year ago.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I've seen an old aerial photo of this property from I'm guessing the 1940s, and it was all pasture. Fields with no trees other than some cedar along the shoreline, and I heard locals would let their cattle roam it to graze. There's old cow bones we've found to prove it. There was some nice topsoil here as well and that's what I was after, wanting to keep it for a base under the new topsoil.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

This was last fall as the leaves were dropping and the days getting cooler. There was so much clean up for such a large soon to be lawn. It's about 23,000 feet. Daunting and slow doing it evenings and weekends. The stumps were the toughest to remove. Pry with a skid steer and hope they pop out. Trailered to the local compost station sometimes only two stumps to a dump trailer depending on their size.

But look at that nice soil underneath it all eh?


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Making progress and getting it cleared slowly. The rock rake on the skid steer worked well to rake the heavy vegetation and leave the soil once I shook it out.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The stumps were bad but the rocks may have been worse. The wood material, trees, branches and stumps could all be sent to the organic grinder for mulch for no change. I was stuck with the rocks.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The problem rock wasn't large enough to use as landscape stone but it was too large to handle easily. I had many piles like this that I'd round up and then trailer to the back of the property. I dug a large hole and dumped trailer loads in. I got nice clean sand from the holes which I used elsewhere as clean fill plus I got rid of the rock so I figured it was a good solution. I plan to mount these rock Graves off with dirt to five the "golf course" some moguls around the green.


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## Wile (Sep 17, 2020)

This is intense. Subscribed &#128077;&#127995;


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Just before freeze up, I got a bulldozer operator to come by for a morning and back drag and shape what I had cleaned up over the summer/fall. Finally, it took shape, and he really gave it a nice natural slope.

It was finally looking like it might just be a lawn some day.

Time for snow.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I had been watching this older 2006 Reelmaster 3500D online listed in the classifieds for almost a year. Talked to the guy but it was a few hours away and didnt feel like driving just to look at it. It would get unlisted and I'd figure it was sold then it would pop back up as the ad expired and he'd renew it for another few months.

It wasn't a sidewinder so a lot of courses didn't want it. It did have low hours at 570 which is what I liked. It was a machine from a city run course so lightly used.

The price kept dropping every few months and we finally hammered out a deal late in the fall because I knew he didn't want to sit on it all winter. Tough to sell a fairway mower in Canada in the winter.

So I became the biggest fool with the biggest mower and not a single leaf of grass.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Winter gave me a time to try and get the 3100 back into shape. For me this was a big test, I'm more of a wood guy not a engine and machine guy. A bunch of youtube videos and ordering the manual helped a lot.

The spider couplers were all wrecked and the blades needed sharpening and calibration. It was slow, but I got it all done, had it cutting paper and dialed the cut height to .700/1000th of an inch. I planned to test it on my parents lawn the upcoming season while I started to build my lawn. Better to mess up their lawn than mine, I figured.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The snow melted and the base looked pretty good. I have a strange silty sand here with some limestone and clay in it. It's weird, but anywhere that was dug around the house is that, where the lower area close to river is undisturbed rough topsoil.

The silty sand would hold some water but when it was dried from the sun it was very powdery and fine. I'm hoping it makes a good base under my topsoil as it can and will drain but its not larger pebbled Beach sand that holds onto no moisture, this stuff actually retains moisture. We'll see.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

First order of business was taking the rock rake on the bobcat and back dragging. It really cleaned it up and leveled it off as well as got rid of some rock.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The first order of business was to erect a purple martin house naturally, ha. This one was dicey. It's big and some would say ugly, but the wife was ok with it. I always wanted purple martins, but we are right on their northern edge of range and they'resonrare in my county. They love open flyways and water which is the biggest reason I cleared all the trees, well that and I've had trees in the past. You either have nice trees or a nice lawn, rarely both.

I built this over the winter and it's the 4th one I've made. Too much work but some day I'll have some purple martins - maybe. I've been trying for 12 years with no luck. This is my best shot though. Location is perfect as is housing. 6 wood compartments and 6 natural gourds that I grew the year prior. Purple martins started nesting in Natural gourds way back when native Americans would hang them around their living quarters enjoying the pest control from the aerial insectivores.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Time to get prepped for topsoil. Before the expensive material shows up I wanted to really shape the base to make it easier and more efficient to lay down 5" of topsoil.

I had this lawn drag made up by a welding company. It may look familiar. It's a total knock off of Connor Ward's. Actually, I may have added a couple inches in depth to this one. It pulls really well behind a small tractor. Slow is the best speed as it cuts off high spots and drops the soil in the low spots. There's something about running it, but it's so relaxing watching the ground get smoother and more perfect every pass. This thing truly is exceptional. I almost wasn't going to use it on the sloped front yard because I didn't think did would work well on curves but it does. (I had it made up for the last house after a septic bed got replaced and I needed to smooth out some tough clay soil, flat lawn)


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The best part of the drag was that it popped out the rocks. This place is littered with a mix of small round granite and broken up limestone. In the end, I picked up at least 12 buckets of rock from the yard. Well over 2000 stones that the dragged caught and pulled out of the ground.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

My biggest worry with creating this river side "front lawn" was wash out. There really isn't a level spot on it, the property tips to the river and gets steeper the closer you get to the river. I had anxiety worrying about a straight KBG mix germinating slowly and getting washed out in a storm.

One way to minimize the water from rains was to send my eavestrough underground. It was a big job, but I'm glad that I did it. It's cool to go out in a hard rain and see the pipe dumping water out 100 feet from the downspout.

Luckily I knew someone with an excavator and the hourly rate was very fair. Took a while to get in the groove but I really enjoyed using it.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

So then it was time for a final drag and finally getting ready for topsoil. There was always a spot near the shore that I kept grinding across with the drag. I felt around with a shovel and knew the limestone was decent sized , but a lot of it in that area of lawn was very weak and crumbly. So while I had the excavator I figured I'd dig it out because let's be honest, who could live with a big dead spot on their lawn with only an inch of soil present.

Turns out the rock was large. Very large. I couldn't lift it out of the hole with the 4 ton mini excavator. Luckily a guy was doing some rock work close by and had an old loader that could lift anything.

I got rid of that rock and patched the lawn with about 2 tons of my silty sand. Not sure that's called a patch when it's that size.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Damn, I forgot I needed a wire run for the future water pump to water golf course. Best way to the location is straight through the lawn. Better do that now.

Also, I did a smaller trench for a smaller wire for the water pump that will water this current lawn project. Lots of pipes and wires under this lawn and I still haven't got to the irrigation.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Added a quick fire pit before topsoil.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Worked in a quick "beach" out of the abundance of silty sand at the shore and tried for a nice curved line that that topsoil would meet. Don't tell the ministry of the environment.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Finally time for the final dragging. Topsoil spreading tomorrow. Looking like a nice smooth surface now.


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## lbb091919 (Apr 26, 2020)

This is now my favorite thread on this board. The amount of thought and prep that's going into this is incredible and that's probably not even scratching the surface. Many props to you for doing this right. I cannot wait to see the end result.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Finishing up the dragging of the sub-soil, I bounced off the tops of these rocks. Never know how large they are at first scrape, but I popped them out before I had to return the mini excavator. So fast with that machine, minutes to do them all. Then filled the holes up with dirt from the property.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

My biggest hold up with laying down the topsoil was this patio. They couldn't get the 8 foot steps, they were on order for a long time. The crew showed up in April to start patio and I thought I'd have lawn by the end of May. However, they didn't get the steps until July which was putting topsoil time into the worst part of the summer.

The steps finally showed up and the crew could finish the steps and get the landing done. That stone landing was what I needed to start my grade of topsoil, the lawn would drop to the river from that point.

Before they put down the walkway part of the patio I ran some 1" poly for a waterline to future flower bed and a 3/4" poly line to maybe fish an led electrical wire under the walk path.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Top soil day. It's been a long time coming. Kind of nervous. So I bought a ton, well, a mountain of topsoil last year and it's sat on the property and grew a phenomenal amount of weeds this year. I bought this soil early last year because it was close by for trucking from a field they were stripping. It's uncut. Pure topsoil, only ran through a screener, not mixed or watered down with any poorer materials like most topsoil today.

This would have been from an early worked field which around here was probably first worked in the 1880's I would guess. When raking I found a lot of old glass which was common on old farms, when dishes and glasses would break, there was no public landfill. People just disposed of them on their property. Kind of cool. I'll try and post a picture of what I found in it.

Here's the topsoil as its ready to be spread.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

So here's what I left the operators with to dress with topsoil. It was the best I could do and I was pretty happy with the slope and clean, eveness of the curves.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Having had the mountain of topsoil it was a different situation to spread it. I know my bobcat would take forever so I had to call a guy with a bunch of equipment. He looked at the place and figured a large front end loaded and a bulldozer would be needed. The loader would start an hour early and drop piles for the dozer to level.

I got a really old bulldozer operator who was old when I used him for a yard build back in 2008. I always like old guys on equipment. Lots of experience.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

It was pretty clear early that I'd be the muscle on any finish work. They were just there to spread it the best they could with equipment and were gone. I had a lot of perimeter work to do around the rough edge of the property which is about 350 lineal feet of bush and river, and then all the work along the house and patio.

After leveling and dragging that rough, rocky subsoil terrain for the last few months this topsoil was a dream. So smooth, good body with some clay that was frustrating when it balled up, but I like it long term for its moisture and nutrient holding capability. I have to send a soil test away, I've had it bagged since winter, but I think the CEC on this soil will be nice and high.

Long story short it was enjoyable to shape with a rake.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The dozer left after about 5 hours. He didn't really backdrag the whole lawn. He was getting frustrated with some of the clay balling on him on the back drag. He just kind of left at the end. Maybe he was just a bit too old and experienced. He looked like he needed a nap.

Anyway, I didn't take a picture of it before I got at it with the Connor Ward knock-off steel drag. Once again it was excellent and could level out even the very packed dozer tracks. I can't stress how relaxing it is driving it around (the slower the better) and seeing the land get smoother and smoother every pass.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

After it was pretty level I jumped to jobs that needed to he done before the soil was seeded. I wanted to get everything done because I didn't know how long it would be before I could drive even a small tractor on the soil. Could be late next year even.

First was the shrub beds. I wanted to get some soil into them and mulch while I could still drive to them and work on them.

I love using a garden hose as my tool of choice for shaping beds. You can see the shape from all angles before you make it with the shovel.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I like curves


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The patio landscapers kind of just left this limestone step floating. The limestone was from the property so we liked the idea of using it, but I had to get something that wasn't a death trap for kids or old people.

A couple buckets of soil raked out nicely. Better than I was expecting.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I ran the drag for an hour or so one last time before I got ready to do a major irrigation job that was looking more and more intimidating the closer I got to it.

I had to say the lawn looked awesome dragged. Great curves and slope.... it was a shame to have to tear it up to pipe it.

Here's the final looks.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I apologize for back posting on this one. I started this journal a long time ago, what like 2 years ago? I've had all the pictures taken and now wanted to get them in order to look back on. These last pictures posted above are about 2 weeks behind from real time.

I want to get caught up so that I can actually a bounce ideas and questions off you guys. It's been a wild Rollercoaster since those two week old pictures above were taken. I should be caught up in another night or two of uploads.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Next came irrigation. The patio landscapers gave me an antique harrow that they had rigged up and welded to fit a 3 point hitch tractor. They did lawn irrigation with it for many years and fit it with a pipe holder. They would stretch their runs out and drive the tractor towards the pipe and lift it over the tractor roof and down the back into the pipe holder and then it would run itself into the trench.

I figured the pipe over the roof plan seemed difficult and I'd surely need a third person. I thought we could make up a wooden spool like uint and keep the pipe held in that spinning as it drove into the ground.

In the back of my head was the fact that they said I could keep the harrow as long as I wanted because they didn't want to do another irrigation job ever. Hmm.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The piping rig worked really well believe it or not. I didn't get it super deep but it's all I could do. Has to average 4-5" to top.of pipe but theres definely some areas 3". Not sure I'd ever have the guts to aerate. My dad bailed me out on this irrigation job. It was big shift.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I marked all the heads out with the measuring wheel. I used Hunter PGP Ultras. 31 heads total, 1200 feet of 1" poly pipe and probably 200 feet of 3/4" for the lateral kickers.

I watched a lot of YouTube, read some Lawn Forum and went at it. The layout was key. I figured I could get 35 feet out of my PGPs, but wasn't sure until I saw my pump fire up which by then would be too late.

I backed off to 30 feet between heads and I'm glad I did. 30 feet was perfect in the end. The property worked well for 30 foot spacing.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

With kids, family and job, night shift was a big part of this project. Praise to the guy who invented LED headlamps. I did quite a lot of work at night.

I built this manifold in not much more than an hour. This was maybe the only part of the project that went easier than I thought it would. I should have probably got a larger valve vox but these two are what I had. I had originally thought I could get away with 4 or 5 zones, but I ended up with 7. 5 for the lawns 31 heads and one for future tie in, and one for the shrub beds.

So my first valve box was going to be a 7 banger. These cheap, straight from China pvc cutters made the job easier. They worked great, $20 on Amazon.

I put a ball valve at the end, with my idea being that I could open the end valve then manually open a solenoid and drain a line since all the pipe is up hill. Will this work? I'll find out in the fall.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

It was somewhat intimidating when the snakes of pipe all piled up knowing that I had to clean this up and make my first valve box work.

I marked out an area to put the valve boxes. I figured I'd sink them into the beach and wouldn't have to deal with them in the lawn.

This turned out to be a bad idea. I realized that spring water heights are up about a foot from where they are now. This would be a problem if I buried the 6" deep box flush to beach. I guess they'll just have to stick up.

This would also prove to be a bad idea 24 hours later.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Back to sprinkler heads. I finally got the last one in. That weekend was 41 degrees Celsius with humidity. I dont know what that is in American, but it was hot. I did 10 hour days on Friday and Saturday to get them all in. This was #31. I was soaked and exhausted. That's the hardest I've gone at something in a while.

The worst part about irrigation is that there's no time to celebrate. Still lots to do before water flies, always watching weather and at this point my topsoil has been down for 10 days or more and i know my weeds are working on germinating.


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## jskierko (Sep 5, 2020)

This is the most in depth thread I have read in ages, love following along!


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## SeanW78 (6 mo ago)

What a project! It's great reading through all your detail. It's really coming along. Keep up the great work!


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## livt0ride (Jan 10, 2021)

Really fun to follow. It's coming along nicely. Great work!


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Thanks, I started posting lately to get some motivation for some frustrating events that happened in the next few posts coming up. When I look back, a lot did happen even though when it drags on for a couple years it feels like nothing is gaining day to day.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I forgot to post before the irrigation photos the most important part of irrigation. Planning.

The first step to a well done irrigation job is to order a pizza. Eat it, then rip the lid off and plan your irrigation layout.


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## Biggylawns (Jul 8, 2019)

For the scope of your project, you need a whiteboard lol.

I subbed to your thread - you got some followers now so keep up the great work! This is a ton of work that you're undertaking and I can see the end result so I hope you follow through. Keeping that huge bottom step adds such character too - great choice.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Another step I wasn't expecting was packing the irrigation trenches. I had the base so well done and quit hard from driving over it that all I could think of was not getting the trenches packed well and having them settle next year which would drive me nuts.

The biggest issue was that there is some clay in my soil. Not too much and I love the slight heaviness and holding power it adds to my soil, but it made it tough to put back in the trenches. It hadn't rained in 3 weeks. It was dry. The lumps were hard to break and I knew I had too much air space in the trench that would same day settle and dip down exposing my trenches.

I didnt want to crush pipe either. I drove the small tractor on the mound over the trench that I had raked neatly back over all 1200 feet of pipe. The tractor couldn't really break up the lumps and the trench was still higher than the lawn.

Sooo...any another job. We borrowed a plate packer which turned the lumps to dust. We ran back and forth once per trench which was perfect. Checked a few pipes by back digging and they were fine so all 1200 feet were packed twice. So much dust the machine quit. Not fun pushing the packer uo hill.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

After packing the trenches I drove the tractor and drag through the entire lawn, which at 30 foot sprinkler head spacing, wasn't too bad to do as I kind of slalom skied the 10 foot drag through the flags.

Top soil look great, i couldnt tell where the trenches used to be. It was time to get pump hooked up and finally see these things shoot some water. Almost ready to seed, should be able to tomorrow morning.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

It was closing in on Sunday late afternoon, it was going to be another 10 hour day coning up after two of them on Friday and Saturday. The hardware store closes at 5 and I snuck in and nearly kissed the owner for being open on Sundays late as I totally forget about a check valve for my jet pump pulling out of the river.

Grabbed that and went back and my buddy an electrician, had the valves wired into the controller. He also had the outlet wired onto the post for the pump, from the wire I ran a month prior. Nice guy for working on a hot Sunday.

The valve boxed looked great in my opinion but I didn't really know as I've only seen a couple of them.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

It hadn't rained in three weeks and some was coming, the sky was dark. We fired up the first sprinkler zone just as a few drops started to fall. Zone 3 worked well with 3GPM heads in... it was great to see it in action after all the work.

The rain was getting heavier so we went for a cold beer in the garage which i could taste for about the last two hours of work in the heat. I checked the radar and it didn't look too bad and I figured the dry soil to could take in a lot.

However, the first rain was pretty heavy for an hour and then it stopped. Not too much damage when I went to check on the soil. Some small ruts. The radar showed a larger cell coming in about an hour and then I was worried as it started to change colour on the radar as it crept closer.

Sitting in the house watching it absolutely pour was hard to do. The second storm dropped a lot of water with 2" falling between the two storms. It was too much for my slope to take. I had a lot of small washouts on the lowest part.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I walked out and was insta-depressed at the sight of the soil. I found it almost funny in a twisted way that my sprinkler system was set up for honestly 5-10 minutes before it was washed out by the first drop of rain in three weeks. Kind of hilarious, mostly awful and depressing.

I moped around like someome ran over my dog for the next 48 hours waiting for the soil to dry enough to walk on and get the tractor and 4 wheeler off that were parked there in the last minutes of the pump hook up frenzy. My wife knew what was wrong with me but still asked why I walked around in a daze for the next two days, unmotivated. I didn't want to look out the windows but we have too many windows.

The ruts weren't huge maybe 2 to 3" deep but there had to be 50 of them across the shore lawn. Photos didn't look as bad as the real thing.

My valve box that I was proud of for 8 minutes was now a mix of sand and topsoil. The curved beach was now just a mix of topsoil and sand packed hard as a rock from the stream of water. I figured I lost a dump truck load of soil that I could see in small mounds in the river all across the 280 feet of frontage.


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

That's really unfortunate…. Where about s in Ontario are you. Looks like a beautiful spot..


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Stuofsci02 said:


> That's really unfortunate…. Where about s in Ontario are you. Looks like a beautiful spot..


Eastern Ontario. Renfrew County. Got really lucky. Bought land pre-covid. Started to build house pre-covid prices locked in and sold old house in covid high prices. Total horseshoe luck, didn't really plan it, just grateful for timing of everything.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Two days later I could finally get back on soil. Maybe I should have waited another day to dry, but I just wanted that seed down as the weather looked good with no rain for a week.

There were so many ruts but they were small. Could have been worse I guess but at least the seed wasn't down. A few deep ugly ruts right at the shore but the main lawn held up ok, just having the 2" deep washouts across the front edge. I didn't want to just drag the ruts out as I was afraid my set sprinkler heads would then be too high if I dragged the high spots to fill the low spots.

I decided to bring in about 20 tractor buckets and sprinkle them around the worst ruts then run the drag across them hoping it would pull the new loose soil and drop it in the low ruts. Nice having a pile of topsoil around for times like this.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Chalk another one up for the drag. It worked. It carved a new smooth surface and driving on the newly filled ruts packed them as tight as the soil that didn't wash out.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

The shore had some bad spots that was right down to the old soil. My drag couldn't handle the curve so these had to be filled with tractor, back dragged with bucket then finished by hand. Not sure what I'll do here long term with this shoreline. I can see a nice curved manicured edge dropping to the water but I can also see me fighting erosion, weeds and natural plant growth here. We'll see.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

As I was dragging I was loving how smooth it was getting but with that moisture in the soil and my clay content, I could see the smooth 100+ pound drag polishing the surface. It was hard. I walked it and had my doubts that seed would hold to that bare, smooth soil with any mildly hard rain and even the winds we get could push the tiny bluegrass seeds.

I really didn't want to hand rake 20,000 feet of firm soil. If I had more time, a wood board with a bunch of screws 3/8" out clamped to the drag would be the ticket. Or a nice bolt on metal welded rake-like piece would take the drag to the next level. Didnt have time to make anything, so I may have to rake.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I was outside the next morning at 6am pacing around the lawn looking at how damn hard it was. I knew I had to rake it, just needed some time to talk myself into it. If I smoked it would have been a good time to walk around smoking three cigarettes in a row grumbling.

Looks like I'll need a couple hours off work this morning. I started to rake at one edge with the small 12" rake. It was daunting looking behind me at a 280 foot long run 100 feet wide.

I grabbed the landscape rake which is more of a workout but covers three times as much. Once again my dad bailed me out and showed up yo help with the final third. It was about 2 1/2 hours of raking, not bad if you can call it that.

It looked sooo good which helped give me energy to finish it. I knew in my guy it had to be done as it would give me a much higher germination rate in whatever weather I get dealt. I raked parallel to the river slope hoping the tine marks left from the rake would give me a chance to catch seed wanting to slide down the hill on a hard rain. The surface was light and fluffy which should grab the seed.

It looked great and I was finally ready to cut open the seed bags that I had since April.


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

RyanH said:


> Stuofsci02 said:
> 
> 
> > That's really unfortunate…. Where about s in Ontario are you. Looks like a beautiful spot..
> ...


That is awesome... Great area.. I am really digging what you have done!


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## livt0ride (Jan 10, 2021)

Not sure how far along you are with this, but would a retaining wall make sense next to the water or do you want to be able to get access right to the water from your lawn? Looks amazing what you've done so far.


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## BBLOCK (Jun 8, 2020)

Good work!

I Hand raked 15k last year after irrigation. And after the tractor bc I wanted it the best I could get it. Lots of work! Great work ethic displayed here, keep up the great work.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

livt0ride said:


> Not sure how far along you are with this, but would a retaining wall make sense next to the water or do you want to be able to get access right to the water from your lawn? Looks amazing what you've done so far.


It's pretty much set now. It would have made sense to do that but hard lining a shore is sometimes a cause for trouble. I pushed it pretty far with clearing a lot of stuff and going right to the river. Half the frontage I left natural reeds, grasses and weeds but along this creek area I tried to keep it clean.

They (environment) don't like the hard walls as it's not natural for turtles leaving the water, believe it or not. I didnt get a permit anyway, but I know the in the water stuff can be a red flag if a neighbour or boater squeals.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Seed time. Finally. The powdered surface looked so much more inviting to lay down some seed. I actually sectioned off a 1000 foot area and had 4 pounds in the hopper, weighed and everything. This is unlike me, I'd usually wing it. I carefully went multi directions through the 1000 feet and still had almost half my seed left. I weighed it and just over 2 pounds. I was shooting for 2.5-3 pounds per 1000 feet.

I felt pretty good and put my speed and the gate opening in the hopper so I filled it up and basically winged it as usual. I was careful though and did passes both ways. Must have walked a mile and the freshly raked soil was perfect for seeing my tire tracks.

I only went though maybe 60 pounds. I had 100 pounds of this mix with the remainder being used for the "rough" for the backyard golf course coming up.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

So here's my mix. They spelled my name wrong but got the mix correct. This changed a few times due to availability. I'm jealous watching these American members with their bewitched, Everest, midnight and whatever the new strains are.

Up here it was tough finding the elite cultivars. They were also coating a lot of seed to make it go further as in fill more 50 pound bags with only 25 pounds of seeds. I did manage to get uncoated and I went with a three way mix of KBG elites.

I toyed with just a single monostand but the sales guy kind of pushed for a mix with disease in mind and I'm happy I went with the mix. Mazama is nice to have there as I've seen it being well used here. I found some info on Tumalo as I hadn't seen much but it's basically a midnight family member as is mazama. The impact Texas Hybrid is one I haven't seen pop up much and I'll do more reading on that one. Fascinating stuff how Tumalo was bred, I have a PDF on that I can screen shot the origin. Pretty cool.

So yeah, probably not a top grade Elite KBG, but in this market with the current shortages of almost everything, I was just happy to get this.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

All spread, ready for a roll.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I busted out the old kubota rider and hooked a lawn roller to it. Maybe half filled with water. Pretty heavy but not over the top weight. I really just wanted to get that seed tight into the soil to give me the best chance against rains and winds of the next two weeks.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I put this 16-32-6 fertilizer down before I rolled actually. It was all on recommendation from the seed rep. He did a schedule up for me to follow.

This is what they use for golf courses as well as pushing their KBG to grow in the sod business that is their biggest portion of their business.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Time for water. I will say it's awesome watching a 5 zone, 31 head sprinkler system work for the first time after busting your *** at it for too many hours in the mid summer heat. I could watch it all day.

I had really good head to head coverage, I guess the layout was important after all. Pizza was good as well. So nice to just touch a button and have it run itself covering every foot of soil.

Yes it was worth it.


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## pennstater2005 (Jul 17, 2017)

Amazing!! And so much work :thumbup:


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Well look at that. Exactly a week ago I seeded and this morning I have some green stuff. Pretty happy with this, if I can dodge 30% chance of storms over the next two days I should be good to get anchored.

7 days is quicker than I thought. Happy with the look, hot weather next two days so it should keep popping up if I can keep it damp.

Photos are finally caught up to date. I'll post again in a year lol.


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## kdn (Aug 26, 2020)

This was a great read. That's a lot of work but it's paid off big time, looks sweet. Gratz on the babies. I have my fingers crossed no storms come your way &#129310;.


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## Wile (Sep 17, 2020)

Congrats on the babies! You have to feel proud of all the work and planning that made this happen!


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## livt0ride (Jan 10, 2021)

Nice work. Can't wait to see it fill in.


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## SodFace (Jul 17, 2020)

Great journal - it's a fun read. Looking forward to your results...I'm sure it's going to be great!


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## SeanW78 (6 mo ago)

RyanH said:


> Well look at that. Exactly a week ago I seeded and this morning I have some green stuff. Pretty happy with this, if I can dodge 30% chance of storms over the next two days I should be good to get anchored.


Looking great! Fingers crossed that you get a solid establishment before any severe rain comes along.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

SeanW78 said:


> RyanH said:
> 
> 
> > Well look at that. Exactly a week ago I seeded and this morning I have some green stuff. Pretty happy with this, if I can dodge 30% chance of storms over the next two days I should be good to get anchored.
> ...


Thanks, not sure how much rooting that I need to survive a hard rain. Probably not there yet and some rain coming in the next couple days now.

Pretty good germination now, starting to get some colour in most areas.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

9 days after seeding


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

RyanH said:


> 9 days after seeding


You and I are reno twins..maybe with @g-man we are triplets…. All at 9 DAS.. you are looking good so far!


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Got pummelled with two inches of rain in a sitting last night. Hurt to watch again with the slopes everywhere. A flat lawn would be a lot more fun.

Some streams down an inch or so in a lot of places. The small grass held pretty strong, I was surprised, but in my lighter areas it got worked over pretty good. Almost all of my seed is gone that wasn't germinated. Just gone.

I can't do much now I just have to walk away and let it grow in then fix it late in the fall if I have time and the grass is more established and can take some fill added. If I cover up a 3/4" deep trench that's about 3" wide would that smother any grass that was growing there? I'd wait until it was more established to do the trench covering, but just curious if the grass would fight through 3/4" to 1" deep of added soil? Would you use masonry sand for trench filling? I don't want to do this for a third or fourth time, so maybe sand is a bit heavier than soil to hold down in the rains?

These slope lawns are tough.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

This is why I left my dead grass in place. Slopes are hard.

Take pictures of the areas that you will need to retouch.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I tried to take some pictures. It looks better in the pictures than real life. I'm basically back to the smooth polished surface that has very little growth in a few places and then the rougher ruts that are 1" deep in the worst spots.

My gut says let it grow in and wait. Fix later when grass is stronger. There's no way I can rough anything up with a rake yet as the new grass is barely rooted, and a lot of small grass is knocked over stuck to the soil so I don't want to cover it with more sand or soil.

I can give it more time maybe some surface seed is now buried and may still pop. A had a lot still visible on the surface and slow to germinate, but the water took that somewhere, I'm sure some didn't make it all the way to the river.


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## JerseyGreens (Aug 30, 2019)

Remain calm. It's been less than 2 weeks since seed down and your planting a 100% KBG lawn...If it doesn't progress much in these areas in the next 2-3 days, get ready to put more seed down.

I know about these ruts all too well. You can fix all of that stuff after with sand leveling in the future. I recommend staying the course. Definitely no raking...


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Heading out of town for 5 days so I tossed a little seed into the really bad bald areas. Grabbed a bag of peat moss and spread that just to keep a little extra moisture through the day if watering isn't as optimal as it may be if I was around.

Has peat moss ever gone downhill. This bale looked like someone ground up a shrub and mixed it in. Haven't bought one in the last year or so, this must have been a Friday afternoon shift.

My fertilizer program called for 3 pounds per 1000 of 25-5-5 a week after germination so I put that down as well.

We'll see how things look Monday.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I'm debating going straight to the triplex on this new lawn at maybe 7/8" or so. At first I figured I'd just use the rotary rider at whatever longer height I choose, but with the triplex ready and irrigation, I think I'm going to cut it low with the reel right out of the gates.

Over the winter I fixed up the 2006 3100-D and tested it at my parents lawn this summer. I figured I'd mess their's up instead of mine. No prep, I just scalped it to .700th of an inch. It looked bad and I was taking some heat.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

6 weeks later it really was dialed in. Amazing how fast these things cut. It took more time to line up my runs and work around trees than cut.

This is just your standard lawn, nothing fancy but it looked really good at .700

I think I'm going to go with this mower on the new lawn unless someone talks me out of it. I can't do tight turns I'll just have to cruise long sweeping turns until the grass tightens up, but 20,000 feet I bet I can cut that in 15 mins.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

My main concern was be the weight on soft / moist soil. The turns can also tear.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I'm worried about turns but it's very packed. The bulldozer started the packing but by driving around hundreds of times with the tractor and drag its very packed. When dry I could probably drive a truck on it and not mark it too badly. I walk on it wet all the time to run sprinklers.

That was one surprise to me, I thought I'd have soft mushy soil when wet that would be hard to get around on, but it's so hard I was worried about seed being able to root in some places.

The turns on those three wheelers can be worrisome though, I'll make up a plan when the time comes.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Pretty nice growth in the five days that we were gone. Not sure what day I'm at here will have to look it up, over an inch in most of the spots.


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## livt0ride (Jan 10, 2021)

Looking good considering the washout


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Thanks.

A lot of the lawn is well over an inch now once I looked closely. So if I was to use the reel at let's say 7/8", when should I cut this?

The worry with the heavy triplex is soft soil and tearing on turns. I did a tug test and the small 3/4" grass which is most of it is well rooted even in the wet soil after today's rain, so I dont think I'd have an issue with the reel pulling out any new grass. I'd have to go straight and watch my turns as well as dry the lawn out for a day to get that firmness back into the soil.

But other than that is there any negatives to cutting grass too soon? I want to cut it very often to promote spread and can do so with the 86" mower quickly which is nice, but was wondering if there is anything from a plant perspective that shows a negative on cutting young grass too early.


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

Looking very good.. Way further along than I am..


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Back to poking away in the back yard around the pond. I'll sod most of the pond rim next year when I get irrigation there but this area around the blue spruce I wanted to use some of the rock up that we have here and firm up the shoreline.

It's quite sloped so I dont want to mow it often so I used some lower growing mix. Cardinal creeping red fescue, compass chewing fescue, sheep fescue and beacon hard fescue. This bag of seed is from my old house and is 12 years old. I didnt realize that until I did the math after.

The guy moving the rocks with his excavator caught me off guard when he started moving topsoil in, but he's right. Might as well do it now and get it set up.

I raked, shaped, seeded, rolled and flipped down some peat. Looks so much better now.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Is this run of the mill crab grass? I get a witch grass match on the plant ID app, but it's hit or miss.

This topsoil has a lot in it.


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## kdn (Aug 26, 2020)

Google Lens is saying Browntop Millet


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Here's a full grown one.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

kdn said:


> Google Lens is saying Browntop Millet


Thanks. I think you're right that it's at least not crab grass. Going back to the mature picture with the broom like seed head, I keep getting Witch Grass. I'll check it out more tomorrow. I'd like to mow before it seeds. That's the one main weed I've found in this old topsoil, this grass, whatever is it. It must have grown heavily in the field that they took the topsoil from.

Thought it was maybe Quack Grass but the seed head isn't a match.

It has a very hairy stem which also scores points for Witch Grass. The good news is that Witch Grass is an annual and only reproduces by seed.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I sent the kids out to pick up the sprinkler flags. Might do the inaugural mow tonight.


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

That came in very well!


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I got the reels sharpened and making sure that they were cutting paper. I was going to set them to 7/8" but they were already set to 3/4" so I figured it's too much work for the 1/8". I'll see how it looks. It's thin and patchy...probably won't make much of a difference.


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## dmackaravitz (Jun 23, 2021)

Looks good so far!

I've got a cottage up on Big Gull Lake just south of you. Beautiful area. Super jealous of your set up


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

Looking great.. nice machine.. looking forward to seeing this one..


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Forgot to take pics yesterday. The cut went well at 3/4". I didn't think much was coming off but there was a lot of clippings in the rollers and on the soil. Looks nice all one level.

I'll cut again in a couple days, it's so fast. 




dmackaravitz said:


> Looks good so far!
> 
> I've got a cottage up on Big Gull Lake just south of you. Beautiful area. Super jealous of your set up


I'm about 2 hours straight north of you. That's a nice area.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Finally got a nice day and some time to work on some outdoor projects again. This hill beside the house had been a pain for two years. We had to remove a lot of hill to fit the house in as it was encroaching into the footprint of the house. The lot was sloped to the water and the house wasn't, so something had to give....the hill had to be removed. It must have been three times that I had excavators at the house build for other things and I'd always get them to peel some of the hill back. Cost some hours for sure but I got dozens and dozens of loads of fill out of this hill that I'll use for the golf course.

My phone pics only got back so far right now after my last photo dump and some day I'll dig up originals of the property, but even this springs hill will give a good idea of the scale.

Spoiler, I finally planted grass seed on it today, but here's what it looked like in May.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

So not being within natural gas we went with geothermal heating and cooling for the house since we were fortunate to have a large area to rip up and bury thousands of feet of geo pipe.

However, the on going story here is that we are in an old gravel pit and 60-70 years ago they chose this land for a gravel pit for a reason. There's a ton of limestone and granite here.

During the digging of the pipe the excavator operator piled up the rock that came out of the 5 foot trenches. There was a lot. Having the rock was kind of nice as it would cost tens of thousands to purchase and truck in but it still creates a bit of a problem as you have to do something with it and it costs money for the large equipment needed to move it around.

Here's what we were left with for a rock yard after the geothermal went in.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

So long story short, I had a guy come in to place the rock into the hill. The hill was almost pure sand so it kept washing out and falling down so to me it would kill two birds with one stone, as it would shore up the hill and get rid of the damn rock pile.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

He did a great job. Used up most of the rock and we got a pretty nice landscape piece for only a few days labour, and no material cost.

I should have took a better picture, there's two sets of stairs to make it much more accessible. I just neded to plant it with shrubs and plants to make it look fairly natural.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

So I planted it out with about 65 plants, just plain stuff nothing fancy as I wanted it to look natural. All was from Ontario just simple stuff that could handle some poor soil and dry conditions as I had limited irrigation.

I thought I was smart, had it all planted, cursed everytime I had to water it with watering cans and climbing a hill like a goat, but it was looking good.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Of course, as I've now learned at this slopey, sandy place: washout.
Erosion. A hard rain and I had ruts everywhere, plants were missing, just gone, sandy soil gone, creek beds carved through the hill... I was mad. Didn't even take a picture.

So once again, I thought I was a genius. I figured I'd get a dump truck load of pine mulch and pack this in the hill. It looked great, gotta admit. It was fun to work with, light fluffy and really made the limestone pop out of the hill once I covered up the sand colour and gave some contrast. It was beautiful.

I was confident again, a landscape genius you could say.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

About two weeks later, a washout. I was pissed. Not a genius. This was the same rain that washed my front lawn out, I sulked a lot that weekend. I had ruts again through the mulch, large rocks even moved and more plants were completely washed out. I probably have lost at least 15 plants, I never found them just a few tags. Mulch was piled up 40 feet away where the water took it. Not good, and not fun. Here's a long shot of some deep ruts. I see that I don't take a lot of pictures when things are ugly.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

My dad actually started to dig a catch basin trench across the top of the hill that would catch the water from the top half and hopefully take it in a perforated Big O before it got to the rock landscape. It was a good idea. He could sense I was too pissed and too busy with the lawn to really look at this washout of a hill, but he had a good idea and started it off.

Once my lawn was established I had a bit of time and energy again to go at the hill before winter. I dug a trench with the excavator for the big O pipe to sit in that was sloped to one end. The plan was to catch the water up high before it could cause washouts below. We had some left over 2" river rock that the septic bed guys left behind and that was used to backfill the trench to hopefully let any water running down the top half of the hill to be caught easily in the pipe.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

So fast forward to today and I hand raked the worst material I've ever raked in preparation for seed. I did not use any topsoil, I'm too cheap. This was really just an area that I didnt really want to mow as I'm scared I'm going to have too much to handle. I did want to get something down that would hold the "soil" if you could call it that, down, and also look decent, not great but decent.

This is like a sandy silt and it was so rocky I really struggled to mentally stay at it. Every rake swipe I'd hit a rock, pick it up and throw it in the bush only to hit another rock the next 12" rake pull. Honestly there were hundreds and I left the small 1-2" rocks there I couldn't do it anymore.



The guy that did the rock work, carved out a sliding hill down the back leading to the future golf course as he needed a way to get down after he was done...should be a sweet sliding hill. I raked that too for seed.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Early in the summer I called my seed guy to try and find some short fescue. I've used a mix before and I always had a soft spot for the fine fescues that clump. They are low maintenance and could survive anything. I didnt want to water and a didnt want to cut more than maybe a few times a year. Fine fescue are great for that and erosion control.

I wanted something pure with no mix of anything talle that I'd have to cut, and he sent me 100% Blue Mesa Sheep Fescue. It was all I could get in these times of shortages. I didn't know what to think, still don't.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only guy in Ontario with a 50 pounder of blue mesa sheep fescue. Google image searches say this will either be a disaster or a home run. I'm honestly not sure what this will look like.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

So to put a bow on this one, this afternoon I threw down a pretty heavy seeding of the Blue Mesa mostly because I didn't want to lug the seeder and the seed up that hill again. I'm only going with an old fashioned hose and sprinkler so we'll see how this one goes, and I'll post an update later on if and when it pops up.

Hoping for no more washouts, but up here the heavy storm downpours have to be coming to an end soon.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Here's a better shot at the current washout that I haven't fixed. I took the picture today and when I walked by I saw one of my missing plants growing in the bottom of a deep crevice. It was a New Jersey Tea plant so I'm up one of those. Just have to get it out.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Found a nice misty morning when I woke up today so I took a picture. So much overnight "dew" this time of year with the river here. I've actually germinated KBG in the past on a test plot in September with no watering. The damp nights are enough. 


I cut again this afternoon. Maybe it needed it. Maybe it didn't. Ha.


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

RyanH said:


> I cut again this afternoon. Maybe it needed it. Maybe it didn't. Ha.


That's the dream mow…


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## BBLOCK (Jun 8, 2020)

i love it all


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I got most of the mulch placed. With the hill most of it had to be done with a bucket. It's nice, light and fluffy though, I find it quite enjoyable.

The colour change really sets off the limestone and plants. We're hoping this will hold up to hard rains. Had a good test last night and it did so far...more hard rain today. I dont want to fix anymore erosion. Not fun at all as that has to be done with pails and buckets as well.

You can see the sheep fescue coming in up top on the terrible non-topsoil.


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## livt0ride (Jan 10, 2021)

That's coming together nicely. That staircase is cool how it goes up at and angle and not just straight up. Really great job on this.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Thanks, got lucky having all of the stone on site but still did cost some money. Haven't got the bill yet.

There's another set of stairs from the left side that you can't quite see, that meets the stairs in the picture. He did a good job. Sorted all the rock we had into flats and larger ones at the beginning and then made as many stairs as he could with what we had.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Slowly filling in but still a few tough spots. 33 days since I seeded so pretty good. I got some stripes to show tonight with the setting sun. It's been cool and rainy so its been happy.

I did my 4 week fertilizer last weekend, a bit earlier so that I could move my 8 week application up to the end of September as I got my seed down a bit late for the fertilizer program that the seed/sod company gave me. That stuff definitely works.


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

Lookin good!


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Put down my final fertilizer application of the year this morn'. I like to use the dew and water on grass to show my spreader tracks for doing an even application. I moved this one and the previous app up a week or so as I started late with my seeding and this was the "8 week" application that I'm actually doing at 6 weeks. Two weeks from now would be pushing it for too late possibly. 

Had lots of rain but it's slowly filling in. I'll cut again tomorrow and maybe post a picture. Pictures always seem to look worse. I take photos then look and them and say meh looks bad. Must be camera tricks I have to bone up on. 

I've actually been spending time in the backyard prepping golf course which has been my main focus before this front lawn got in the way, so that's been exciting. Will have pics posted later of rough land prep and have forced myself to take the time and shoot a lot of video as well.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Finally got a good area of the rock garden covered in mulch. I ordered a dump truck load of mulch and most had to be spread out with a shovel for down low areas and a pail for the higher areas. Slow. 

The pine mulch really makes the rock and plants pop though.


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## Jeff_MI84 (Sep 28, 2020)

Your project is coming along very nicely. Plus it’s a great view!


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

RyanH said:


> Put down my final fertilizer application of the year this morn'.


I think you should do another app in a week or so of a fast acting nitrogen. It is a reno and it can use all the nitrogen you can give it. The label in your bag has a few slow sources that might not be available this year.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I have most of a 50 pound bag of urea 46-0-0 here.

I've talked to the traditional lawn guys who say you don't want to ramp up growth going into winter but have also read of a lot of people doing it. Think the 46-0-0 is fine to put down this late up north here?


What's your take on nitro going into the winter.


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## SNOWBOB11 (Aug 31, 2017)

RyanH said:


> I have most of a 50 pound bag of urea 46-0-0 here.
> 
> I've talked to the traditional lawn guys who say you don't want to ramp up growth going into winter but have also read of a lot of people doing it. Think the 46-0-0 is fine to put down this late up north here?
> 
> ...


I would put down 1-2 apps of fast nitrogen before the seasons done. It will only do good for a new renovation.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I'm lagging a bit on photos, going to try and get caught up quickly.

Trenched out a ditch to grade to hope to catch water before it rolled down hill. Put in perforated Big O and covered with river rock.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

We got a hard rain shortly after and the pipe was holding up and moving a lot of water. It just kept raining though and finally the pipe couldn't keep up. The hill buckled in a couple places, not as bad as the first time and this rain was harder. 

Frustrating but a slightly better result.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Back to the drawing board. This time we ramped it up around the river rock and I picked up some bluegrass sod at the kind of close by sod farm. 

This had to hold up. Maybe.










Blue Mesa sheep fescue on the left held up decently but it got washed pretty good in a couple places. The huge hill is bad too but the small grass held up pretty well condiering the amount of rain. It's got a different colour, kind of weird, but is also growing in the poorest quality soil on this form. It's subgrade sand/gravel. No additives. Its on its own.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I had some left over sod so I put it around a storm drain that I installed at the lowest point at the pond on the backyard. These rains have really beaten me up this year and were pouring into the pond taking the silt and sand with it. The pond went from nice clear water in the spring to brown coloured 3 or 4 times this year. It's takes forever to settle that violent siltly water too. Weeks. Drives me nuts. I need to get lawn around the pond. 

I did a video of the drain, which dumps into the river. I'll post the video when I actually get them edited, I have quite a few to do. 


Anyway, I have never worked with sod before. I love it. 30 mins and you have a fresh green blue grass lawn. So rewarding. I'll sod all slopes next year I believe. .36 cents a square foot is pretty good for KBG. Its got some good clay soil under it as well. Cuts and pieces together so easily. 

Only had 80 sqaure feet but for less than $30 I'll take it.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Cut the front lawn tonight. Up to date again. 

This front lawn looks good from far but its far from good. 

I'll take up the advice and put the nitrogen to it a couple more times. Is the granular urea 46-0-0 alright to use?

*















*


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## garlicrainbow (4 mo ago)

Let me just say the title of this post doesn't do it justice. Super entertaining to follow. 

And looks like you're going to have such an amazing property to enjoy after all your hard work. Very impressive and congrats.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Banana plants in the garden have taken a couple frosts and still look alright. I'm zone 4 here, they say they're hardy enough. We'll see if they come back in the spring.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Do those walk behind aerators at the rental place allow you to adjust the tine depth? 

I've got some crazy packed areas that are bald in the lawn and need to get a game plan next spring to get those areas opened up to hold seed. I don't trust my depth of water lines everywhere though. I know there's some places where I'm only 3" deep to top of poly pipe, maybe even in the 2 1/2" range on one or two small spots that had some rock to work around.


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## livt0ride (Jan 10, 2021)

RyanH said:


> Do those walk behind aerators at the rental place allow you to adjust the tine depth?
> 
> I've got some crazy packed areas that are bald in the lawn and need to get a game plan next spring to get those areas opened up to hold seed. I don't trust my depth of water lines everywhere though. I know there's some places where I'm only 3" deep to top of poly pipe, maybe even in the 2 1/2" range on one or two small spots that had some rock to work around.


Generally they should let you adjust tine depth. The Bluebird that my neighbor let me use had an adjustment for it. I had it all the way down.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Trying to scramble and get a few projects done before freeze up. Really keying on the golf course next year. It will happen. I'm trying to get the pond all complete around the perimeter since I won't be able to get at it once the lawn is down around the pond area. 

I have one end of the pond that I'm trying to make into a beach. This could be a mistake as its hard to kill off those tough weeds, but I'm going to try. It's the flatest, lowest end of the pond.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I found some nice sand on the back edge of the property, so I dug out enough for the beach. The hole was then filled with rock that I was trying to get rid of anyway, and buried over to be a mogul behind the golf green.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I scraped about 6" of the organic layer of the pond edge with the excavator and realize that i nevrr took a picture of it scraped down. 

I had some left over weed barrier, which is a big part of why I tackled this job. I was tired of looking at 90% of a roll lying around so used it here and put it down to hopefully kill any chance of vegetation re-growth.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

It was unfortunately a long haul from the sand pile to the pond beach but it didn't take too long to put down about 6-8" of sand. It was pretty clean with some river stone in it. This stuff has some clay in it so it won't be fluffy like beach sand, it will probably pack hard. It'll probably look good for about 48 hours.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

This pond always looks like a questionable shape from the air.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I have a rear roller acting up on my on the triplex so I might be done cutting for the year. It locks up and then tears my lawn which I don't enjoy. Think it's a bad bearing and I played around with it over the winter, but it's locking up again. It has some play when I jiggle it. I'll pull the roller off and and try to rehab it to get another cut or two out of it.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I find the lawn looks best from a quarter mile away and under very low light conditions ha.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Such amazing weather all weekend, I got my antique drone out for some shots of the yard. I immediately regretted it when I saw the view from the camera. If you want to make your yard look worse just fly straight above it. The higher you go the worse it looks. 

It looks "kind of ok" from ground level but here's the photos from the air.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Lighting sure makes a big difference, here's with some good light once I flew the other way. Today at sunset I could see the striping really well and from a distance it looked like the potential was finally showing. For the time it looked like a fairway - the fairway of an under funded and under staffed D grade gold course, but in the mature thick areas it really looked like real fairway.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Here's the mulched limestone hill and today I raked the leaves and pine needled gently off my Blue Mesa Sheep Fescue up top. I will get close up shots of this sheep fescue. It's freaky stuff, light green colour and super fine yet soft. Very cool. 

I learned a lesson. This was planted in natural soil, well dirt because you can't call it soil. I raked it out and it looked pretty rough before seeding. Today with the light raking it picked up all the gravel, rock and sticks and the grass stayed in place. Next time when doing this I won't sweat the initial seed bed. Just put it down and get it going, the rocks and debris will clean up after. 

That's the two blue grass sod strips with river rock and drainage pipe below the rock, that will hopefully catch all the top water and stop it from washing through mulched area.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Lastly, the golf course if we can call it that. Starting to get exciting, it's finally going to happen next spring.


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

RyanH said:


> I have a rear roller acting up on my on the triplex so I might be done cutting for the year. It locks up and then tears my lawn which I don't enjoy. Think it's a bad bearing and I played around with it over the winter, but it's locking up again. It has some play when I jiggle it. I'll pull the roller off and and try to rehab it to get another cut or two out of it.


I have the same issue with my triplex. front right roller…. Managed to get it unseized, but it also has play. Going to need a fixing over the winter..


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Stuofsci02 said:


> I have the same issue with my triplex. front right roller…. Managed to get it unseized, but it also has play. Going to need a fixing over the winter..


I ordered 6 roller bearings and the local golf course mechanic said he'd do them if I get them to him before end of month when he's off for the winter. I'll see if they get here in time. 

I looked at the roller bearings and cleaned them all up over the winter but didn't figure out how to pull the actual bearings out of the roller, so I'm hoping he does them.


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

RyanH said:


> I ordered 6 roller bearings and the local golf course mechanic said he'd do them if I get them to him before end of month when he's off for the winter. I'll see if they get here in time.
> 
> I looked at the roller bearings and cleaned them all up over the winter but didn't figure out how to pull the actual bearings out of the roller, so I'm hoping he does them.


I have been thinking about how to do mine also. They need to be pulled out and pressed in I think. I’ll have to rewatch Conner’s videos from when he did it…


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Curious to feel you folks out on how you would go about patching my ruts on the slopes next spring. It's hard to get good pics but I definitely have some ruts over an inch deep across the shore. I bounce through them everytime I cut and its not enjoyable. 

So here's my plan. Keep pushing and cutting lawn into freeze up trying to grow as much grass as I can in those areas that are very sparse this month. Next spring quite early, get some sand and use my level lawn rake to try and feather out those areas. Seed and water keeping optimum conditions to try and get the seed rooted before a heavy washout. 

In my head I'm trying to get the best material to hold on that slope during any mildly heavy rains. If I hit a super heavy rain I think I'm cooked either way, but for the sake of discussing, is straight masonry sand my best choice to hold that area? I've proven that topsoil won't hold on long enough. I have quite a few areas to deal with so I need something that it's easy to work with as well. Here's some photos of the ruts.


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## bencrabtree27 (Jan 8, 2019)

Great write up, been a way from the forum for a couple years, but this was an amazing read. BEAUTIFUL property. I've always longed of having a property like that and machines. Pond shape from above did make me laugh, but now that I've seen it ill never unsee it. The guy that created your steps and placed the boulders on the hillside did a great job. You know the saying, "it's nice to have the right machine for the right job." While that is true, machine work really is an art. Amazing to see what an experienced operator can do, I once saw my boss climb the mini ex up a rip rap hill, never in a million years would I do that. You have a lot of great help near you. 

I had banana plants in southern Indiana 6b, and I always dug them up in the winter, I know some varieties are hardy (not sure if mine were), but I didn't want to risk it. This will be a good test. 

As for your last post, I say keep mowing and pushing it until it's ready to go hibernate - maybe try to spot spray some of those grassy weeds, or paint them with glyphosate. I think @Stuofsci02 had some cooler weather post emergent spray success this season.

Personally, I would try to fill in the ruts/unevenness before it gets to cold and let the winter snow and precip settle that dirt in over winter - the freeze thaw and melting will help that new dirt settle and be ready for spring. Id put down a pre emergent and water that in and go out there and weasel the bare dirt to break that pre emergent barrier and put some seed down. Having irrigation will definitely help the young seed next summer. If the spots aren't big let the KBG fill in over time or Find an outlying area and take some plugs to those. This will look great next year.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

bencrabtree27 said:


> Great write up, been a way from the forum for a couple years, but this was an amazing read. ...


Hey, thanks that's a really nice reply. I appreciate it, especially from yourself who sounds like they've been in the landscape business. The pond shape is brutal. When it was first dug I took an overhead pic and realized what it kind of looked like. A year later I had an excavator back in for other work and told him to dig out the one end more as he had a spare hour to kill...well it made the shape even worse, but from the ground the end of the pond he dug out looked better. 

I'm going to roll the dice on the banana plants and leave them outside. I started with one in the house that I got for Christmas from the kids last year. It was growing great in the house but hit the 10 foot ceiling by summer so it had to go. I bet I could have got bananas from it. But man, I fought aphids on it. About 4 different runs of them, so frustrating I don't miss it in the house...I'll try to find a picture it was really healthy looking. 

You have me thinking about getting some sand or soil out and leveling but we're running out of track here before a freeze up. Mostly I'm short on time, but good point on having it settle over the winter. Makes great sense, I just never thought about that but it probably would have been the way to go by getting it firmed up. Thanks.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I finally got some time to get a video on the golf course area up. More has happened since, but pretty much ready to go next spring with the golf course, finally. I'll start with the two greens and work out from there, of course making it up as I go. This should give you some better angles and views of the backyard area. I think it's going to work.


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## Ben4Birdies (12 mo ago)

Very cool video! Do you have any golf holes from famous courses that you want to use as inspiration for your design?


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

No, ha. I'm not going that big. It would be really fun to try and knock off some famous holes but that would be just too much for me. I'm feeling this project is pretty big to start with as is, so I'll just try for a fairly normal green set-up. The larger green I think I can get some nice mounds around it and will probably do a bunker, but other than getting some nice shape and slope, I think it will be a success if I can just complete that. 

I'm sure 10 years down the road I'll lament about not doing something like you're suggesting, but right now I'm feeling like it's a pretty big project with just a fairly basic layout.


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## Ben4Birdies (12 mo ago)

Winter is the best time for using your imagination on the shape and slopes to design the green. I’m not saying to replicate an iconic hole, but maybe find one to use as inspiration for the big green.

Here is my little chipping green I made in its best condition last year.









I used #11 @ Winged Foot West as an inspiration because I liked the design and could see how it might fit the lay of the land.









You can see my version is simpler. 1 grass bunker compared to 3 sand bunkers. I’ve been very pleased with the design I went with because that strategically placed bunker makes for some challenging shots and makes you think twice about going straight at the pin. Lots of fun shots around the green too!


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## bencrabtree27 (Jan 8, 2019)

RyanH said:


> Hey, thanks that's a really nice reply. I appreciate it, especially from yourself who sounds like they've been in the landscape business. The pond shape is brutal. When it was first dug I took an overhead pic and realized what it kind of looked like. A year later I had an excavator back in for other work and told him to dig out the one end more as he had a spare hour to kill...well it made the shape even worse, but from the ground the end of the pond he dug out looked better.
> 
> I'm going to roll the dice on the banana plants and leave them outside. I started with one in the house that I got for Christmas from the kids last year. It was growing great in the house but hit the 10 foot ceiling by summer so it had to go. I bet I could have got bananas from it. But man, I fought aphids on it. About 4 different runs of them, so frustrating I don't miss it in the house...I'll try to find a picture it was really healthy looking.
> 
> You have me thinking about getting some sand or soil out and leveling but we're running out of track here before a freeze up. Mostly I'm short on time, but good point on having it settle over the winter. Makes great sense, I just never thought about that but it probably would have been the way to go by getting it firmed up. Thanks.


Oh wow we definitely don't have the same kind of trees. I'm pretty sure mine are sterile. They did great when I would move them into the ground during the summer, it seemed like the pots kinda stunted their growth. Mine would stay around 4 feet is but get pretty wide. I'd always have some suckers growing throughout those years that I would pot. There is a house around here that has huge ones like yours, and they do fine during the winter. So you might be good!

Winter sucks... I bet you have amazing night skys though....


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Ben4Birdies said:


> Winter is the best time for using your imagination on the shape .....


Ok, you've got my attention. That grass bunker pair is really nice. Now I have to think about this. It may actually be easier to try and do a poor mans version of an actual hole since it would give me something to shoot for, like a plan. A blueprint.

Right now I can kind of see what I want but truth be told I haven't golfed much since kids showed up. Maybe 4 rounds in 6 years. It has me second guessing actual green slope and stuff like that. If money was no object, someone doing this should probably travel around to many nice courses and study and photograph the details. 

I haven't watched much golf the last few years either. Haven't stepped on a green in two years. Going to have to check some things out over the winter in terms of course photos. 

I'm working my way through your journal. Nice work.


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

I know your pain about missing golf. Hang in there! It will get better, but may take some time. I haven't played in about 5 years, but am getting back into it, slowly (I played HS golf, and 1st job was at my home course). I started regripping my 40 year-old clubs last night (Ping Eyes-not Eye2's), to prep for next Monday's reservation. Keep up the good turf work, and it helps to get you by, in the meantime.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Trying to get some of the extra fill built around the green areas before freeze up. I could really use a bulldozer but I'll have to work on my skid steer skills on this one.

It looks much better just carving off the years vegetation growth. I hope to use all of the piles of fill to shape out the two greens, might not get it all moved before it gets too cold. Slow going.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

October and the first 11 days of November have been some great weather. So nice. It has been a bonus up here. I mowed today for the last time, there is some cold coming for sure, 10 degrees below freezing over night on the weekend. It's been a good run, however.

I got my rollers back from the local golf course. I had the mechanic change out the bearings. They were really bad from what he showed me. For $200 I just couldn't have done it. They roll great now. I took the time when they were off to grind them down and clean them up. 











Not much sun in the forecast but I figured I'd snap a few pictures of the final of the first season. Certainly have some eroded areas to deal with in the spring, but overall it isn't too bad. 



















I did notice all around the perimeter some yellowing. The entire river edge is like this which made me think it was too wet, but it goes up the sides as well at the bush line on both ends. What would it be? I should have taken a closer shot. 










I've sprayed nothing this year, only did some fertilizer apps. I have to get at the weeds next spring.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Here's a video I finally finished on the backyard pond when the water was nice and clear. It went a little green on me later this summer so that will be a problem I'll have to solve next year, but it was nice looking here. This year was good on bulking up the bait fish population which was the key. Should be ready to stock a couple large bass this coming season. Ahh, I miss that water quality.


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

Had a few loads of junky fill lying around. I sifted the rock out of it and got an area spread for an early base for the second green. Fits alright, with a few tough obstacles on this green, with the hill and low area. Wanted to get it spread out before freeze up. 

Nothing final, just trying to get some elevation of the green area before we get into the the expensive root zone mix next spring.


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## gatorguy146 (5 mo ago)

I am so jealous of your property. I am living vicariously through this project!


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## RyanH (Sep 11, 2019)

I've been making compost for a few years now. I use mostly leaves and add a lot of coffee grounds to the leaves as a Nitrogen source to ignite the pile and help the carbon to nitrogen ratio stay where it needs to be for breakdown speed. The finished compost is so good. I've always used it as a soil amendment in the garden with proven results, but I'd really like to use it as a top dress to the lawn someday. I'd need one of those large motorized spreaders though, and I don't think I can rent one around here. I'd like to do some test results sometime but I think it would be great for the lawn. 

I kind of go a bit crazy on the amount of leaves I use, but anyone with a yard size that could hide a small area for a compost pile in a corner somewhere, I would recommend it. The finished compost is just great. I made a video on how I use the leaves and coffee to make compost. It's easy and just breaks down over time nicely.


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## livt0ride (Jan 10, 2021)

I really enjoyed your video. I tried to start one in a small box in the back, but I don't think it was a big enough pile. Didn't get it to generate heat and start breaking down much. I think I had too many grass clippings and food waste.


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