# 100% KBG test patch (2020 KCMO) [2021 Spring is coming]



## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

So this will be my first ever "renovation" but it will only be a patch. I am fed up with the inconsistency of my front yard. I did a fairly significant overseed with TTTF last year and it went OK but the k31 continues to take over and the TTTF wilted at the slightest bit of heat and humidity. Maybe I didn't feed first year grass enough? I don't know.

So I think I have finally (after years of contemplation) decided I want a 100% KBG yard. So this is my test patch renovation to make sure I know I can do it on a small scale before moving to my whole front yard. I also want to see what 100% KBG looks like and verify it will have the density and stand up the way I want it to.

Here is my test patch 2 days after first Round-Up application (8/17/20). I am only doing between the sidewalk, driveway, street and the light pole. This is a nice evenly irrigated spot and isolated from the rest of my yard. I wanted to stay away from trees with round up as they are young just to be safe. This was also, unfortunately my BEST patch of grass in my entire yard. It was almost entirely TTTF with some KBG and K31 sporadically.










Here is a close up so you can see grass mix:









I may just do this whole area on the right side of the driveway up to the house if I get the itch.

Here are some pics of the rest of the smallish front yard:









You can see the swath of TTTF down the middle (running left to right) that I put in last fall. Here is a closeup:









And here is why I want to redo this entire front yard:









I will be obtaining a fresh .5lb or so of BlueWave from my local GrassPad. This is a custom KBG blend they make for our area. The cultivars change every few months so you never know what you are going to get but they always use quality cultivars and it is always 0% weeds and filler. I want a mix for diversity to help with the hot and humid summers.

The renovation plan is as follows:

Another round of Round-up on day 6

after full browning, rake patch with garden rake

Lower mower to lowest setting and bag

hand spread seed

cover with peat moss or whatever covering is recommended by grasspad as they have a few options

water 2x daily for 15 minutes each

Any and all comments/questions are welcomed.


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## HoosierLawnGnome (Sep 28, 2017)

You can usually scalp after 2 or 3 days, then reapply glyphosate after removing all the dead material.

It may even still look green after a few days, but you'll see and smell how dead it is when you start scalping.

If you wait a week until its fully brown, you may end up with a mat of dead grass thats flopped over that you cant scalp, especially if you get rain. Then you have another mini project before you can seed.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

HoosierLawnGnome said:


> You can usually scalp after 2 or 3 days, then reapply glyphosate after removing all the dead material.
> 
> It may even still look green after a few days, but you'll see and smell how dead it is when you start scalping.
> 
> If you wait a week until its fully brown, you may end up with a mat of dead grass thats flopped over that you cant scalp, especially if you get rain. Then you have another mini project before you can seed.


Yeah, I have been unsure of that exact sequence. That is why I was going to rake before scalping. I wanted to rake up anything i could and then use the mower to bag up the rakings and new clippings at the same time. I was trying to be as lazy as possible. I figured I would have to rake no matter what. Was that a false assumption?


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## HoosierLawnGnome (Sep 28, 2017)

badtlc said:


> HoosierLawnGnome said:
> 
> 
> > You can usually scalp after 2 or 3 days, then reapply glyphosate after removing all the dead material.
> ...


If it's standing up, no need to rake before you scalp. But you'll need to remove the dead crap after you scalp.

No need to rake if you have a blower. After you scalp, blow the dead crap into adjacent areas and stand up the stubble at the same time, until you see some bare soil between stubble.

Some call that lazy. I call it smart.


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## HoosierLawnGnome (Sep 28, 2017)

Or side discharge it intonthe center by mowing in a circle etc


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Seed update. My KBG mix going down is:

36% Rock-it KBG
31% Gateway KBG
33% Arc KBG


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

at HLG's suggestion, I went ahead and scalped. I raked a bit first, lowered the mower to lowest setting and bagged. I then raked again. I will say this, next time I will scalp first and then rake. The raking was much easier after scalping.

Also put more roundup on after mowing.

Some photos:


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

It looks ready for seed.


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## ksturfguy (Sep 25, 2018)

Be aware you might have to water more then 2x daily. Its supposed to be pretty warm here 90s for the next week or so. Just 2x daily might dry out depending on winds and stuff so just keep an eye on it and adjust if needed


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

g-man said:


> It looks ready for seed.


You sure? There are still green blades sporadically through the area. I was trying to get it all brown before putting the seed down as I want nothing but KBG when this is done. I am definitely anxious to get the seed down, though.

How much KBG seed can I put down? Let me rephrase, how much is too much KBG seed? In addition to my new seed I have some 1 year old blue wave mix with some different cultivars. I want to put down both groups of seeds to maximize genetic diversity but I also don't want to put too much down. I assume too much seed could lead to sprout-n-pout or something bad?


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

ksturfguy said:


> Be aware you might have to water more then 2x daily. Its supposed to be pretty warm here 90s for the next week or so. Just 2x daily might dry out depending on winds and stuff so just keep an eye on it and adjust if needed


I'm keeping an eye on the weather for sure. I work from home so I am not too worried. I can just go out an check and manually run the zone as needed...unless I forget.

Thanks for the warning.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

badtlc said:


> g-man said:
> 
> 
> > It looks ready for seed.
> ...


I see enough soil to be able to seed. Do more gly to make sure it is all dead.

2lb/ksqft is the standard rate you should do. Too much seed leads to crowding and fungus.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

g-man said:


> 2lb/ksqft is the standard rate you should do. Too much seed leads to crowding and fungus.


Do you know of any good pictures showing what this density would look like? I have to drop by hand because it is such a small patch. I think I have to do it by appearance instead of weight.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I dont think I do. Maybe some else has.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

yesterday seed went down and peat moss went on. I can see why people complain about peat moss. That stuff is a PITA. There has to be an easy way to spread it.

Does this look like enough peat moss? Never used the stuff before.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Still no seedlings but I didn't expect to with this being morning of Day 5 after seed down. This is my first real go at the KBG patience game. I feel OK but with each day I can tell the anxiety is building.

Temps have been in low to mid 90s so I have upped the watering to 4 times a day for 10 minutes each. 3x a day the peat moss still felt moist right before each watering but I went to 4x a day because people on this board made me paranoid.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

It will be fine. Don't worry. You can always get sod too.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

g-man said:


> It will be fine. Don't worry. *You can always get sod too*.


That is one of the meanest things I have ever seen posted on here! ha!

The good news is there is no existing grass growing up through the peat moss. I assume that means I got a pretty good kill before seed down.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

So look what I found yesterday evening (evening of day 6 after seed down):

Sorry for the poor image quality but can you see it?!?! I think this is ARC showing up first.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Morning of Day 8 after seed down. Close up of 3 different areas. Not enough to add any green tint when looking at the patch but when you get close.....


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

See, no need for sod.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Pics from this morning. There is finally enough so that you can see a green tint from a distance.

I'm getting a monsoon now so maybe some of this will be gone after the rain stops. I'll have to wait and see. I think the coverage is good, the spot is flat and the baby grass has enough roots to be OK. Fingers crossed:


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

I lost probably 30% of my grass babies this morning in the downpour...ugh.


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## ksturfguy (Sep 25, 2018)

Damn that sucks,. I just threw some seed down this weekend and was worried we were going to get those storms but it went east of us.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

ksturfguy said:


> Damn that sucks,. I just threw some seed down this weekend and was worried we were going to get those storms but it went east of us.


I just keep telling myself "it was only 10 days worth." This is why we get seed down early, right? Time to treat these. The grass babies I lost didn't wash away. They were laying over flat and when I touched one you could see the root was in a small clump of mud. They got uprooted and just fell over. Really weird looking. Maybe they can recover? Probably not now, though because I put new seed and another layer of peat moss over them.


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## SEKBrian (Jul 20, 2020)

I just got home from lunch and saw a few seeds in the driveway. My rain gauge had .4 in and we got that in about 30 minutes probably so no telling where I'm at now. I'm worried what the next few days will bring. Hopefully no big washouts!


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

SEKBrian said:


> I just got home from lunch and saw a few seeds in the driveway. My rain gauge had .4 in and we got that in about 30 minutes probably so no telling where I'm at now. I'm worried what the next few days will bring. Hopefully no big washouts!


Sounds like you got off a bit light. We got over 2" of rain in less than 45 minutes.


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## SEKBrian (Jul 20, 2020)

It could have definitely been worse! Do you have any pictures of the damage to your grass? Hopefully its not as bad as you think.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

SEKBrian said:


> It could have definitely been worse! Do you have any pictures of the damage to your grass? Hopefully its not as bad as you think.


No, but why not? Let me go take some. I can't show the damage as I already covered some spots but it will at least show how much i felt needed new peat moss.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

The grass babies that were just on their side "floating" in the mud are covered with new peat moss so you can't see them. YOu can see pics of other grass babies that are laid on their side but because they are mixed in with dead grass I think they will bounce back up when the sun comes out so I didn't cover them. I did throw new seed down on the whole patch.

In the last one you can see some really tough little guys still standing upright despite 2.25" of rain in 30 minutes.


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## kmw (Jun 27, 2020)

Hopefully we get a few weeks of good weather. I'm starting to wish I tried planting earlier just so I would have had more time!


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

kmw said:


> Hopefully we get a few weeks of good weather. I'm starting to wish I tried planting earlier just so I would have had more time!


Yeah, I think mid august is a prime time to start putting KBG down in our area. I know it can be hot but that can be mitigated with more water. You just can't buy more time.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Here are some pics the evening of Day 14 after seed down. Everything seems to progressing. There are new grass babies everywhere. Some areas are thicker than others but even the thin areas seem to be sprouting new ones daily.

I threw one picture of the rest of my front yard. I scalped the whole yard HARD last sunday hoping for a mowing break and to put down some TTTF overseed in the rest of the yard. There was zero stunting. Growing like a weed everywhere. I may have bought myself 3 days of not mowing by scalping at best.




























This picture isn't much different than the previous. I just changed focus so you could see more detail on the grass further away.










and finally the rest of my front lawn that was 1/3 brown after the hard scalp as recent as 4 days ago (1.25" HOC with rotary and freshly sharpened blades)


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

@Harts I saw you mention my yard in another thread on the forum. I just thought I would reply here to avoid cluttering up the other person's thread.

You mentioned the area where my KBG is going down as being a tough area. One of the reasons I picked this spot to do a 100% KBG test patch is because it was actually the best area of my entire yard. It was sad to kill it off but I wanted to make sure there were no excuses. I figured if I can't grow KBG in my best location, then there was no point trying in the rest of the yard. It has a nice amount of watering from my sprinkler system but my neighbor's also overshoots onto the test patch area so it gets plenty of water regularly.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

I know everyone is anxiously awaiting updates for my massive test patch but there hasn't been much to report. My reseeded areas seem to be about 2-3 days slower than the first round of seeding. I'm not sure why this time is taking longer. Maybe I have been keeping them more "wet" than the first round.

I have definitely hit that point where my anxiety has gotten the best of me. I wonder daily now if I made a huge mistake with this part of the yard and will regret it. Oh well. No turning back and I just hope this starts filling in before November. I don't think I can handle waiting for spring.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Some updates. 
1) Things seem to be growing again.
2) The last reseeded area is finally showing seedlings. It officially took 7 days longer for seedlings to show vs the 6 days for the first seed down. I don't know if I put too much cover on the 2nd batch of seeds or if the cool wet week last week REALLY slowed everything down.

This week is all sunny and mid 70s so my yard should be awesome soon as a whole. I included one pic to show the test patch vs how existing yard is looking.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

I forgot to add I have reduced to short early morning daily watering for seeds and washing off the dew. I have resumed moderate/heavy watering for every 3 days.

I noticed over the weekend that when I briefly water over heavy dew in the mornings, the grass dries much faster. I think this will help combat fungus as also the irrigation water has chemicals that tend to kill/prevent fungus. I may have to try this next year in the heat to see if it reduces fungus outbreaks.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Some more updates and filling in for my KBG patch. My front yard on the other hand is driving me nuts. When I scalped the wide blade fescue has laid over and seems to be dominating more than ever. Can't wait to kill that off next year.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Another riveting update. I think I'll be able to do my first mow this weekend. woohoo!

I just need to decide whether to cut at 1.75" or 2.25". Any suggestions?


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

I ended up mowing my patch last night at 1.75" with my toro super recycler in side-discharge mode. I would estimate about 10-20% of the blades ended up getting cut. I think I will probably keep it at this HOC until winter unless it really thickens up fast.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

These are morning after pics of being mowed yesterday evening. This is 36 days after seed down for first batch of seed. It is becoming clear I put down way too much seed. I'm going to have crowding problems 

The 2nd pic is a closeup of a patch where baby grass is SUPER thick.

Test patch mowed at 1.75" and yard mowed at 2.25".


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

See, no need for sod.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

g-man said:


> See, no need for sod.


The tttf in my yard is awesome right now and trying to make me forget about its summer fungus problems.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Mowed at 2.25" last night. Previous mows of the test patch were at 1.75". It is thickening up nicely but now it appears either a dog has been peeing on my baby grass or there is a fungus outbreak despite the cool temps (daytime highs <63F for a week at least) and low temps in the upper 30s/low 40s. I put fertilizer down (16-2-2 slow release) on oct 1st. I will probably just continue heavier morning watering every 3 days (~.4"/wtr) with light afternoon waterings this week as we are going to be 80F to 90F all week this week and I have some small spots being overseeded with TTTF elsewhere in the same zone.




























any comments or suggestions?


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## SEKBrian (Jul 20, 2020)

Lookin good. Looks weed free. Have you treated it?


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

SEKBrian said:


> Lookin good. Looks weed free. Have you treated it?


I hand pick as things pop up. I have pulled maybe 5-7 tiny weeds so far.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Here is a close up of the browning at the grass tips and thinning. Wish I could stop this.


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## SEKBrian (Jul 20, 2020)

Is it just the leaf tips? I would have a hard time thinking its fungus unless you are keeping it soaked, which it doesn't sound like you are. Looks like some type of burn, especially if its in your entire yard. Slow release N shouldn't do that tho. Guess you could could throw down a curative rate of fungicide and hope for the best. Do you see any fungus in your neighbors yard?


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Wowza the recent fert app (16-2-2 apparently all fast release?) really made things go into turbo mode. As documented in my previous posts I ended up with nitrogen burn after applying this:










that ended up giving me the nitrogen burn seen in previous pictures. So I started going heavy on the water. I mowed last Friday around noon and then did some mild watering through the afternoon. Saturday morning was a heavy water (.4") with regular smaller watering throughout the day on saturday and sunday. Then yesterday (monday) I had to mow again and the grass was SUPER long. I typically only mow every 4 days and cut much less off than what I did yesterday (a 3 day mow) for the rest of my yard. Despite being only 3 days, the whole yard was very thick and tall and needed a mow badly. Mowing the test patch recently hadn't been cutting much but this time the test patch was just right for a cut. I'd say i'm cutting 95%+ of the grass blades now.

Upon cutting it, that is when I noticed it is now THICK. Just compare this to the pic from just a few days ago (few posts above)










The browning/burning is done and I only lost a small spot thankfully as you can see here:










And also, now you can see it is darkening a lot more. It is getting close to the darkness of my existing grass as seen here:










After this run-in with fast release fertilizer I think I am done with synthetics. I will be sticking to biosolid or natural fertilizers only after I get my last bag of synthetic used up in November. I think my plan for next year will be to apply Menard's Natural Biosolid fertilizer (.58#/1k) every month next year from march through November. That should give me around 5#/1k total for the year. I might up the amounts in Sept & Oct to get closer to 6-7# since I will be renovating the front yard next fall.

While researching up on my fertilizer situation, I learned a lot about urea nitrogen and how it is harmful to microbial activity in the soil when used extensively. I'm a big proponent of taking more care for microbial activity than the grass itself so this was also a major push for me to get away from the synthetics. If anyone wants any links about the downside to using Urea Nitrogen, let me know.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

SEKBrian said:


> Is it just the leaf tips? I would have a hard time thinking its fungus unless you are keeping it soaked, which it doesn't sound like you are. Looks like some type of burn, especially if its in your entire yard. Slow release N shouldn't do that tho. Guess you could could throw down a curative rate of fungicide and hope for the best. Do you see any fungus in your neighbors yard?


I think I confirmed it was N burn and intense watering seemed to do the trick!


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Another mow at 2.25". Still watering every 3 days. Temps have dropped like a rock and we are back in the range from 38F-55F for a while. Grass still seems to be growing and ground still seems to be drying quickly still pushing the need for regular watering.

I like how the KBG is thickening so far but I really hope it thickens a lot more. It seems very soft and even at 2.25" it doesn't stand up as straight as I would like. Anyone know if this will continue to thicken and stand up better as time goes on or does KBG always kind of flop around?


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## ksturfguy (Sep 25, 2018)

I think it will thicken more but not sure about the laying over. My mazma seems to stand-up on but my small section of Baron KBG seems to lay over more


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

ksturfguy said:


> I think it will thicken more but not sure about the laying over. My mazma seems to stand-up on but my small section of Baron KBG seems to lay over more


From my worthless research looking throughout my yard, it seems the super thin bladed KBG stands up real nice but the wider the KBG blade gets, the less rigid it becomes.

Do you have a link to data on Baron KBG?


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## ksturfguy (Sep 25, 2018)

Found this https://ampacseed.com/baron.htm


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

ksturfguy said:


> Found this https://ampacseed.com/baron.htm


Thanks. That reads like Baron should stand up on its own very well. Interesting it isn't as upright as the mazama.


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## Butter (Nov 14, 2017)

Looking very good!
If you are getting away from synthetic fertilizer you might consider grains along with biosolids. I have had very good results with soybean meal.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Butter said:


> Looking very good!
> If you are getting away from synthetic fertilizer you might consider grains along with biosolids. I have had very good results with soybean meal.


I would definitely like to have as many variations of sources as possible to help maintain balance. I will look into that. Thank you.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

So last week we finally got some rain, a hard freeze and 3" of snow. I put down 20lbs of 8-12-10 just before all the moisture arrived since I had to turn off the sprinklers for the upcoming freeze.

Everything is looking good. The grass saw a lot of foot traffic Halloween night and I even got some compliments from some dads. One guy even had to stop and feel the test patch because it looked so great. That was nice.

I also included a close up of the newly seeded spot I lost from the nitrogen burn. This spot is only a couple weeks old and it looks to have survived the freeze and snow just fine.

This is the morning after a mow the previous day. Mow HOC is still 2.25". Everything is starting to stand up better and thicken in. It seems the grass blades are appearing thinner now as it thickens. I think me being happier with the appearance is a combination of not seeing the wider KBG blades laying over anymore and also the cultivars with the thinner blades are now starting make their presence felt.


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## Butter (Nov 14, 2017)

Looks good!


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Butter said:


> Looks good!


Thanks. I'm pretty thrilled with it heading into winter. It looks almost fully mature. There are just some spots around the edges that need to fill in out to the concrete for it to be "perfect."

I'm anxious to see how it holds up next year compared to the rest of my yard.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

I am back with another riveting update!!!

I have successfully dodged google fiber putting a big fat handhole in my test patch!!! VICTORY! I was even able to keep them out of my yard completely (so far) by going out and putting enough marker flags in the ground to make my front yard look like a christmas decoration exhibit.

Anywho......Test patch is looking fantastic. It is growing faster and staying healthier than the rest of my yard. My back yard has finally stopped growing. My front yard is growing (test patch is in front yard) but not as fast as the patch and it is dealing with a LOT of fungus despite temperatures <60F for weeks now. Go figure.

To the pics!

The white line is frost. Not sure why it only frosted on that line You can see the fungus creeping in to the patch on the edge of the street. This is the morning after another mow at 2.25" yesterday.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

After a riveting winter, it is time to start watching my grass grow again! This is how it looked all winter. I just "trimmed" it but didn't really cut anything noticeable off. Things are starting to green up around me and the sides of my house the grass is growing.

I will be changing my routine a bit this year. I plan to put down Menard's Natural Fertilizer monthly (.72#N/1kft). First app went down 3 days ago. Once September gets here, I will up that application rate to 1.1#N. I chose Menard's because it has the most slow release content with 87% of the Nitrogen being slow release.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

It appears the patch is 100% back to life. Moving forward I am going to try and monitor the weak spots in the patch to see how they fill in this spring. It will also be interesting to see how this first summer goes and when the fungus first arrives.

I have not applied any weed killers or pre-M and have no plans to ever use them on this patch.


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

Updates from 4/5/21. more greening and growing. As of 4/11/21, I would definitely classify the yard as fully green and growing. Now we wait for the fungus to arrive and watch these small areas to see how fast they fill in to match the rest of the patch.


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## moedank (Sep 10, 2019)

Curious to see how that KBG is holding up. What have you treated it with this spring and early summer?


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## badtlc (Aug 22, 2019)

moedank said:


> Curious to see how that KBG is holding up. What have you treated it with this spring and early summer?


It held up OK. I didn't really treat with anything specific. I used some 4-3-0 in March, April and May if I remember right. I put Strobe-G down with a grub preventer on 4th of july weekend.

It got hit by some fungus and grubs pretty hard by end of august. I put some Dylox down to kill the grubs and put on a 10-0-2 and it is almost as good as new again. Just one spot that was too big for quick repair.


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