# Durso81 lawn journal



## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Figured I would start a journal to keep track of my progress. Last year I killed off what little Bermuda I had growing in my front yard do to shade and plugged palmetto St Augustine. I planted the 3" plugs at the end of April 2017 and the filled in pic is from sometime in July 2017 I hammered it with nitrogen and it filled in pretty quick. 


And here is a pic from this year of the st Augustine. I am really impressed with the cold tolerance of palmetto. We had a brutal winter for my area and got a good amount of snow.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

I had plans this year for my Bermuda sections but do to remodeling our house it just has not happened. But I have changed some of my culture practices and have been mowing lower, I can only go down to 1.25" with my rotary mower. I scalped it at .75" at the beginning of the season. I have been using a pgr to help maintain my hoc and to make it thicker. I have been hitting it weekly with 34-0-0 and I have been using the N-ext lineup of products.

I will say my Bermuda has never looked so good and so green.

Here is were I scalped it on 3/16/18


We had a cold start to spring so it took forever to green up.

I scalped it again on 6/6/18


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

I have some problem areas that I am dealing with one being around the edge of the patio. The guy who built it a couple years ago never put a drip edge on the roof so when it rains it goes in between the facia and gutters and has been beating the ground around the patio. So is m having to fix that issue. As you can see in this picture.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

I probably started using a pgr a little to soon and should have let some areas grow in first but even with using a pgr and hammering it nitrogen it has still been growing pretty fast. Here are some pics.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Here is a comparison of the front side of my house vs last year. Definitely greener and denser.


Definitely have some shade issues and the tifway is just hanging on. My plan is to try some Tiftuf out in this area.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

For my backyard I have some areas of concern do to shade and the tifway is just not growing. Not gonna be able to do anything this year do to home renovations but my plan is to try Tiftuf in these areas and I'm thinking it will blend ok with the tifway. 




I used a DLI meter in these 2 areas and the area in the first pic right next to the patio I got a reading of between 20-24 Mol and in the second pic up against the fence o got 25-29.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Mowed today been fighting leaf spot on my st Augustine. We have had allot of late afternoon showers and humidity. Trying to mow a little lower at 3.5" to help it dry out faster. Also applied eagle 20 this past Tuesday.






Mowed the Bermuda at 1.25". Supposed to apply T-Nex by tomorrow according to greenskeeper app. But trying to decide to let it come out of regulation to let some areas fill in. Just not sure if I could keep up with mowing enough.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Mowed again today. Gutters are fixed, so now it should start to fill in around the edge of the patio.


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2018)

Looking good! How's the eagle 20 working out?


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

firefighter11 said:


> Looking good! How's the eagle 20 working out?


Thanks

I have done 1 application so far about to do my second this week. The leaf spot seams yo not be getting worse but it doesn't look like it's going away either. But we keep having these late afternoon storms and high humidity which I'm sure is not helping.


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Man, you've got a great looking lawn, in the front and the back! Love how the palmetto came through for you from the plugs.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Colonel K0rn said:


> Man, you've got a great looking lawn, in the front and the back! Love how the palmetto came through for you from the plugs.


Thank you!


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Applied 7-0-0 green effect, micro green and 34-0-0 to the Bermuda last night. Mowed this morning @ 1.25". 




Applied 7-0-0 green effect, micro green, RGS and eagle 20 to my st Augustine last night and mowed at 3.5" this morning.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Mowed today @ 1" with my new push reel mower. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought. It's a earthwise 7 blade reel. It can go down to 1/2". I'll have to play around with the height adjustments and see if I can get 3/4". If so I'll scalp at 1/2" and maintain at 3/4" , but I may have to level before I can go that low. We shall see.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Played with the height on the mower and I can cut at 3/4". So I scalped it down to 1/2" and will maintain at 3/4". Here it is at 1/2".


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Mowed at 3/4"


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Looks good. I chuckled for a bit when I saw the small plastic mower and thought "Man that cuts great!"


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Colonel K0rn said:


> Looks good. I chuckled for a bit when I saw the small plastic mower and thought "Man that cuts great!"


Thanks. Lol best mower ever man so quite and blows bubbles can't beat it. 😆


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

It's been awhile, been busy and it's has been raining like crazy, finally got to mow today it's has been 9 days since I last mowed, not to bad on the scalping, thank God for PGR. Which I was supposed to apply today according to greenskeeper but didn't have time. We will see how the scalping goes at my current HOC of 3/4" if I need to I will scalped down to 1/2" to get back to maintaining a 3/4" HOC.


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## TN Hawkeye (May 7, 2018)

The area by the porch is filling in nicely since you fixed the roof issue. Yard looks good.


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## CenlaLowell (Apr 21, 2017)

Nice yard. How did eagle20 work for you? I'm glad to see St Augustine in your yard beautiful turfgrass it is.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Cheating on my Bermuda. I over seeded with perennial rye grass. Scalped at 1/2" and bagged and sprayed pgr on 9/12. Put seed down on the 12th and went on vacation.

How it looked before going out of town. 


What it looked like when I returned.



First mow today 9/26.


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## tcorbitt20 (Aug 31, 2018)

Wow that looks good! I've never considered overseeding, but I might have to next year. Great job!


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Well I have been slacking on my journal. Up front a section of my st Augustine got a bunch of Bermuda in it. Last summer I sprayed the Bermuda with glyphosate. Had to look at a dirt patch all fall and winter and April 17th of this year I plugged the bare area. 


The plugs are doing very well and have established pretty quickly.

Picture from today may 24th


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

I am curious to see how much shade palmetto st Augustine can handle trying some plugs on the side my house that only gets a couple hrs of sun. They have only been in a week.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Trying out some latitude 36 plugs. Got 2 trays got one planted. Pissed both trays we're supposed to be here on Friday but for some reason ups decided to take 1 back to the warehouse to sit over the holiday weekend in a hot *** warehouse. Hopefully it comes back to life.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

Plugs in the front are getting closed to being filled in. 




The plugs on the side that have only been in for 2 weeks are starting to get some good runners.


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## lucas287 (Jun 3, 2018)

@Durso81 Can you give us an update on how the Lat 36 plugs are doing in the shade? I'm contemplating putting down some TifTuf in the backyard in some shady areas to see how it does.

Also, considering you have both tifway and palmetto, do you ever think it would just be easier to have Palmetto all the way around? I've thought about Palmetto a time or two. I have about 5 or 6 live oaks that cast shade in various parts of my backyard and the Tifway has never done great.

Only way i would go Palmetto route is if i could cut it sub 2" with my reel though.


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## Durso81 (Apr 10, 2018)

@lucas287 So I planted all of them and they all were able to be revived and sod solutions even sent me another tray no charge. There taking a bit to tack down have had top growth but not really any lateral growth. When I tried to mow after 2 weeks they still were not rooted in. Which seems slow to me. The palmetto tacked in pretty fast but they were also 3" plugs vs 1" lat 36 plugs.









The only 2 reason I have not done the palmetto everywhere is the rest of my yard gets to much sun and I wouldn't be able to get rid of the Bermuda it would come back. And 2nd not sure how well it would hold up in the back yard with 3 kids and 2 large dogs, the Bermuda takes a beating. But I love the palmetto. Love the color to me it grows extremely fast. The front where I killed of Bermuda that had come back pretty bad has pretty much filled in. And the side where it is dense shade is actually got some pretty good lateral growth. I pretty impressed by the side yard as that probably only gets 2 hrs of sunlight.

Front yard under large tree.





Side yard.


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## lucas287 (Jun 3, 2018)

I hear you on your objections to going full st aug. Although, i've seen st aug thrive just fine in full sun. And it fares well with dogs too! So long as the dogs aren't full time outside dogs and allowed to wear paths.

Keep us posted on how the lat 36 does. The slow lateral growth is one of the reasons i'm hesitant to plugging. Seems like sprigging/stolonizing, or sodding would be the way to go.


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