# Bermuda_Rooster's 2021 Journal



## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

In my first lawn action for 2021, I got out in the back and did a haircut in advance of the scalp. With my Earthwise set at ~0.75" I did a single pass over the whole yard, letting the clippings just fly. In the next few weeks I'll finish the scalp and collect the clippings (somehow).

I also experimented with taking the roller off (a la @nt5000) and scalped a small area next to the back patio as low as I could get it with the manual reel. It got pretty dang low, but also made it obvious that there's a decent layer of clippings sitting on top of the soil. I think taking the roller off may be the easiest way for me to scalp, and I'll just have to use a blower, rake, and whatever else I can find to clear the soil.

Close to the house, in the area I scalped low, there are green shoots-- but only in a strip maybe 3 feet wide. The rest will have to wait.

No pics, since there's not much to see, but when I finish the full scalp I will post the season's first pictures. Prodiamine goes down the first week of March and I expect to do the full scalp around the same time.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

No pics again, but (*EDIT:* pics below) there's a clear difference in greenup between the back(Royal TXD seeded June 2020) and the front (419 sodded December 2019). The back has a green haze all over-- perhaps 10% greenup-- and the front is not greening up at all except around the edges where the concrete keeps it warmer. What this means is I'm going to scalp the back this weekend but probably wait at least a week longer to do the front.

Two theories as to why the difference is there:


Cultivars. Yukon and Mirage II are known for being more cold tolerant and for having earlier greenup, and both of those are in the Royal TXD blend. 
Sun. The house is north-facing, so the back gets a bit more sun and gets it earlier in the day. The difference probably isn't huge, but perhaps enough to make greenup a shade quicker.

Looking forward to the scalp-- and also decided I'd borrow a neighbor's rotary to pick up the clippings. Should be much easier.

Front:
















Back:


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## Redtwin (Feb 9, 2019)

I have Tifway 419 in my backyard and in a front courtyard that is surrounded on three sides by brick walls and faces South. The front never went fully dormant and has already been scalped and sand leveled. In fact, it has almost grown through the sand at this point. My back hasn't greened up enough for me to feel comfortable sanding it yet (maybe next weekend). I think your back not only facing south but maybe being better protected by fences and trees may be why it is greening up earlier. Cultivars clearly play a role though as I have a friend who has fully exposed Tiftuf that greened up way earlier than any of my 419.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

@Redtwin, interesting. The back isn't any better protected by trees or fences, but maybe being south-facing really does make a big difference. I'll have to look across the street to see if the neighbor's front yards are greening up (they're all 419).


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

Yesterday I finished my scalp on the back using my Earthwise (0.5") and a neighbor's rotary to bag clippings. It picked up very little, amounting to just 2 catchers full. There's still material left on the ground but with a new baby, I don't have it in me to try to do more. Pic below.

In the second pic you'll see part of the area I'm plugging-- it holds water when it rains hard but I'm hoping getting some grass there will improve things a little.

In the third, you see the soil I'm dealing with from the plugs I pulled. It's red clay subsoil, gravel, and little else. This is why I'm working hard to get some OM into it via organic feedings.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

The front has now been scalped and (somewhat) bagged. There's still quite a bit of material and in a lot of places I can't easily see the soil, but it's the best I'll be able to do for this year. There is some greening going on, but it's well behind the back yard. Front pics below. The back is greening up nicely and while it was set back by the scalp, I am already seeing even more green than before. I'll hold off on posting pics til after my first mow, but I don't think that'll be long.

I also just got my T-Nex and Celsius delivered, so I think I'm set for a goodly while on those. I was hesitant on ordering $150 bottles when it was just for my small yard, but now that I'm helping BIL with his I know they'll be a good value and not take a decade to use.

Scalped front:


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

I had to do it. I couldn't stand still seeing all that matted stuff in the front yard, so I bought a SunJoe dethatcher. Not wanting to do too much damage, I ran it at +5 and still pulled up a ton of material. I then ran the reel mower back over the lawn to cut the long dead pieces that the dethatcher pulled upright, and now it looks a million times better. I should have done this the first time.

No pics, but with the greenup getting going again I'll be taking some pics soon.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

Here's a pic update on green-up from this morning, front (419) and back (Royal TXD). The last pic shows part of problem area, which gets flooded by downspouts in heavy rain and which I did not seed last year. I have put about 20 plugs in there so we'll see if I can get it to grow in this year.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

I didn't realize I hadn't posted anything in 4 weeks in here. I have full greenup now, though there are a few spots that are still thin and/or were scalped to dirt because of high spots.

Overall things are looking good, but I'm already looking ahead to the leveling job. Yesterday I experimented on 2 high spots in the back, using a neighbor's manual core aerator to pull cores out and then stomping it down . . . and it worked surprisingly well! I wouldn't recommend it for large areas but it wasn't so bad for what I was trying to do. I repurposed the cores as sprigs in the area I started plugging a few weeks ago, just by spreading them around and giving them a stomp (last pic below). I'll keep that well watered and just see what comes up.

A little over a week ago I put down 50 lbs of wood pellets and 40 lbs of turkey feed, spread across front and back, to add some organic carbon and nitrogen (along with other macros and micros). All of that has totally disappeared at this point.

I'm mowing at the 2nd setting on the Earthwise, which I'm figuring is about 0.75" but I haven't measured. I hope to stay at that height all season if I can.

Pics from this morning:


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## GreenLand (May 23, 2019)

Nice lawn!&#128175;&#127867;


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

GreenLand said:


> Nice lawn!💯🍻


Thanks! It's coming along.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

The last 2 days I gave the front a fresh cut, did some sand topdressing on the problem strip where I've started plugging/sprigging/pushing, watered everything, and snapped some pics.

I have a problem that was never apparent last year, as I was really just getting the lawn established by August or September. Last year, the builder came and buried two of my downspouts that were created a serious flooding issue (https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=294167#p294167). I ended up seeding that area again and it filled in pretty well-- I'd say 70-80% (there's a good late August pic here: https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=320733#p320733).

Well, this year it has become apparent that the pipe is buried pretty shallow, and you can clearly see a line where the grass gets stressed and has started to thin (see the first pic below). My first order of business is to put the sand on pretty thick through there when I level, both to smooth it out and to add the start of some soil over top of the shallow area . . . but I'm not sure how much that will help. Any thoughts on how to baby this area to give it the same chance the rest of the yard has? Don't say digging the whole pipe up and reburying either . . . 

I think things in the front are looking pretty good for May, and it's already growing fast enough to need 2x a week mowing. The back is growing slower and the color isn't as good, but then it was just seeded last year. Seed heads are a problem in both lawns, and patchy in a way I can't totally understand.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

Just posting this as a reminder to my future self just how bad the seedheads are. This is AFTER a triple cut. That's not a thin/dirt spot in the middle . . . that's a dense mat of seedheads.


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## dubyadubya87 (Mar 10, 2020)

I feel your pain on those seedheads! I have common in my zoysia, which I don't really mind, except for the heads. As a fellow manual reeler, they're next to impossible to fully get. I don't want to start a PGR program until the barely year old seeded lawn fills in fully, so I'm dealing with it. Just barely. Next on the lawn budget will be a powered reel mower.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

@dubyadubya87, I'm going to use PGR but not til after I level here in about 2 weeks. Next year I'm going to try PGR to get out in front of the seedheads but for now I'm just going to have to deal with them. Mine's the worst in the neighborhood . . . either because of the manual reel or because it's the thickets grass. Maybe both.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

Just a quick, no-pics update and a comment:

Due to weather issues I ended up cancelling the sand order and am shooting for July 9th instead. The front is looking pretty good, while the back still has a lot of thickening up to do. I'm starting to think the back needs to be cut lower than the front at the start of summer, as everything seems to be behind-- still have seedheads, growth is just starting to accelerate, etc. Maybe the lower HOC would encourage the thickening as well.

Now . . . since I put off sand for almost a month, I decided to apply PGR instead. I only did the front since that's where growth was already getting fast enough to make cuts hard with the manual reel (I had to bump up HOC already).

The results are absolutely astonishing. In 17 days I've mowed 3 times, and none of those times did I take off very much. It's very green, very dense, and is hardly growing vertically at all. Mowing is a breeze. I won't reapply til after the leveling job (hoping to catch the rebound to help grow-in) but there is no doubt this is going to become an absolute must-do for my lawn going forward. It is a complete game-changer!

Hopefully I'll have some fresh pics with the next update.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

I've been really lousy at updating this thing and I still don't have any pictures, but I do want to add some notes for my own reference later:


 The seedheads never went away this year. The only time they were absent is when I scalped prior to sanding, and they were back in short order and never went away. Partly this is due to my manual reel not handling them well, but surely there's something else going on. They shouldn't last for the entire growing season, right? They did thin out some relative to the picture above but are still present now, in some areas more than others.
 I used a lot of sand and would call the results mixed at best, especially in the front. There is another yard left and I might have to use a lot of it next year on the front. There are wide dips and there are still holes. If I had it to do again I would really bury the front.
 The back is still quite a bit thinner than the front when you really look at it. The positive of this is it is much, much easier to mow. The color is still very good, especially with PGR, urea, and iron apps. The bare stretch along one side filled in nearly 100%, and the bare stretch in the back is mostly there. I'll have to redefine my back bed sometime, as there's some runoff in heavy rains that runs right into the live edge and erodes it like a ruver bank.
 PGR changed everything and I will start it at least 2 weeks earlier next year. I did find that I really didn't need to worry about reapplying until at least 300 GDD, and that adding some N and iron to the app really had the grass looking nice-- though not at all smooth and not as low as desired.
 I'm getting some sporadic broadleaf weeds but nothing worth worrying too much about. The dallisgrass in the back has been a minor annoyance but for now I continue to hand pull. 
 It seems nearly certain that I will want to get a powered mower with a bagger due to frustrations with the manual reel (seedheads, floating, washboarding). I don't want to spend much and have no interest in adding gas-powered tools, so it may simply mean getting a sunjoe electric reel or a cheap electric rotary.
 Adding a second kid didn't reduce my time in the yard by half-- it reduced it by 90%. I need to plan future projects accordingly.


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