# A Lawn in Disarray



## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

As the title says, my lawn is a craptastrophe.

I've been posting a lot lately trying to diagnose my issues and figure out the best possible way to treat them. I've got quite a bit of help from @Mightyquinn and @Greendoc along with a few others. Thanks gents. I figured instead of constantly making new threads and asking about new issues I'd just keep all my problems posted in one place.

So I bought the house last summer. The sod was just a few months old. It's Bermuda, presumably 419. It started off looking like this (best pic I could find).



Throughout 2019 I mowed exclusively with a Timemaster 30 at around 2.5" if I remember correctly. I learned a little about pre and post emergents and fertilized heavily with milorganite. By the end of the season I felt like things had gone okay.

I didn't take any pictures of the front lawn last year. That's a habit I've picked up here. :lol:


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

This year I started reel mowing with a Fiskars manual at around 1.65". Thanks to coronavirus I was able to mow early in the morning a few times a week. As the lawn got thicker and the heat got hotter I decided it was time for a powered reel mower. I ordered a Swardman Electra in early June. By early July I was back to using the Timemaster. The Fiskars just wasn't _cutting_ it.

But it was looking better than it did with the Toro.













The area around the tree used to be a weird shaped patch of dirt where the water/sewer meters are located. Last summer we reshaped it into a circle and I threw down some grass seed not realizing the difference between grasses. In patches grew in some weird fescue nutsedge looking stuff. In June I removed it and plugged the area with plugs from the side of my house. As seen in the last pic I got tired of the slow growth and cut patches of sod from the backyard to fill the area in quicker.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Unfortunately the Swardman's delivery date got pushed back a couple of times and I decided to cancel the order. I purchased a California Trimmer 20" with grooved front roller to replace the Fiskars.

Originally things were fine_ish_. I mean, it was no golf course but it was looking better and causing me less sweat. I decided to keep my HOC at just 1.25" for the year because I didn't want to reset the HOC and I was going back to working from the office and wouldn't have time to mow 3 times a week.

Here's where things took a turn for the worse. Not long after I started to mow with the Cali Trimmer I began to see weird patches of oddly colored grass. I attributed it to either stress from a dry June/July or some light scalping from mowing so much lower than before. I watered more in case it was from drought stress and I figured if it was scalping it would repair in a few weeks.

Boy was I wrong! Things only got worse. It led to me starting a thread last week and asking specifically about the issues present in the lawn. I didn't know if it was fungus, bugs, the mower, etc.

At the time I posted the below pictures.

















I got a lot of feedback with the consensus being "fungus." I ordered some Clearys 3336F, a bottle of Armada 50, and a jug of Fosetyl-AI. And I waited...


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

August 1st I tried my hand at a single double mow. I had a neighbor interrupt me to ask questions about the mower and he completely messed me up. I'm color blind plus normal blind (almost :lol: ) so it's really hard for me to follow the lines in the yard. I was okay with the results of the stripes though.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

At 6 am on August 2nd I was out in the yard spraying the Clearys at 5.3oz per K. The Fosetyl-AI is on backorder and the Armada will be delivered in two days.

As the day of the Clearys application progressed the lawn got more and more white. It got to a point where it looked like we got a light dusting of snow. I didn't get many pics of it but believe me the milky Clearys really did a number on the look of the lawn. It wasn't green brown and orange anymore. Now it was all of that plus white. Awesome. :roll:


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Between last night and this morning we got appx 2.65" of rainfall (tropical storm). I figured that would wash the white off the lawn. Wrong again.

When I got home from work I gave it another cut at 1.25" and this has got to be the absolute worse the lawn had looked since we bought the house. Today I wanted to kill it with fire and start from scratch.

























I was thinking that I had a lot of fungus and a little scalping. Does anyone thing maybe I have a lot of scalping and a little bit of fungus? Or maybe a lot of both??? I'm wondering if maybe I should go back to the Toro until I get the lawn more level.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

At this point I'm feeling defeated. I've spent a ton of time and money on the lawn this year and I'm feeling like it's been wasted. What I've spent could have paid for lawn care service for two years. The lawn was better off last year with my regimen of Milorganite and once a week cuts with the Timemaster.

Now I'm spraying fungicides, PGRs, Iron, Celsius, and Certainty. I've also bought 2.5 mowers, a new edger, fancy high end fertilizer (that I refuse to waste on the lawn) and THINGS ARE WORSE!

If I had hair I would be pulling it out.

I'll update once I spray the Armada in a few days.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

Milorganite is notorious for not supplying Potassium. Milorganite is a meme. Nothing more. You cannot pay me enough money to put that on a lawn, ever. Potassium deficient turf tends to get diseases. Turf overfed Nitrogen also gets various diseases. I also see grass that is kept too tall. If in fact, the grass that you have is 419 or similar, height of cut should be about 3/8" Amount of Nitrogen should be about 0.25 lb per month from a complete fertilizer supplying N P and K plus the complete array of micronutrients. On Bermuda, unless a soil test indicates extremely high levels of either P or K, I supply that amount of nutrients using a -1-1-1 ratio fertilizer.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

@Greendoc In that case basically everything I've done this year was wrong.

I don't use milorganite alone anymore. This year I also applied a 32-0-10. And at a higher rate than .25lb per month. I also keep the hoc higher than 3/8. Until the lawn is leveled I don't think I can mow that low. I was actually considering RAISING the HOC for the rest of the season, going to roughly 1 3/8". I do have a bag of Yard Mastery's BalX 16-4-8. I haven't even opened it because I felt like it would be a waste to throw it down on the lawn in it's current condition.


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## dubyadubya87 (Mar 10, 2020)

This was a roller coaster of a journal read through, man! It stinks when you have all the best intentions and efforts and don't get the results you'd hoped. It's still better than most yards out there and you have a good basis to build on for next year. Don't let 2020 end your dream of the perfect lawn, keep grinding!


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

dubyadubya87 said:


> This was a roller coaster of a journal read through, man! It stinks when you have all the best intentions and efforts and don't get the results you'd hoped. It's still better than most yards out there and you have a good basis to build on for next year. Don't let 2020 end your dream of the perfect lawn, keep grinding!


Thanks. I haven't given up yet. I still want to repair whatever is happening with it so I can overseed in October.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Just sprayed some Armada 50 WDG at 1.4oz/1K. The weather is supposed to stay dry for another 4 or 5 hours so fingers crossed for no rain!

Soak it up Bermuda!


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Either the Armada and Clearys 3336 are incredibly fast acting or the fungus is a smaller problem than I thought. Today it's looking a lot better...like it's recovering from being scalped.

Two days ago



Today


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## ionicatoms (Mar 8, 2020)

Yep, agreed. I think you can pin this recent ugliness mostly on scalping.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Whew, has a busy 6 am hour today.

Applied T-Nex and liquid Iron.

Followed that up with some spot treatment of sedges, which only seem to grow where my lawn meets the curb. Sprayed the remaining Certainty in my back yard where I've let the sedges go wild.

Found and hand pulled a random crabgrass in the area around my tree that didn't get pre-emergent in February. I'm sure there will be more to come.

Then I trimmed the shrubs. I'm trying to get them to be a uniformed height without taking too much off the bigger ones. So I've only been cutting the wild stragglers.

Now I have to clean up the science lab I've created this morning. Scales, and syringes, and measuring cups, and chemicals galore!

No rain in the forecast until around 1pm so I'm hoping to cut the lawn at 11, which will give the T-nex the recommended 4 hours post application before cutting. I'm going to bump the HOC way up to 1 3/8" to see how much scalping I've been doing.

Happy Saturday!


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Sod webworms exposed from soapy water test. And the damage they caused to the grass (white tips).


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Applied Spectracide Triazicide. I put a little extra in the spreader so I could go a few feet over the property line on either side. Watered in around 1/4".


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

My newest issue...these pieces of dead turf being thrown around the lawn when I mow. My assumption is these are the pieces that were damaged by the sod webworms and fungus. Seeing just how many pieces it is really shows me the extent of the damage.

I'm hoping that I can clean them up with the grass catcher and hopefully a bit of rain.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

This morning I applied 14 oz of Fosetyl-AI with 6 oz of Clearys 3336F to keep pressure on the fungal outbreak.

Lawn should be white in a few hours. &#128580;

Also have some Bifen XTS on the way to aid in the fight against bugs/worms. I'll be using the Bifen alongside Triazicide.

The stockpile of lawn chemicals continues to grow.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Kamauxx said:


> My newest issue...these pieces of dead turf being thrown around the lawn when I mow. My assumption is these are the pieces that were damaged by the sod webworms and fungus. Seeing just how many pieces it is really shows me the extent of the damage.
> 
> I'm hoping that I can clean them up with the grass catcher and hopefully a bit of rain.


Welp, unfortunately the carnage continues. While cutting yesterday and bagging the brown tufts I found a couple of moths. Forumites identified them as armyworm moths.

So, this morning I put down a mixture of Triazicide and Bayer 24 hr Plus. I'm watering it in now and will reapply Bifen XTS in a couple of days.

I'm ready for an end to this season and as things are going doubt I'll be doing my PRG overseed in October.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Quite a busy morning.

Applied:

1.2 oz/k of Armada WG funcide. 
2.3 oz/k of Propiconazole 14.3 fungicide. 
.2 ox/k of Bifen XTS insecticide. 
3lbs/k Bal X DIY Fertilizer. (.48lbs of nitrogen)

I finished putting down temhe fertilizer as it began to sprinkle a bit.

Now I'm waiting on the "storm" we have a "90% chance" of happening in the next 30 minutes. I'm very sceptical of my area's forecasts since they are wrong more often than not.


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

After a disatrous August spent fighting weevils, sod webworms, army worms, and fungus things have finally started to turn around. Just in time for the grass to go dormant. :lol: Pre-em mix of Prodiamine and Simazine put down on September 9th. Celsius and Certainty on the 13th.

Now, to summarize my year in pictures.

May 28 (yard dug up by utilities crew)



June 23



June 30



July 5



July 18



July 29



August 4 :shock: oh oh!!!



August 6



August 12



****over the next few weeks I stopped taking front step pictures and focused more on problem areas****

September 16



Last mow was on the 16th. Night time temps this weekend will be in the 40s. I don't think I'll be mowing too much more this year. Tomorrow morning I'll spray some Armada, Bifen XTS, and liquid Iron.

2020, I bid you a hearty good-bye...and good riddance!


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## Brou (Jun 18, 2020)

Mums planted. And this will probably be the last pic of the year.


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