# Kaba's Ontario Lawn Journey - From Fine Fescue to Just Plain Fine



## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Welcome to my Journey!

I am a (un)lucky homeowner blessed with a weird shaped pie lot, heavy clay soil, a small quarry worth of fieldstone under the turf and some really freaking sensitive and fragile old fine fescue. I also have also fallen in love with lawn care! I hope you can enjoy the little stories and learn a thing or two from me.

I'm also stubborn, and refusing to nuke the fine fescue... It will not get the best of me!!!

1. The Beginning (Pre-2018)

2. The Back (2017 and 2018)

3. 2018 Summary 

4. Backyard Grading and Irrigation (2019)

5. Front Yard (2019)

6. Front Yard Overseed (2019) 

6. 2020 Summary 

7. 2021 Summary


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

When we purchased our first house in 2014 I didn't know what I was getting myself into with the lawn. The neighborhood is basically exclusively fine fescue (well actually it's about 60% FF and 40% plantain, dandelion, crabgrass oxalis, clover and spruge). Our front lawn was ugly, but just as ugly as the rest of the street. So I did what any other new home owner would do and started buying some some Scotts Turf Builder and set the dial to 3.25 (or whatever it is) and hammered the lawn I a couple times in spring and then early summer and again in fall. I was cutting at the middle setting on my lawn mower because why not and thought watering for 15 minutes with a $15 oscillating sprinkler. I knew nothing other than I didn't want to have an embarrassing front lawn. I grew up with a nice kbg irrigated green lawn (not that I knew what kbg was at this point).

The clover was horrendous, I didn't even see all the dandelions my first spring (at the beginning at least) because there was so much clover.



And then all of a sudden my yard was engulfed by the yellow scourge of the dandelions. So I drove on down to Canadian Tire and bought a weed hound. I pulled 4 or 5 recycling bins worth of deeply established weeds in my rock hard clay soil. I went through two weed hounds because I bent the shafts both times. One old guy on my street who I'd never seen came up to me and told me I'm nuts buy some weed killer.

I wish I knew who that old guy was, because this is all his fault! And so my lawn care obsession began.

I wasn't going to let that guy tell me what to do, I am going to make this a gorgeous lawn damnit!! Couple more weeks of pulling weeds I went down to the states and bought some weed b gon. That ended the clover story. The next couple summers I was away on jobs sires, slowly making progress on the lawn.



More turf builder pro, and more weed pulling. More bad watering. But the lawn was starting to improve a bit, I started having some colour to it, but man it was thigh because I had pulled so. many. weeds.



So more weeds crept in but overall the weed war was under control. At this point I realized the previous owners probably never touched the lawn, and this depleted sad patch of clay was likely all the original grass from when the house was built some 40 years previous.

As I got more annoyed by the lawn making only marginal gains I bought a book "The Lawn Bible" I learned quite a bit, but many I was not ready for all that information, but I did take away that I really need a soil test... But had no idea how or where.

Fast forward another year to 2017 and all this tall hard grass was making the rest of my dainty FF look like crap. I assumed like everyone else it was crabgrass, and that is how I discovered Allyn Hane on the old YouTube. Suddenly things really started to change. I watched that first project lawn playlist probably 30 times. Started mowing high, and questioning how and why I was fertilizering, and most importantly learned that 10 min watering didn't do jack.

Oh ya, that tall hard grass I finally figured out next year.

By the end of summer in 2017, the lawn looked a bit better. I wasted some time overseeding first week of April and watering 2 or 3 times total. But my wife was a couple months pregnant with our first and we were preparing to do some intense backyard renovations, so the yard kind of stayed where it was until 2018.

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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

The backyard was somehow worse than the front... We had an over grown forest mainly poplars, a giant white pine and some austrian pines. Everything was so over grown there was no room for anything, roots and stumps everywhere. So we decided to clean it up in early 2017, basically clear-cutting the yard in hopes of a fresh start. 


Which had been cut down to this


And eventually we decided to start the process to build a pool and garage in the back, and of course get a nice stand of grass going!

Spring 2018 and we were full steam ahead




Better than a probe test:


Man did the backyard soil, which was already really rough, take a big beating. Compaction and topsoil pulled back.

[

My dreams of having a nice stand of grass were killed, it was suddenly November and I hadn't even finished the garage. Oh well always next year right...

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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

2018 was a year of overall progress, but some ups and downs in the yard. I had watched a ton of LCN videos that winter, made a giant lawn care spreadsheet and was ready to hit the spring running. Heck I even bought an edger finally, no more sloppy!

Early spring I was out the gate working and raking 


I had the brilliant idea to dethatch the lawn with a power rake attachment on my mower while the grass was nice and wet and still pretty much dormant at the end of April


Which a couple days later turned into my nightmare of scalped yellow ugliness


Yikes that was bad. I seeded first week of May to try and help it heal




Fortunately the grass did come around at the end of spring and looked decent after using some synthetic fertilizer. 


At this point I discovered my first bit of organic fertilizer - Acti-sol which is chicken byproduct that I was picking up at Rona on sale and started applying it during the summer.

By the end of summer however I had a lot of hear stress and disease again. 


And was pretty discouraged. Also my lawn was full of Kentucky-31 and it was really standing out like a sore thumb vs the rest of the stressed grass, so I decided to spot spray with glypho, except it turned into a lot more KY31 than expected!

Here is my log from a different site:


> August 24 2018
> As you probably know the tall Fescue is quite a bit thicker than the rest of the normal cool tease ***, fescue and rye blends and is significantly more resistant to drought. As a result it grows a lot taller (and thicker) than the majority of the lawn just a couple days after a mow and really sticks out. To make things worse it does out compete the rest of my turf so.... It's growing!
> 
> So last night I applied some roundup to the largest clusters (hopefully I got most of them). I am hoping by this time next week I will have some nice bare patches that I can start to prep for seeding. The temperatures here have dropped significantly and seeding season is just a week or two away!
> ...




And some more:



> August 30 2018
> So this is the update from last week.
> 
> There are still clumps left over, and a lot more than I expected to find, a very significant part of my lawn is clumping tall fescue.
> ...






Seeding day finally came!



> September 3 2018
> Today was the big day, I started by mowing down to 2.5 inches and raked up as much grass as I could. I dug up the dead remaining roots for a nice clean start, mixed topsoil and triple mix to fill in the empty areas. I had some starter fertilizer lying around so I put it down at the lowest setting on my spreader. I watered in the starter fert (mostly to see how long I need to run the sprinkler to get the soil surface moist). A few hours later I top dressed the entirety of the remaining areas I'm overseeding with manure compost. I then threw down my bluegrass and ryegrass seed mix and then topped it off with some organic (hen manure).
> 
> I have my sprinkler set to water at 6 am and 6 pm daily for 20 minutes (watering about 1200 sqft) to ensure the outer edges stay moist. We'll see tomorrow evening if the watering schedule/duration needs to be tweaked. We are on the trailing end of a very humid stretch so hopefully those seedlings hold on.
> ...






> September 13 2018
> Well it has been 10 days and we survived heatwave, downpour and high winds. The ryegrass is coming in nicely, I am praying the bluegrass is doing its thing!
> 
> I am going to sprinkle on some baby shampoo to the seeds tonight, make sure I keep the soil soft. All the watering has kept it saturated, but what the heck shampoo is cheap.
> ...










> September 23 2018
> Well it's been 3 weeks now and the rye, CRF and a little bit of KBG have started to fill in! Some areas did not take as well as I hoped so I reseeded with some rye to at least fill the gaps and pray it survives winter.
> 
> The phone utility company trenched a new fiber line right through the center of the little babies. I totally died inside a little.
> ...






Overall the seeding went well, right after those last pictures bell came through and hand trenched a new phone line right thought the center of where I seeded! Ruined a lot of the area, but as a whole it survived winter and summer. Pretty much all that survived was the crf and the prg, I haven't noticed much of a kbg presence unfortunately. But positively none of the bunching fescue came back!!! Woohoo.

The season ended well, I was happy with the colour and health of the lawn by end of October


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Some photos to start 

























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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Reserved

























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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I started my overseed last weekend (August 24th 2019) and seeded in a mix of 60% Milagro KBG and 40% certified PRG from Speare Seed across about 2500sqft of my front lawn. I seeded at about 7lbs/ksf.

The day was a long one. Started by mowing the lawn one settings down on my mower and bagging.





I then used my sun joe dethatcher at -5 and dethatched in one direction and raked up all the debris (about 1.5 yard waste bags compressed... I did a gentle +5 dethatch already in June, and really beat up the lawn the previous year with a dethatch if you say my previous journal entries), I couldn't believe how much was there.





Followed this up with another pass in the perpendicular direction and pulled up another entire yard waste bag worth of dead grass.



I then watered the lawn to wet the soil and attached the scarifier blade to the sun joe. Worked amazing for about 6 passes until I buried the water shutoff in the yard and hit it... The rotor on the motor popped forward and the "transmission" gear popped out of alignment and just like that no more scarifying. I was super bummed it was doing a great job. I knew where the water shutoff was, but it was buried in the even more dead grass I was pulling out and misjudged my line down toward it and just clipped it with the edge. Wasted about 45 mins pulling the unit apart trying to press the rotor back into the correct location but couldn't and gave up. I really loved that unit.

So I got on with it, took the lawn mower out and mowed down one further setting lower than normal (so 2 total) and cleaned up whatever was left on the surface and gave it a good scalping. I then set up a barrier that has been the conversation piece of the neighborhood (don't want any "idiots on bikes" @wardconnor cutting the corner). Literally 8 different people asked if I'm setting up for Halloween early, and 3 more were quite distraught that my lawn was not looking as good as they seemed to remember. The truth is the neighborhood kids cut the corner all the time (actually but like 30 feet it's crazy) and so does the postman so I wanted to send a clear message stay off.

I added some black earth and topsoil to level out a few really low spots and then finally applied the seed in 2 split passes.



I followed everything up applying 23 cu.ft of Peat and raked it all in. Turned up the water on my ******* irrigation and let it rip.



Now we pray!



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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Overseed Update 1: 
September 3 2019

It's been a little over a week now, and I cannot believe how fast and well the seed has germinated. I've been watering 3x per day (10am, 1230pm, 430pm) while it's been warm, going to cut that down to 2x a day next week as temps will be in the low 70s and high 60s. I really am. Happy with the seed, and I think the peat moss really helped speed this process up.

Some minor issues in the areas I leveled with critters disturbing the seedlings and making some small holes, so I will need to do some repair seeding in certain areas.

Can clearly see the PRG germination (because of the red vain down the center of the base) and some of the KBG has popped out.

Day 3:
I was very happily surprised to see the germination already!!





Day 5:
Holy cow that's a lot of germination already!





Day 7:
I even have germination on my water valve... Yikes!



Day 8 and 9: 
I used glypo on area of clumping tall fescue (ew), but did it only 5 days before seeding, thought ah what the heck, I'm going to scalp, th grass will be short enough that it won't impact. I was kind of right, except I have all these ugly dead patches everywhere. The good news is the new seedlings are prevailing and poking through, looks like one of Ryan Knorrs seeding blankets if you ask me.







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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Great germination. I might steal your yellow caution tape idea when I do the front lawn reno. I have the school bus stop in the front lawn.


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## cfinden (Aug 7, 2018)

@Kaba nice journal. Your seed is looking beautiful! I used the same caution tape on mine and caught the paper boy just walking over it to cut through my lawn.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Thank you guys for the encouragement!!
The two rows of yellow really works well, even keeps me off the lawn hah!


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Update 2:
September 7/8 2019

Catching up a bit here on my updates from the weekend. Used my manual reel mower for the first time! Bought it on kijiji for $30 was happy with that! The seedlings have been growing well. Unfortunately the squirrels etc have been digging holes and pulling out my baby grasslings in a few spots (and making lumps) it's so sad! Overall I am happy with how things are going, however there are some spots that just aren't doing well. I may need to change my strategy next year.

Depending on the angle of the sun (aka what month I'm in) there is a significant difference in sunlight on these areas. During June, July and August these areas basically get full sun and destroy the fine fescue that is there. One we hit September when I overseed, these area get mostly shade, so my rye and kbg blend have been really struggling to germinate, and they are in very bare areas so there isn't a lot of worry of competition of established grass, I feel it comes solely down to hours of sunlight. It's frustrating to say the least. This upcoming weekend I also need to re-arrange the sprinklers to get a bit more uniform coverage.

In short on the 7th I used the manual reel and cut the lawn to its highest setting (2-3/4 I think) but man the grass was floppy and let's just say it wasn't a golf course finish. I also added 5lbs/ksf of 5-26-25 (0.25N/ksf) and 5lbs/ksf of BY replenish poultry waste, and 3lbs/ksf of Epsom salt (based on my soil sample results). I applied 6oz/ksf of diy RGS and a little baby shampoo for good luck. I also topped up some of the areas the squirrels and company disrupted, and the area that I applied roundup to close to my overseed that kind of matted (I brushed the areas up with my hands).

I didn't take many pictures this week, I think I was feeling a little discouraged.











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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Looking good mostly. I've never had an overseed where things go perfectly, in particular there's always some areas with worse drainage where you can tell water has been standing and nothing much germinates in those sections. And animals of course...

Not really sure how or why but my grass is all upright now. My best guess is either the cooler temps and/or the super aggressive dethatch I did which tore out tons of floppy fescue. I was a bit alarmed at the bare spots left behind but it seems to be filling in slowly.


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## Harts (May 14, 2018)

Looks great! I would cut it down to 1.5-2" and keep it at that height through the rest of the season.

I did my reno at the same time last year. You still have another 4-5 weeks for it to fill in some more.

But your point about less daylight needs to be discussed more. There are a lot of members here that are still planning their seed down day. The further along we get, the less sunlight we have each day. Yes, temperatures play a part in our success, however, starting earlier is always better. We can always increase our irrigation to keep the soil moist and prevent the hot sun from drying it out; but we cannot control how much sun light we get.

IF I were to do another reno, I would plan my seed down for the middle of August at the absolute latest. That's 2 extra weeks of longer days and 2 extra weeks to ensure the new grass hardens off before winter.

Overall, you just need to keep being patient and taking care of it. This time next month it will look like a different lawn.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I agree with Hart. Sept daylight is around the same as March. The longer sunlight duration, the more the grass can grow.


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## BobRoss (Jul 3, 2019)

Harts said:


> Looks great! I would cut it down to 1.5-2" and keep it at that height through the rest of the season.
> 
> I did my reno at the same time last year. You still have another 4-5 weeks for it to fill in some more.
> 
> ...


I totally agree with you Harts. You have it even worse than I do. I live about 70 miles from Canada and I overseeded the 10th of September. Currently, our soil temp is in the 50's and the days are drastically shorter right now. I don't think I would have any luck seeding right now.

Kaba, your lawn looks great. Keep up the good work!


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Thank you so much everyone! I really appreciate it.

It's so strange the angle of the sun, I never noticed until this year the dramatic effect it has on the amount of sun my yard gets. During the true summer I'm getting essentially full sun 10am til sundown.

Now maybe 3 hours a day many parts of the lawn are receiving direct sun only. This is from the city trees and my house have such long shadows since the angles changed.

Was so busy thinking about temps, never considered the effect of the sun on my yard in particular - it's not just the shorter days.

I absolutely need to change my seed strategy, I see no reason not to start seed down first week of August next go around.

I try to stay on the positive side of things, and I was doing this intensive overseed as practice as I lead up to a proper burndown reno. I'm not ready for it, we have more landscaping to do, and I really want to get proper irrigation in first, but I am trying to learn as many lessons as possible, and doing more to learn my land.

I think the flopiness of the grass laying down was a result of a few things, I had a heavy rain the night before, and the grass took off once I cleared it out and let it breath (I hadn't applied fert since end of May to that area until after I cut it last weekend), and some of it was longgg like 6 inches. And I did have a lot of foot traffic mowing etc. that day, oh and it was unseasonably cool and overcast all week. Now that we got some warmth and sun back it's perked back up.

Definitely going to mow lower as you guys suggested. I think mowing high is one of the reasons my lawn was so thin to begin with, when I scalped it down I was really surprised at the space between plants, and the hard cooked areas. I spot spray weeds 1 a year or less, and other than handpulling here or there have basically no concerns with weeds, yet all these bare soil spots that are just getting too shaded. Plus with the amount of fine fescue I have, it really does matte and restrict life in those areas.

The issue I have in my yard with mowing low is there are 2 mature honey locus trees which roots are literally above the ground reaching out up to 25ft from the tree, and not by a little bit. I'm afraid to cut lower than 3 inches, I've definitely clipped the roots more than once. 
And my lawn is lumpy. There are little lumps everywhere like the size of plums. I blame all the critters that dig nuts in the ground.

It's those damn critters causing the bare spots in my photos, they dig a hole the diameter of a small apple, ripping out all my new grasslings and dump it on top of the other babies in the area. I hate them haha.

Overall you guys are right I need to just be patient, once the baby grasses start to tillerate I'm going to be happy! I am excited to give the lawn another pass with the reel mower on a lower setting and see how the extra seed I threw down is doing.

Thank you again!


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

This is a reminder to myself, this has been working!


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Update 3:
September 14/15 2019

So overall things have continued to move along nicely. I had some. Sprinkler issues where I lost an unknown amount of days watering (maybe 2, fortunately we had some rain).

I am really surprised how quickly since last week things have filled in. I have never seen my lawn so thick.

The areas I hit with roundup around that center garden have been painfully slow. I think in at least one area the seed was washing away and there is just too much shade. I'm going to pickup some PRG in hopes to just fill the areas in, even if they don't survive the winter.

The colour of the lawn is great, I am seeing tillering! And the lawn is exponentially thicker. I've now completed 3 reel mows. I'm somewhere around 2.5" going to try and get that slightly lower. I also applied 0.5lbs of urea/1000sqft granular mixed with about 0.33lbs epsom/1000sqft so I could spread it.

The squirrels are killing me, every day I have 3 or 4 new piles of dirt I see.

Need to get another reel mow in once the lawn dries!





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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Another comparison photo because why not


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## Harts (May 14, 2018)

Awesome growth in the last 20+ days. Keep feeding it and cutting it. It will only get better.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Looking good!


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I've totally been failing at updating this. Have lots of photos I will update with soon (hopefully tomorrow!)

In the meantime check out this domination line!!



Ha jokes on me! I dominated myself


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Thank you @davegravy for reminding me that I have not updated this in nearly a year.

I will make some time each week to catch up on this!


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> Thank you @davegravy for reminding me that I have not updated this in nearly a year.
> 
> I will make some time each week to catch up on this!


No problem, just trying to hold you accountable to your lawn as so many kind folks on here do for me :lol:


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Reserved


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

In case anyone wanted to see the effects of a proplugger in a couple months, some of my plugs were rye/FF and others were kbg, all plugs filled in greatly in an area that has been really really hard to grow in (tons of shade and white pine needles)


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## cfinden (Aug 7, 2018)

@Kaba those plugs filling in is damn impressive! Thanks for sharing.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Very cool. I'm excited to try this on the area where my wife spilled a couple quarts of spent deep fry oil.

PS if you're ever looking for long term non-selective vegetation suppression, consider cooking oil. I'm amazed at how long this spot has stayed barren.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I couldn't believe how well it filled in also, I was widening garden bed edges and added a mulch ring to a city tree so I took all my plugs from those areas instead of just scrapping the turf as a test.

The worst part was that area that had no grass was just naturally like that, I didn't prep the area at all it was just bare and full of moss and compacted soil.

Once we get out of the stress of summer I'm really excited to see how it looks.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

davegravy said:


> Very cool. I'm excited to try this on the area where my wife spilled a couple quarts of spent deep fry oil.
> 
> PS if you're ever looking for long term non-selective vegetation suppression, consider cooking oil. I'm amazed at how long this spot has stayed barren.


Oh man I could use this behind my garage!!! No BS I have 3ft tall dandelions back there right now. I need to take pics. It's terrifying.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Check out this nightmare of weeds. That dandelion is legit 4ft tall now. It's terrifying I'm worried it's going to murder me in my sleep.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> Check out this nightmare of weeds. That dandelion is legit 4ft tall now. It's terrifying I'm worried it's going to murder me in my sleep.


Looks like they've picked up some scaffolding and are preparing to scale the side of your house.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I am so ready to dethatch with the sun joe, I hate this time of year where I have a lot of the brown haze from the die off.

Some of what I assume are fungus effected brown areas are looking really weird, yellow and dormant? Flopped over and the crowns partially lifted up from the turf but they are still firmly rooted. I am wondering if it's root rot...

My grass gets so floppy around now. I just lowered my HOC today from around 3.5 inches to 3.25.

If anyone has any experience of what I'm going though please let me know.



Also, I finally rigged up my 3 spray head sprinkler contraption for the from yard again. No idea why I didn't do this earlier in the year, I've been moving one head around 4 or 5 times on the days when I water to cover enough area.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> I am so ready to dethatch with the sun joe, I hate this time of year where I have a lot of the brown haze from the die off.
> 
> Some of what I assume are fungus effected brown areas are looking really weird, yellow and dormant? Flopped over and the crowns partially lifted up from the turf but they are still firmly rooted. I am wondering if it's root rot...
> 
> ...


I've dropped to 2.5" HOC this year and before I killed it, it was looking a lot better than previous summers, more full and less dead stuff. I made many other changes too, mind you, so hard to say. Shorter hoc might help it dry out better


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## DAM Lawn (Jan 6, 2020)

I just did some of what you are considering. Dropped the height out front to 2.75. Gave the backyard a light dethatch with the sunjoe on the highest setting, pulled out tons of crap. A couple days later and there's definitely a big improvement.

I have one area that looks like your pic above, definitely fungus thats luckily in the back of the side yard. Had it in the exact same area as last year. My soil seems crap in that area from winter/sand/salt so going to try poking a bunch of holes and topdress heavy with triple mix before overseed to see if that improves for next season.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

@davegravy you know, I think something that simple could be my solution, when the FF is stressed it thins and probably can't support itself, and then it probably flops slowly and mattes, basically making a thatch laying, thinning the lawn, blocking nutrients and creating fungus.

I have always had problems coming out of summer where the density of the grass is reduced, and could never figure out why - like it looks like a pulled a huge dandelion and the space never filled back in. I bet it's from the flop.

Over the next 2-3 weeks I'm going to drop the hoc a lot.

I hate my front yard because there are a significant amount of roots above the soil surface all over the place so it's hard to get too low on the rotory... But even if I keep it close to 3 that should help.

I probably should just buy an axe and rip out the roots, trees will be fine right lol.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

@DAM Lawn you made me feel better about running the sun joe. I'm going to try and get that done this weekend on highest with the tines attachment. Cooler evenings are helping a lot


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> @DAM Lawn you made me feel better about running the sun joe. I'm going to try and get that done this weekend on highest with the tines attachment. Cooler evenings are helping a lot


Pest and lawn ginja just did an episode about how he runs his dethatcher regularly right through the summer heat. Made some reference to the NFL doing this with good success, I think.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I saw that too! He does have bluegrass though which repairs a hell of a lot better than baby whaa whaa fescue.

I was going to dethatch my backyard to try and loosen some debris up, it's just so damn thick. I'm so excited for you to get bluegrass, it's like the best thing ever.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I am trying to figure out a pretty way to post my lawn data on here so people can see in more real time what I have been up to - this is one of the reasons I haven't posted much on here this year as I have been trying to sort out my plan of action for this...

This is my first test:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vT8UEWPsMEvqSmqylO2KwXc92xHuKvyTHQdVASbpoSuF9deZQCeNsyYImYxFMbQrh-sAat04lz_7ksQ/pubchart?oid=1515511871


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I raked out the brown area, maybe 5ft x 10ft or less... Without much effort this is what I raked. It's all so scraggly and long (5inches maybe) feels so weird.

Definitely need to dust off the Ole Sun Joe


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I sun joe'd today on the highest setting with the dethatch attachment (+10). The lawn was stressed from it, but man I pulled a lot of debris out. I think I need to start doing this before the end of June to reduce fungus issues in the summer heat/humidity.

I'm kind of stuck with the chicken or the egg right now, is it fungus causing the die off, or the die off causing the fungus.

One thing is for sure I was very heavy in my overseed rates last year so I'm not too surprised that there was a bit of casualties.

I dropped my HOC another half notch on my mower (I must be around 2.75-3" now) which didn't help the stressed look in the photos below. Used the bag to pick up the debris, probably 6 or 7 bags over the 2300sqft area that I did.

I'm banking on cooler evenings and rain this weekend to help.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

I hear ya, been through this cycle too many times lol. It will recover!


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

It kills me @davegravy we basically have completely opposite lots, yours is more sandy, way more sun, mine is clay and a lot of shade, yet we (had once your reno is done lol) the same issue.

I just don't get it.

I really do not have the time to invest into a full blown reno in the front right now (see photo above of 4ft weeds), and I want to do it right adding irrigation while I have it ripped apart. Not to mention I'm going to need probably 15 yards of topsoil minimum so I need to make this work. I just can't figure out why it's not.

My backyard grass looks exactly (expect one shady spot 🤣) how I want it, why can't the front!

Anyways end of rant. This fall it will come back and look great and I'll think all is well until next July again lol.

On the bright side this is the best it's looked throughout the summer since I've owned the place. Better watering has been a big help, so was the overseed, so it wasn't all for nothing...


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

With all the rain we have healing happening! Lawn is still thin, but the dead areas that I cleaned out are getting slightly greener, yay.

For those who don't live in the GTA, we had about 6" of rain in the past 3 days and significant cooling off of day time temps.

My back boulevard that gets 0 love is even starting to green in some spots again! Will need to take pics.



This was the lawn pre-rain



From now on I'm keeping the HOC 3", it's hard for me to go lower because of scalping and insane tree roots everywhere, I can bust out the reel in fall and go down to 2" likely - we'll see.

This is what my FF did being too long and stressed, laid down and died... Only parts "1" and "2" were below the soil, it basically was growing like a warm season grass:



Also, on a happier note this is my backyard KBG, survived its first summer well so far!


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

KBG looks dope! Can't wait to have that.

I'd go lower than 3" if you can swing it, even if it means using the reel. I find any higher than 2.5 and my FF flops over. My neighbour has almost entirely FF, keeps at somewhere around 1.5"-2", and it stands up much better than mine.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I may have to buy a second reel mower on kijiji because I'm too lazy to adjust the heights from back to front! Even if it only take 30-45 seconds lol. Set it and forget it hahah.

I mowed last night at about 2.5-2.75 and scalped a few sections that the city messed up my grade on. Had to lift the deck over a lot of tree roots too lol!


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> I may have to buy a second reel mower on kijiji because I'm too lazy to adjust the heights from back to front! Even if it only take 30-45 seconds lol. Set it and forget it hahah.
> 
> I mowed last night at about 2.5-2.75 and scalped a few sections that the city messed up my grade on. Had to lift the deck over a lot of tree roots too lol!


Nice! Would it take a lot of topsoil prevent scalping and hitting tree roots? My tree has a "mound" around it with a fairly steep slope down to the level that most of the yard is at, but I figure it's better than exposed roots.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

It's long an complicated haha I'm going to need to make a drawing to show it (which I should do anyways so I know where I need to attack and grade correctly in the future).

The tree roots from the honey locusts come above and below the topsoil for about 20-25ft beyond the trunk. I cut a mulch ring with a RADIUS of about 6ft because those roots are up to 7 inches above grade. They get closer to grade as you get further, beyond the mulch ring they're about 3 inches above and then after another 10ft or so disappear below grade.

My crabapple has suckers 15-20ft from the trunk. And the city basically made a cliff the width of 1 roll of sod down to the sidewalk and curbs they repoured which by my estimate the only way to fix is to dig out the hump instead of build it up.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I was about to add some seed to the areas in my lawn that thinned out... Then I realized I already pre-m'd like 2 weeks ago.

Going to plan B which is plug in some new sod here and there.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

My front lawn is continuing its downward spiral, more areas are dying off. I found a spot where I previously used the soil probe and there were at least 5 slugs in the hole. I'm pretty much over it at this point.

The amount of time and effort to have at best a mediocre lawn is just not worth it.

The density is extremely thin, I can't help but feel the overseed completely failed and all the rye and kbg died from the heat/shade. I'm left with this pathetic mess of FF. Some of the elite kbg sod I had left over from my backyard reno I planted in the front. It's basically disintegrated from the shade.

Pretty much nothing survives in my yard from the shade, and the FF can't take the heat.

The FF side yard I have is in better shape than my front yard and I barely even maintain mowing it let alone keep up feeding it.

My soil is terrible, the gaps between the clumps of grass as large enough that the clay dries out super fast and turns to rock, and the squirrels just are constantly digging it up. There are tree roots everywhere on the soil surface.

I just don't know what else I can do at this point short of killing the city trees off.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Kaba said:


> My front lawn is continuing its downward spiral, more areas are dying off. I found a spot where I previously used the soil probe and there were at least 5 slugs in the hole. I'm pretty much over it at this point.
> 
> The amount of time and effort to have at best a mediocre lawn is just not worth it.
> 
> ...


My heart aches... Maybe the answer is to reno and put in all FF, but the right modern variety?

https://proseedsmarketing.com/fine_fescue.htm

https://landmarkseed.com/products/fine-fescue-grass-seed



> Chewings fescue is an improved and proven lower-growing fine fescue. It differs from creeping red fescue because of its more erect growth and adaptability.


Alternatively @Babameca mentioned he's been having excellent shade performance since he switched to Award and started using PGR.


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## Babameca (Jul 29, 2019)

@davegravy It is the Everest...on paper. NTEP shows it very close to Mazama on shade performance.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Thank you @davegravy i appreciate the moral support!

I truly have no idea what im going to do next. I feel like I keep falling back to what I know which is I need to bring in a lot of topsoil. I'm struggling with the thought that due to the environment I may just never have a great front yard, and why waste more time and money on it. Next year I'm thinking low N, low mow, and just let it go dormant until August.

I presumably did not have shade tolerate cultivars in the sod mix (trade secrets... Wouldn't divulge cultivars specifically), but I doubt there will a tolerance of any cultivar this high for shade. Honey locust trees are unbelievable at blocking sunlight, and I have 2 full matured blocking 80% of the front 3000sqft. The other 20% is blocked from a flowering crab and a large silver maple on my neighbors yard.


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## MMoore (Aug 8, 2018)

Thin the heck out of the trees.

Do whatever you need to, IMO.


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

MMoore said:


> Thin the heck out of the trees.
> 
> Do whatever you need to, IMO.


City tree, not legally allowed to 😕

Maybe sometime walking by with a syringe full of glyphosate will trip and fall near your tree, Kaba. With all those exposed roots it's a tripping hazard, not inconceivable 🙄


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

I'm going to try and take photos every hour tomorrow to track sunlight hours... Hoping to get at least 4. Can do some minor pruning without neighbors ratting on me lol.


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## MMoore (Aug 8, 2018)

Your allowed to prune them.

Not kill them. Lol


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

MMoore said:


> Your allowed to prune them.
> 
> Not kill them. Lol


Sadly you can't even prune them (at least in Toronto)

https://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/kb/docs/articles/parks,-forestry-and-recreation/urban-forestry/city-tree-branches-need-pruning.html



> If the resident prunes the tree, an infraction under the bylaw may be given to the resident for pruning a City tree, especially if this results in harm to the pruned tree.


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Reserved


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Starting early this year.

Aerated all the lawns.

In my backyard (dwarf KBG) I dethatched with the sun joe today, mowed up all the debris and gave a tiny squirt of urea and watered it in.



Looking forward to the growing season!


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## davegravy (Jul 25, 2019)

Wait... front yard was mysteriously absent from that description :lol:

The title of this thread mentions fine fescue, but now you only seem to want to talk about your shiny new dwarf KBG &#129300;


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## Kaba (Mar 29, 2019)

Hahaha well played @davegravy.

I'm sure the FF is going to look great in May and then go back to sucking lol! Right now not a whole lot going on there! Squirrels busy digging up nuts aerating my lawn...


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