# WiltonLawn's 2022 Journal (better late than never)



## wiltonlawn (7 mo ago)

Did a final cut on the backyard this afternoon. Last cut there was Nov 7th. Per @Green advice I've waited and its only going to drop to mid-30's before warming up overnight and rain tomorrow, so this was maybe the last good opportunity.

The purpose of the journal is to kind of "record" the back log of things I did, learned, messed up, ect in 2022 which was my first year of really getting into lawn care and the first full season at our current property. Luckily between my google spreadsheet, pictures, and previous posts, I should be able to piece the year together.


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## wiltonlawn (7 mo ago)

First photo I found is from April so I will start there. My son's turtle sandbox cover was left on the dormant grass for a couple days and when I flipped it, there was serious growth as of April 2nd when everything would stay dormant for another several weeks. I also had a lot of weed pressure, with some interesting ones flowering that I snapped a photo of attached. I didn't really do much in April per my records. Did the first cut on April 24th which my notes say was mostly weeds. I don't think the grass really started growing until that least week of April due to low soil temps. My neighbor two doors down was ribbing me that my lawn looked so terrible with all the weeds popping up - and he is a pastor! Well that was what ultimately led me down the rabbit hole.


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## wiltonlawn (7 mo ago)

MAY: I think I ended up watching an Allan Hayne video titled something like "If you do one thing to your lawn this year" and it basically suggested broadcast spreading a 3 in 1. I think his overall message to viewers is that you need to start somewhere, and this is a pretty easy thing that most people can handle. At the time my daughter had just turned 1 and my son was nearly 2 1/2, so I didn't have high expectations for myself. So I ended up buying some Greenview on sale and threw it down on May 3rd. It was a little late, but it had been a cold and I read the dithiopyr would still be pretty effective even if late.

I got a good response from the N, but the mature broadleafs shrugged off the herbicides despite the fact that I spread it at the perfect time in the morning for the granulars to stick. I gave it a couple weeks to see progress, but by then I had been learning about backpack sprayers. I ended up getting a 4 gallon Flowzone based on a few youtube video recommendations. I also purchased Speedzone, mesotrione, and NIS. By the time everything arrived and I had figured out the calibration, I wasn't able to spray until early June. I don't have any lawn pictures from May, just one of smoe wild strawberry that I was trying to identify. By this point, there was a lot of stawberry, charlie, violets, clover, plus other stuff I didn't know was undersireable - nimble weed, bentgrass, stiltgrass - you name it. So I was planning to broadcast spray essentially the whole lawn. At this point I was still hiring out the mowing, but I switched to a guy that did a few neighbors lawns and he came on Wednesday instead of Friday. This essentially opened up the weekend when the kids were napping if I wanted to do anything to the lawn and still followed the 24-48hr pre-cut / post-cut application rules.


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## wiltonlawn (7 mo ago)

JUNE: A nice month. Very sunny with some rain. I continued to hire out weekly mowing but started to do some applications. I sprayed the Speedzone/Mesotrione mixture on the front and back. Saw some control but also had a lot of violets/strawberry laugh it off. I put down a bag of Mag-i-Cal I had bought the previous season to the front yard. And I sent out a soil test for the front yard as well. Started taking photos at the solistice to understand how much sun the different parts of the lawn receive. Joined The Lawn Forum after finding a lot of answers to my google searches here. Continued researching what was turning white in theyard.


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## wiltonlawn (7 mo ago)

JULY: Started to dry out and get hot (for here that is 85-92). Soil test on front said I was low on N,K and high on P. pH at 6.2. I ended up spreading 500 lbs of lime between front and back before rains early in the month before there was concern about potential drought. Started getting some crab and stiltgrass coming up a little after the 4th, picture shows it in backyard late July.Later figure out the scotts spreading was responsible for the the crabgrass striping as the dithopior did not get down evenly. Ended up spraying Acclaim/Tenacity when conditions allowed. Not sure I did the best job with it or if it requires several applications. Was using the cone tip that came with the FlowZone. Eventually decided to spend a few bucks for TeeJet fan tip for finer foliar spray. Started thinking about what kinds of culitvars I could use to overseed. Settled on Untited Super Turf TFFF. Given that I don't have irrigation in place this made the most sense at the time.


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