# Chris's Lawn thread



## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

So this year my wife and I bought our first house.

Had a pretty busy year with the usual move-in stuff and the projects that ensue, so didn't get quite as much done on the lawn as i wanted to, but I've got most of the broadleaf weeds under control, had decent germination on my reseeding project (we had to dig french drains to deal with some drainage issues, and get the sump pump water away from the house.)

2107 Yard projects:
More Grass - Less Salad (there was a lot of salad)
Restore large soft muddy areas that had been left covered in leaf piles before the snowfall.
Restore areas where salt had killed what grass was along the side of the driveway.
Restore areas where runoff had pushed much out of the beds, and killed strips of grass along the beds
Dig out hoplessly overgrown shrubs and re-seed
Drainage install and reseed over the trench

Here's some before photos of some of the problem areas

This is the kids fishing in the leaf-puddles, you can also see the salad, ( almost half creeping charlie in this part of the yard), and the aforementioned shrubbery.


This is one of the bare areas around the garden where the mulch overflow had killed the lawn


This is an area where I had problems with drainage out of an overflowing gutter taking garden mulch with it


The lawn is doing better now, but in the process of reseeding the area where we installed the drainage trench, I chose a PRG blend (ProTurf Landscape Mix) It's beautifull grass, but there's a ton of what I'm pretty sure is K31 tall fescue here and there from previous repairs, and the huge fat blades look like crap, so at present I'm pretty sure I'm going to kill it all and reseed with ***/PRG next year.

2018 Goals
Continue defining beds, tear out the old plastic bed liners, and contour beds so they don't wash out onto the lawn
Roll and Core aerate in early spring, There's lots of bumps and low spots that need work hopefuly core aeration will help with some of the compaction I create by rolling, 
Level and topdress to remove the low spots and bumps that shake the heck out of the lawnmower, would like to even the height of the turf to match the hardscapes, will make edging look better
I'll continue to amend the soil, and fertilize. will probably put down a spring pre-emergent, assuming I can find one that can be shipped to NY...
Come August, planning on a full renovation.


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

Here's one of the lawn a few weeks ago, came outside on lunch one afternoon to find that the gas company had dug up a section out by the street to replace a main. The lawn is looking better in this part than it did, not too worried about the gas company repair, as I'm going to reno the whole thing next year



There sure are a lot of us in this forum on corner lots, aren't there!


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## Sinclair (Jul 25, 2017)

If all goes according to plan, I will be receiving 5lbs of Prodiamine 65WDG here in Ontario, Canada tomorrow.

Tracking shows an import scan and departure scan from Fort Erie.

www.seedworldusa.com

This is who I used based on fellow Canuck Snowbob11's recommendation.

If they can get it into Canada, they can get it to you in NY.


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

Things are starting off pretty slow this spring. Lawn is extremely thin, compliments of a few things.
Had a sucessfull campaign with weed-be-gon and cco last fall killed off a ton of broadleaf weeds and clover.
Scotts Starter Fertilizer with Mesotrione thinning out a bunch of the fine fescue that was there before. 
I have some areas that had a good ammount of moss, which I've raked out, which has increased the thin appearance.

My plan so far is to send some soil out for a soil test, then:

Also want to add a pathway or two with some stepping stones or pavers to add some hardscape area so that I can help with the bare areas resulting from twisting/turning on soggy ground next to the driveway, fenangling kids into carseats etc.
(the driveway is exactly two cars wide with no walkway on the side, so the turf is taking a beating there between salt, winter kill, and traffic)

I'm expecting that my clay soil has a low PH, and has very little OM. It's also very poor draining. Last year I added some drainage and that has helped a bunch, but it's also pointed out how slow any water is to penetrate or absorb.

Spring: Moss-out and kill the moss, spring overseed now with a PRG mix, to cover some very bare spots and have something to mow. 
I'll add lime to correct the soil PH, (waiting on soil test results). I'm also thinking that I'm going to do some suffacant treatments, maybe RGS Air-8, or Lesco Moisture Manager to help with water penetetration.

I'll probably add some Milorganite at the major holidays as we continue to add some organics, and see if I can't get some earthworm activity to help me in the aeration department.

All this is building up to a full renovation this fall
At the present time, I'm thinking I'm going to go with Bewitched, Midnight, Mazama (Which are America, Midnight, Compact types, respectivly)


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## MarkAguglia (Jul 13, 2017)

Excited to see your reno as we live in the same area. Just sent out a soil test yesterday. Straight mud as you can imagine...beautiful weather were having today and lately. &#128514;


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

I'm sending my soil test out to Agro-one, so they can have the Cornell Extension do their analysis, 12$ seems like a decent price. (and they send you the soil boxes for free, so that's something too!) They sent me a tone of soil sample boxes, so if you want to send one there too, to compare, I'd be glad to share...

This is a photo of the wear area by the driveway, (before raking) Trying to dream up something nice to put here, wondering if stepping stones will be enough. (this area also needs some aeration and from mechanical compaction, I think they used to drive on the grass on the side of the driveway pretty regularly, it's sunken down quite a bit from the surrounding grade, which I think is adding to the problem, being too wet, and too much traffic, and also collecting a ton of salt from the driveway over the winter. 


This area here is going to need some TLC, the gas company messed it up digging late last fall, I'm tempted to have them come back and fix it better, grading/etc, winter was real hard on the loose pack they did around the excavation site.


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

Soil PH was 4.5, so put down 120 lbs of lime this week, wow was that a mess...
Also applied some moss-out to the entire lawn with a hose-end sprayer.
Have someone coming by to roll it this week, then I'm going to rent a slit-seeder from an orange home improvement store, and overseed in the spring, There's enough bare patch areas that I have to do something...

I'm still planning on a full reno in the fall though, so the overseed will probably be some landscape mix for now, to fill in bare areas and keep weed seeds from taking a further foothold.

Question on grass types, my Wife and kids love running around barefoot, and love the way the PRG felt underfoot, over the crunchy nearly sharp coarse fescue stuff. Will a bluegrass have a similar soft feel underfoot to PRG? @GrassDaddy I think you were saying that you wanted something soft for your kids to play in, how's your grass feeling underfoot a few years past your reno?

At the current time, I'm thinking I'm going to reno with ***, Bewitched, Midnight, Mazama (Which are America, Midnight, Compact types, respectivly), but i'm open to sugestions.

Lawn can be shadyish in spots at times, so I've chosen some Bewitched and Mazama for their shade-tolerance, and midnight, because some areas aren't so shady, so let that take off and mix in where it can.



I'm thinking I'm going to take down the middle of the three trees, and open up the area north of my driveway a little. The other two are probably staying, although I'll trim them a bit. The one to the north has saved the house from getting imapaced by stupid drivers a few times, and the one to the south shades the kids swingset for part of the day. both those areas still grow in nicely, where as the part under the other tree is shaded almost all day between the house and the tree.

I'm leaning away from PRG, because with how much died over the winter, it's almost non-existent how much is there to grow back this spring. Maybe aerating and slit seeing will help with that somewhat.


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## GrassDaddy (Mar 21, 2017)

Yes KBG feels great


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

This week - Made the gas company send a crew back out to fix the area they dug up late last fall. Followed along behind them with tackifier mulch, since the area is on a slight grade it was at risk for washout. It's held thru three days of rainstorms, so that should do alright.

Got annuals planted in the garden with the kids. Proplugger makes planting annuals pretty easy!
Grabbed a 10 pound bag of nomix seed from the local nursery (Prefered seed distributor). Nothing notable as far as seed, 25% red fescue, 25% 2100 KBG 25% more each two different PRG. This is just to fill in till fall, give me something to mow and make the unsightly areas a litttle more bareable till then. Seeded the bare and thin areas.

Took a ton of plugs out in the bare areas crumbled the cores up and put loose soil back in. Hoping that helps withsome of the drainage issues. Didn't want to do a spring aeration because I'm over seeding with Fine Fescue, so no tenacity for me, I'm honestly welcoming anything green at this point, broadleaf or not, WBG will kill them after the new seedlings are established anyway.

My girls really enjoyed running around the yard with the broadcast spreader, lol

Ordered some of the Green County bio-stim pack, planning on hitting the soil pretty heavy with Air-8 to break up some of the clay, then I'll hit it good with some surfactant in the areas that have been pooling water, hoping that helps a bit... thinking I'll wait to use the other compenents till the fall with the renovation.


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## social port (Jun 19, 2017)

I've always wondered how well repair crews like that are trained in growing grass.


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

Yea, we'll see. I was more concerned that they finish filling and grading the area. It settled quite a bit, 6 inches in places. They had to fill it with about 10 wheelbarrows full of topsoil. They put seed in the mix while the rake guy was grading, along with what I think was starter fert, then broadcast seed back over the top, and ran the rake over the top, real lightly, so not too bad...


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

I've been out of town for two weeks, aside from a quick stop home last weekend, long enough to mow the lawn... Come home Friday, to find that the gas company had sent a crew back early this week, this time, to hydro-seed. 
This crew made a pretty good mess over areas that were already grown in pretty good. (and picked up all my impact sprinklers, moved them to a pile in the middle of the yard and turned off the water timer...) Anyone with any experience with having hydro-seed used as an over-seed? Wondering if the existing grass will grow thru it easy enough, it all looks glued down at the moment, debating leaving it, or giving it a rake to break up some of the canopy.


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

Today I started raising the canopy of the larger of my three Silver Maples. There's some larger branches I'm going to need to climb with a chainsaw to remove, but it opened up the floor to a ton more sunlight than I was getting, which was the whole idea. 
Put down bag rate Milo last weekened. 
The problem areas I seeded this spring are starting to mature, I'm pleased with how the lawn looks after the above photos coming out of winter. It's not where I want it to be, I'm definitely ruined from looking at your guy's lawns...

Here's the tree after the haircut, there's more to come down, but I need to borrow a chainsaw and a harness to do some climbing.


This is how the re-seed is coming over the area the gas company left messed up last year. Still more chunks of patchwork repairs, but the eventual reno will fix all that.


More repaired area, Going to have to borrow a pressure washer to scrub the hydro-much crap off the manhole covers. Also featured are the 'hey learn how to drive rocks' from another post...


This area is the winter-kill area next to the driveway. I added some topsoil here to help with it being a low-spot. Still having trouble with getting grass to grow on the horizontal stripe along the bottom there, guessing it might be compaction, going to grab a garden weasal and try and break it up and get some seed-soil contact.


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

This week we got quite a bit done. Borrowed a chainsaw and cut the limbs that were left from my pole saw and raising the canopy. Trimmed most of the deadwood out of the tree nearest the corner, and finished mulching the tree ring. I Really like how this ring came out, I used a rope tied around the tree and a pair of hedgetrimmers as a drafting compass of sorts.
The circle came out very round and concentric. The last two that I cut makes the first one look like crap, guess I'll be re-cutting it!

Also when I sent my wife to home depot to pick up mulch, she came back with Cedar mulch instead of the cheaper scotts stuff I'd been buying. I like it more, seems to resist getting blown all over a lot...

Put down a dose of insecticide, as we've seen a lot more ants since trimming the dead limbs in the tree. (and found a fair about of grubs while I was digging the latest tree circle, I've never noticed grub damage, but the ants need to die so...)

The new grass nearest the driveway seems to not be growing tall as quickly as I expected, it still isn't high enough that the mower is trimming it. I have suspicions it's having difficulty gettting roots thru the compacted mess that's there under the topcoat. thinking if it doens't improve, I might just run a mini tiller there along the driveway before I reno, no sense doing a reno without being able to grow grass from seed first properly, right?

My wife's knockout roses finally flowered, first time for the season. I did a bunch of shrub pruning and garden-stuff.

I have Tenacity coming in today, so hoping to do some spot-spraying with that this coming week.

Oh yea, and I found out my yard is actually 7500 sq ft and not 5000, I guess I forgot to add the front section last time I measured or something?


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)




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## Powhatan (Dec 15, 2017)

chrisben said:


>


Very nice :thumbup:


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

Thanks!


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## chrisben (Sep 11, 2017)

Spot sprayed broadleaf, Clover/Charlie and crabgrass. The lack of a pre-emergent is definetly showing at this point.
Have been trying to drag the sprinklers enough to keep the spring seedlings alive thru summer, but as suspected, they're moslty toast.

Fall plans have changed slightly, We've decided not to reno this fall, because of it costing keeping the kids off the germination areas for most of the summer. So I'll do some heavy fall overseeding, and see where that lands us.


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