# Sam's TTTF / KBG Renovation



## samjonester

Hello Everyone!

I'm in the progress of renovating my backyard. It's my first renovation, and a lot of fun! I've learned SO MUCH from this site, especially the lawn journals from all of you awesome people!. @ryanknorr's videos have also been a fantastic place for me to learn about the renovation process, so thank you for sharing your experience with all of us.

I've applied two applications of glyphosate (8oz of 41% / M) and the lawn is looking toasty.



I've got a question about humic acid, and also need some help determining a seeding date. I'm seeding 90% TTTF and 10% KBG



My plan for the rest of the reno:
1. Put down Kelp4Less Extreme Blend (humic, fulvic, kelp). I'm going to apply it at 1.6 oz / M, tank mixed with warm water. *Should I put this down now and give it time to work into the soil before seeding, or put it down at the time of seeding?*
2. Smooth and lay seed all in the same day - Topsoil, Roll (with roller filled?), Milorganite, Scotts Starter with Mesotrione, Seed, Peat Moss, Roll (with roller mostly empty?)

*Help me pick a seeding date, please!* I've learned that it's best to target the beginning of September, but that it is also highly dependent on the weather. Today is in the mid 90's and we've got some storms in the 15-day forecast. I'm coming off a failed spring reno (took down a tree in February and didn't want a mud pit over the summer) where I had my seed wash out TWICE, so I'm very leery about any forecasted rain and completely overthinking the seeding date this time  If you have a good suggestion, how did you come up with it?


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## chrismar

I'm about an hour and a half north of you and what that means is our climates aren't very different.

The ideal seeding date for our area is actually mid-August. When I renovated in 2015 my seed down date was 8/15. IIRC, it was very warm that summer too. 3 years later I have a lush, dark-green KBG lawn.

TL;DR Get that seed down very soonish. You have an extra week leeway since you're going with mostly TTTF, but we're already 2 weeks past mid-August.


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## skippynj17

Dont sweat it but dont wait too much longer either. Im in Bergen county NJ and Last fall i did a 4k KBG renovation and my seed down date was September 1st ( would have done it Aug 15th but I wanted to make sure the pre M that i put down in the spring was gone ) I was nervous because that date was a little late for KBG but it was a success. 
Im in the process of renovating my backyard 3k with KBG and my seed down date is sept 1st again, hopefully ill be as successful as I was last year.


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## samjonester

Thanks for the kick in the pants @chrismar. I am more worried about the rain than heat, honestly. I guess that's why I bought extra seed, though.

It's nice to know the proper date, but I don't think I could have made that happen this year. We had my son's first birthday in the back yard in the middle of August, so I couldn't get my first glyphosate application down until August 18th.

I've been pulling night duty with a thatch take the past couple nights after everyone is in bed, so I should be ready to get seed down this weekend. The thunderstorms forecasted just scare me!

Good luck with your backyard @skippynj17! If you did well in Bergen county on September 1st, then I think there's hope for me  I have a feeling our weather is just different enough that I'll be fine if I sow this weekend! I do have a thick bermuda lawn in the front without trying very hard :lol: Maybe one day I'll renovate it and convert to _real_ grass!


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## dacoyne

Get on it! Dont worry about the heat, as long as you have some sort of timer or in ground irrigation. By the time you have germination it will have cooled off some. As for the storms, Im in about the same area as you. Im actually from South Jersey, they have been calling for spotty storms ever since its been humid this last week and I havent seen any. With that said put down an tackifier or mbinder and you wont need to worry about a pop up storm.

Im also in the middle of a reno, I did KBG and am 22 days in since seed down. It's stressful but be patient and youll be ok


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## samjonester

Good point, @dacoyne! The storms don't often come when they're in the forecasted this time of year. I've read your lawn journal and love the dog sign. We're across from an elementary, and on a corner, so our fence line has a lot of foot traffic like yours by your local high school. If my dog wasn't so old and liked being outside more, I would consider doing the same. Plus too many treats and he gets gasy !

I've never actually seen a tackifier available online. They seem like the lawn forum's urban myth...


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## pennstater2005

@samjonester

https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Seed-M-Binder-Tackifier-Soil-Stabilizer/dp/B01DO2VTD2

It's what I used.


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## samjonester

Huston we've made contact.... seed to soil that is. Wow is peat moss a pain to spread on a reno! I do like how easy it is to tell what's wet, though. Thanks for the push. Now here's to hoping there aren't any washouts like this spring! I feel a lot better rolling the seed in this time around, though.


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## chrismar

Nice! Can't wait to see some grass babies in a few days!


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## samjonester

First signs of life! 4 days since seed down. Luckily I work from home and can basically turn on the sprinklers wherever and whenever I want. It's been easy to keep everything damp with short (5-10 min) watering cycles 5-6 times a day in the 90+ degree heat.

You can see in the bottom right of the picture some of the ground ivy I've been trying to kill off. A few new leaves have sprouted since last Saturday. Glyphosate does a poor job killing off that stuff.


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## Ecukingbuddy

I overseeded with the same blend, just at a 80/20 from Hogans, stuff really started kicking in between day 11-14 and now Im seeing another surge of growth. Kept it pretty moist and then got lucky with some nice rainfall. Just dropped a half rate of fertilzer and milo on it as well.

https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5780&p=99633#p99633


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## samjonester

Here's the morning of day 6. By the evening, I think I've got seedlings across ~80% of the lawn. I've got one area with a few inches of soil over a tree stump that will likely be iffy, and a couple small areas with poor sprinkler coverage. For the most part I'm happy, though! I put down 13lbs of seed over 2k sq ft. I've got 12 more if I need to reseed anywhere. Luckily it doesn't seem like I'll need it.

I've been lucky with the weather. Tonight is the first rain since seed down, so no wash outs. Despite the past four days being 90+ I've been able to keep everything moist. I've had to run the sprinklers 4-5 times between 10a-4p and hand water drier spots. Luckily it's not more than a couple minutes work run a cycle in my rigged up system, and I work from home and have been able to keep an eye on it.

@Ecukingbuddy, another surge next week? I'll need a new mower! :lol: I think the heat and humidity from constant watering has sped up germination. Glad that you like the blend so far. I'm excited watching it grow in!










Don't mind my poor attempt at a panorama shot


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## dacoyne

Image in last post not working for me


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## samjonester

It rained a decent amount on day 7, but I only had puddling in a couple small areas. Not a big deal. After that, here's the morning of Day 8 (today).





And then it rained... all... day.



I think I've got pretty good coverage over most of the yard prior to the major puddling today. There's much more sprouted up that you can't see even in those pictures. Given that I had 2 total washouts this spring, I'm very happy with where it was at before the rain came. I know I'll be overseeding an area of the lawn (not pictured) under a downspout. I've also got two small areas along my fence where sprinkler coverage was poor and I didn't catch it right away. I have a feeling that even if that seed was going to germinate late, it's gone now.

Since the rain came after 4 good days of germination, how _much_ of the lawn will I need to overseed? I'd like to keep it mostly TTTF, so I don't want to depend on the KBG just filling in the thin spots naturally. What's a good rule of thumb to decide if an area is thick enough or should get a sprinkling of seed? When will it be far enough along to gauge that?


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## samjonester

Pulled the trigger and spread 1.5 lbs of seed while I was surveying rain damage today. Overall the germination is looking great. Seeded about 150 sq ft of bare areas (about 1#) and lightly overseeded the thinnest areas with the rest. It only took 8 minutes, and if it washes away later this week, oh well. I just couldn't resist taking advantage of the wet conditions.

Just as I was finishing up, a light rain started, which was perfect! 150 bare sq ft out of 2000 is not bad for the first seeding in 90 degree weather.


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## samjonester

Consolidating a few posts about potted grass. I potted some grass seed outside in the same environment as the yard. Here's the progress so far. It was seeded Saturday, September 1st.

This was taken Friday evening, September 7. The sprout on the left had germinated Thursday (5 days). I'm assuming the sprout on the right had just popped up.



This one was taken Saturday, September 8.



And this was tonight, September 10.



All of those pictures are the TTTF in my mix. I dug through to find some KBG that was sprouting from smaller hulls. There's a BIG difference between the two right now. The foreground is TTTF, and the background is KBG.



When I seeded, my 2 year old daughter said "I grow grass, too!", so I helped her pot some that's been on the table by a window. We gave it a haircut today. Just cut it at the top of the pot nice and even. She was pretty excited about using scissors, since that's not something you normally let a 2 year old do!


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## samjonester

And here's a 9 day pic of the best looking area of the renovation. This area was shaded during the heat. The rest is starting to catch up but isn't quite to this stage, yet.


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## pennstater2005

@samjonester That's looking good. I'm really interested in how this turns out!


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## samjonester

Day 11. It's starting to look like a lawn!


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## pennstater2005

Subscribed! Looking good.


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## samjonester

@pennstater2005 that middle picture shows the young dappled willow I started from a branch in May. It's already about 5 feet tall and wide, though not very full yet.


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## samjonester

*Day 12 update from the pots!*

I pulled a sample from the outside pot. The plants are definitely maturing. They're darkening, and looking closely, the tips are beginning to keel.

The longest roots are nearing 3 inches.



Top growth averages almost 2".



The roots are starting to branch as well



Here's a pic of the inside pot. It got its second haircut Tuesday, which was 2 days ago. It's growing fast! About 1" of growth in the past couple days. Maybe it was the fact that it got an cut, or the constant 72 degrees inside, but it's growing at a much faster rate than the stuff outside.


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## samjonester

*Day 13 in the Lawn*

The best angle. I love the coverage so far! The area against the fence in the right of the picture took a while to catch up but it's finally filled in.



And the worst. This is a close up of the thin area in the image above. It's got germination in it, but not nearly as much. It's one of the spots that got a light overseed on Monday. The new stuff should be popping up any day now.



I thinks it's about ready for its first mow. Maybe tomorrow!


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## samjonester

*Day 14 First Mow!*

Mowed at 2.25". The tallest stuff was about 3" before cutting. My wife said she wished she would have made me a sign :lol:



The plants have developed multiple blades, now.



And we've got germination in the bald spot I reseeded Monday!


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## emile

Awesome that's its already come in well enough to mow after 14 days!! I hope my TTTF comes in that fast.

I was wondering what your fertilization plan was for the rest of the year? I'm unsure when/ if to apply any. Also I saw you're using Kelp4Less, are you going to spray any more of that this year? I'm unsure when I'll put down my RGS.


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## samjonester

Thanks @emile! I did put down the extreme blend a few days before seeding. I'm not sure if that actually did anything, though. I'm going to try to put it down again in October. It's go so little nitrogen that I'm not going to even bother coordinating it with fertilizer applications. I credit most of the success to diligent watering. At times it felt excessive. When the temperature peaked, that meant up to every 60-90 minutes.


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## samjonester

*Day 15*

I can't believe how well the grass responded to the mow. I hosed off the deck, and now I'm enjoying the view!



Each sprout is developing into a full plant, now.


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## samjonester

*Day 18*

It's really exploded the past few days. I mowed last Saturday (4 days ago) at 2.25", today the average height was probably 3.5". Some areas were over 4". We've had ideal weather lately with highs around 80, lows around 65, and some good rain.

I had to mow the front today, so I gave the back a quick trim as well at 2.25" again.



The density has really increased as well.


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## LawnSolo

Looking great


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## samjonester

*Day 19 Potted Grass update*

A few shots from the outside pot tonight.

I accidentally cut off the numbers on the tape measure, but root development has exploded.



The plants themselves are maturing. They look and feel less delicate. Hard to see but each plant has multiple roots reaching down, now. No root fibers yet.



This pot doesn't have the same top growth as the yard. It's topping off around 3.5". I haven't cut it, though.



The difference between KBG and TTTF is showing here. The shorter KBG is more fine and seems to be meandering up with no real purpose. The TTTF is thicker, starting to develop its stripes, and is reaching up with everything it's got!


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## samjonester

*Day 21*

The yard is looking great!

I fertilized with leftover Scott's starter fertilizer. I used 1.25# / M, so with an analysis of 21-22-4 that gave me around .25 # N and P. It was the starter with meso, so hopefully that will take care of the broadleaf explosion that's been happening the past few days. The original application seems to be losing effectiveness. New weeds are taking much longer to turn into ghosts, if they do at all now.

I sprayed Kelp4Less Extreme (humic, fulvic, kelp, aminos) at 10g powder / M mixed into .5 gal water / M. I also took the opportunity to spray a crape mrytle I planted in August that has been dealing with transplant shock since. I sprayed the foliage, trunk, and drenched the root zone.



Here are my only trouble areas. The thin spots are fairly small, though. The largest spot is maybe 8" in diameter. They do have sparse germination from reseeding. I think it'll be fine, and I'll just see how it pans out from here.


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## samjonester

*Day 23 - Third Mow*

Tonight's money shot  It's starting to feel like mature grass when I'm walking on it!



The difference between my mow on day 18 and today. You can see where a rabbit has been feasting. It's the thin spot in the very bottom of the image.



A close up where it's thick.


And where it's thin.


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## LawnNeighborSam

Coming along nicely @samjonester keep it going baby


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## emile

Looks great!


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## samjonester

* :shock: Day 24 - We've got a fungus! :shock: *

Here's a shot of a diseased seedling. I chose not to include a picture of the area. It's a reno, so there's still dead brown stuff I killed off before seeding mixed in with clippings from mowing yesterday (my push mower doesn't bag), so it's impossible to tell what is a diseased seedling in the mess.



It's been wet and rainy for the past 3 days, so nothing has dried. Luckily, I was able to catch it quickly and the affected area is relatively small. I think it just popped up within the last 24 hours.

It seems like Pythium Blight or Melting Out to my untrained eye, though I haven't seen any mycelium in the area. Per the fungicide guide, I'm going to put down Azoxystrobin, most likely as Scotts DiseaseEx since it'll be easy to buy this evening. I'd rather spray than spread, but I don't know if I'll be able to make it to somewhere like Site One while they're open.


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## pennstater2005

Looks like it's coming along nicely :thumbup:


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## samjonester

Today I applied .3 lb N / M from my leftover Scotts Starter with Mesotione. I wanted to do .25# N / M / week, but here's why I didn't do that

1. .25# N / M gave me _almost_ two passes over the reno at the lowest setting on my spreader. I missed one single line to get 2 passes on every section of the yard.
2. We had a 90% forcast of rain tonight. When it rained that made 5 days in a row. The ground feels like a sponge right now, so I didn't want to add any more water to it just to water in the fert.
3. I've had a lot of weeds pop up (dandelions, purslane, clover, creeping charlie), which makes me think the meso from my seeding app was no longer effective. I read recently that the aerobic half-life of Mesotrione in soil was about 2 weeks. I put down about 1/4 bag rate last Saturday (5 days ago), and 1/3 bag rate today. I'm hoping to build the levels back up in the soil to a point that it will become effective again.


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## samjonester

*Day 27 - 4th mow*

The overall picture looks fantastic! I can't believe how good the coverage is. It's only been 3 weeks or so since germination. There are a couple areas that look a bit thin from directly overhead, but many plants now have 4+ blades.



It was soggy! I would have liked to wait another day or two to mow. The rain finally stopped this morning (6 days with rain in a row). The grass had dried but the ground was pretty wet. I'm going to be too busy to mow it tomorrow or Sunday, though. I didn't want to go a week, yet.



I'm starting to see a few white weeds again, so last weeks Fert + meso must be helping. Hopefully yesterday's app will improve he situation as well.


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## JDgreen18

I love the look of tttf and kbg...nice job


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## emile

Looks great! What is your hoc at this point?


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## samjonester

Thanks! I'm still at 2.25". I'd like to stay right around there. I love that plush shag carpet look, but personally don't like it all the way up at 3.5"+.

I will likely have to grow out to that point in the heat of summer (July- mid August for me), but I'll try keep it between 2-2.5" the rest of the year.


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## samjonester

*Day 29 - First Playdate*

Going into this renovation, my goal was to create a great place for the kids to play. The yard was a mess before. It was full of weeds, mud, rough nasty grass, and dead spots. The kiddos spent every day out there this summer, though.

My wife let me fail to grow grass this spring, and after dealing with the weeds this summer agreed that I could try again. It was a huge sacrifice. They have been asking every day when they could go in the backyard again.



Well today was the day! The ground finally dried out a bit, and the grass felt mature enough, that I thought we should have some fun.

That slide didn't last long, though :lol: my son landing at the bottom was too much for my nerves to handle. We're going to be extra careful about which toys go out there for a week or two.



My daughter asked if she could lay in the new grass! I said :thumbsup: that's why I planted it.

I'm hoping my 25 lb toddlers aren't too much traffic. I'm also reminding myself that the reason I did this renovation was for them. I can thicken up and overseed anything that gets ruined next year. The foundation has been laid and the huge sacrifice is over. Time to enjoy!


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## pennstater2005

Looks great and glad to see the kiddos out there enjoying it!


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## LawnNeighborSam

Very cool man keep it up


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## samjonester

*Day 31 - 5th mow*

This one just took a bit off the top, the way I like it. The biggest difference is the maturity of the individual plants. Not a dramatic difference since the last mow unless you're on top of the grass.



A shot where it's thick.



Where it's thin. This one lets you see how individual plants are developing.



And something that makes me happy.... creeping Charlie turning white! I'm also happy to see all the light spots in the first image. That is some onion or garlic succumbing to the Mesotrione


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## samjonester

Took a couple minutes over lunch and plugged a couple bare spots with donor material from my previous pot experiment. While I was out there with the spade, I dug into a spot that was starting to die off. It was yellowing, not looking as robust as the rest, and laying over. No leasions so I thought I should check out what's going on under the soil.

Look who I found


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## social port

samjonester said:


> *Day 31 - 5th mow*


Just got to say...this is looking really good :thumbup:



samjonester said:


> Look who I found


 :roll: 
That stinks. Hopefully, there's not too much damage.


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## samjonester

Thanks @social port! I'm very happy with the results right now.

Luckily the damage where I found that grub is pretty small. Right now it's only a few sq ft of damage. If it was in the rest of my yard I likely wouldn't have noticed, but I'm still micromanaging the reno. I'm on the fence about whether I'll treat or just monitor. The area is small enough now that I could easily plug it with potted grass. I think I'm most worried about a larger problem starting to pop up across the yard rather than the existing damage.


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## samjonester

*Day 33*

I put down another application of Scott's Starter with Meso at .3 lbs N / M. That makes 3 apps since germination. I've got 1, maybe 2 applications left in the bag. After that, I'll switch to urea which I'm using to blitz my side yard. I also put down some ironite that I'd like to clear out of the garage at 1/2 bag rate. I'll put down another 1/2 rate next week.

I plugged a few damaged spots, overseeded the plugged areas and also another small weak bare spot I've got. I figure either the plugs will spread, or a bit more TTTF will sprout in the damaged areas. Totaled up, it's probably 10 sq ft out of 2,000 that needed some last minute love before it gets cold.

The previous bare spots that I reseeded a couple weeks ago have sprouted nicely, and are looking like they'll fill in just fine.


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## quattljl

Your yard looks amazing. Seeing what yours has done after starting from scratch has got me very excited about what mine can become. I'm almost 2 weeks in on mine but haven't mowed yet.


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## samjonester

*Day 36 - another mow*



Here's a comparison of the same thin area from Day 31 to today. The color is off on the bottom picture, but it shows how much it's filled in.



I had to put down a fungicide yesterday. When I saw a bit of disease before, I let it go. It was only a couple sq ft. I wish I would have treated them, because the damp weather has created a few larger areas with some leaf spot. Scott's Disease Ex (azoxystrobin) seemed to have helped dramatically. Here's what it looks like today. The blades still look a little weak, but the leasions are vanishing.



And finally... because I'm not much of a golfer


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## JDgreen18

Looking good whats your hoc now?


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## samjonester

@JDgreen18 Thats at 2.25". I've been mowing every 4 days. This mow took off about .75".


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## jocoxVT

Are you mulching or bagging your clippings?


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## emile

Looking good! It's funny, I actually ended up dropping DiseaseEx this last weekend also. Saw evidence of PB. Glad it helped


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## jocoxVT

samjonester said:


> I put down another application of Scott's Starter with Meso at .3 lbs N / M.


Sorry, another one. I am assuming, and correct me if I am wrong, this is just the Scotts starter with weed preventer? Have you seen any ill effects on your grass? I am assuming no considering youve put down multiple apps. I ask as I just reno'd my back yard as well and failed to put down tenacity or Scotts and have had a crabgrass party as of late. Was contemplating throwing this down to hopefully prevent any thing else popping up and manually go pull whats already there.


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## samjonester

jocoxVT said:


> Are you mulching or bagging your clippings?


I'm side discharging, unfortunately. I've got a cheapo push mower that doesn't bag or mulch. I wish I could bag, as I'm sure that discharging promoted the disease, but such is life. Good news, though. My birthday's coming up, and I told my wife I want a new mower :lol:


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## ericgautier

samjonester said:


> My birthday's coming up, and I told my wife I want a new mower :lol:


A 'reel' mower? :mrgreen:


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## samjonester

jocoxVT said:


> samjonester said:
> 
> 
> 
> I put down another application of Scott's Starter with Meso at .3 lbs N / M.
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, another one. I am assuming, and correct me if I am wrong, this is just the Scotts starter with weed preventer? Have you seen any ill effects on your grass? I am assuming no considering youve put down multiple apps. I ask as I just reno'd my back yard as well and failed to put down tenacity or Scotts and have had a crabgrass party as of late. Was contemplating throwing this down to hopefully prevent any thing else popping up and manually go pull whats already there.
Click to expand...

I've only seen minimal bleaching here and there that doesn't last long. I put it down at seeding at bag rate (.9 # N / M). Then at 3 weeks, I started spoon feeding it again. My plan was to put down .25# N / M, but at the lowest setting on my spreader, that left me 2 lines away from doing a double pass, so I upped it to .3# N / M and it's been great. It's also continuing to knock out the wild garlic/onion along with a few other random weeds that were popping up.


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## samjonester

ericgautier said:


> samjonester said:
> 
> 
> 
> My birthday's coming up, and I told my wife I want a new mower :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> A 'reel' mower? :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

LOL how do those things handle surface roots from gigantic silver maples? Or this hill in the front?



I've thought about it, but a new one is way out of the budget. A fun project used mower is a couple years away as well. I'll have 3 under 3 next march, so no time to tinker. I reno'd the backyard with a 2-year-old, a 1-year-old, and a chronically nauseous, pregnant wife. If I said I was going to get an old mower to wrench on, I'd have to sleep in the garage with it!


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## g-man

samjonester said:


> If I said I was going to get an old mower to wrench on, I'd have to sleep in the garage with it!


And what is the problem with sleeping in the garage?


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## samjonester

*Day 39*

A few random updates...

There's germination and a bit of filling in happening in the dead spots I plugged and seeded. Not sure what's going to win, or if the new stuff will last the winter, but I'll leep an eye on it. I decided to seed to keep the mix majority TTTF there.



Here's one of where the recent disease hit the hardest. It still doesn't look great, but recent growth is looking a bit sturdier again. Blades on those plants still look a lot less robust and are thinner and whispy, but improving now that the sun came out again.



I pulled a couple KBG (left) and TTTF (right) plants from a flower bed where seed broadcast a bit over the bed edge. I haven't cleaned it up yet, and here's how the never been mowed plants look. It's interesting to see how long the crowns grow when you don't mow early and often!


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## samjonester

*Day 40 - Ramblings*

Last night I did a little after-dark lawn work. Super happy the previous owners of this house decided to put big flood lights on the competly neglected and unused backyard! I had to do everything after the rest of the house went to bed because it was supposed to rain all day today... and it sure did.

I spread another .3 # N / M on the reno in the form of the Scott's Starter with Meso at setting 2 (lowest) on my basic scott's spreader. One more app left in the bag. This gave me 2 full passes, and a little bit left over. I took another pass over the areas that I saw some disease setting in earlier this week. I wouldn't have done if I didn't think the azoxystrobin application at a curative rate has had a positive effect on the lawn. I wouldn't have wanted to feed what I think was leaf spot because that is a disease that gets worse with heavy fertilization. Hopefully it works out, though since the azoxy has had a few days to set in.

Then I sprayed 25 g Kelp4Less Extreme blend mixed into 1 gal water. I've calibrated my sprayer, a chapin concrete spray that I got for $20 and I cover 1 M with 1/3 gallon water. I wanted somewhere around 10 g / M, and this mix rate gave me 2 passes over the lawn, again with an extra pass over the old diseased area.

I had some left over so I hit a crape myrtle that suffered transplant shock when I first got it in August and immediately subjected it to the light infrequent waterings of my backyard reno. Crapes like well-drained soil that is watered infrequently, so it wasn't very happy to be getting hit with my sprinklers all day for a couple weeks until the reno established.

This is the 3rd time that I've sprayed that plant heavily with K4L extreme. Each time I spray the foliage, drench the trunk all around, and then really soak the root zone. Each time, the foliage comes out the next day ready for action, and new leaf buds start to form right away.

I've also noticed that the reno has a near immediate response to the K4L extreme. I don't know if it's the aminos (which come with a low dose of folliarly applied N), or the kelp/humic/fulvic mix, but I've noticed a response literally the day after each time I've put it on the young reno grass. It makes the grass blades look thicker, and the plant look sturdier each time. I don't notice such an accute response on my established bermuda front lawn, but wow has it made a difference in my reno.

I wish I would have started putting it on right after germination! I blanket sprayed the reno, which means that I hit some freshly germinated spots that I reseeded 8 days ago. Those areas look fine today, and I have a feeling are benifiting from the application.


----------



## samjonester

*Day 41 - Another mow*

The past few days, the reno has really been looking good! The fact that the TTTF has started to tiller is making everything look so much thicker when your on it.



I thought it might be time to trim the fence line :lol: I've been holding off as long as long as possible, but it was looking bad!



Here's where the kids playhouse sits on the lawn. It's been out for 2 weeks, and it's clear that grass is getting sacrificed



Where the fungal disease was the worst. It's definitely bouncing back, but it looks a little worse in person than in this picture. In the very bottom right, you can see the plugs and seedlings from a complete bare spot taking off.



And I'll close it out with a close up of what most of the lawn is looking like now :mrgreen:


----------



## samjonester

*Day 53 - Slowing Down*

It's been 7 days since my last mow, and the lawn is just getting to the point where it needs to be cut again. Probably tomorrow. The last mow was still on 4-day increments. We had our first frost a few days ago. I was hoping to put down another fertilizer app, but had to skip it because of the frost. I'll continue to use K4L extreme weekly until it stops growing, and give it one last shot of fertilizer at the end of the season. After reading the Fall Nitrogen Blitz, I'm not sold on the last app being more than nitrogen that will wash away. On the other hand, it's a brand new reno, and the meso in the starter fert will at least be useful.

Time for the pictures!


Here's the general thickness of the lawn.



*Now time for the problem areas.*

This is where the fungus problem was the worst. It's still a bit thin here, though I'm thinking it will thicken up through next spring. I think I'll have to put the backyard on a preventative fungicide program in the spring and fall. I got hit with some brown patch in June that I didn't bother with because I knew I was going to kill the lawn. Then I had two problems with disease during the reno.



I've got a problem popping up under this big silver maple. It has some massive surface roots that are really drying out this side of the yard and the grass is suffering. I've been trying to back off the watering, and most of the lawn is on about 2-3 days between watering depending on weather. This whole area seems to wither after about 2 days. The grass is thinning out, and I've had to keep watering daily. Daily watering won't be a viable option next summer with vacations, so we will have to see how more mature grass does.



I'm pretty sure I'll have to extend this mulch bed, since this section is the worst of the thinning.



I've also got a few spots that look like this scattered in the area. I'm not sure what to do here. I'm ok with some roots showing through the lawn since it is under a tree. I don't really want large dead spots. We will see how it shakes out next year. I'll keep this journal updated to see what happens.


----------



## social port

My renovated fescue was fairly patchy in some areas going into winter last year, but it thickened up adequately (and plus some) by summer, with only about a pound of N in the spring. With KBG in your mix, I would predict that you will experience a similar effect.
But I am not sure what to suggest about the problem areas under the maple. I don't deal with any trees. One would think that the area might need less water because of the shade provided by the tree...but I suppose that any benefit from the shade is nullified by the thirsty tree roots?


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## samjonester

Thanks, @social port. I hope the areas where there was fungus will turn out fine. There are enough plants there, and some of them are young from a light overseeding after it hit, that when they mature, I'm hoping it will look like it never happened. I got that screamin' green sample that was on here earlier this summer. I'm going to use that when it wakes up next spring. It should cover the area just about perfectly. Think it's worth giving it a couple spoon fulls of urea early in the season as well?

Funny thing about that tree, huh! Silver maples are on the "bad list" for trees because of those surface roots. I can't plant anything in that mulch bed because all it's doing is covering surface roots. There's no dirt under the mulch, just roots. I didn't want ground cover, so I just put in stepping stones that the toddlers LOVE.

Some of the patches in the overall photo under that tree are just roots and some are like my last picture. The last picture might thicken up fine since there's only a couple inches between each plant. There's not much I can do about the roots, though, unless I take out that monster. That spot where I took the close up by the mulch is in the corner next to the pot of annuals that my kids won't let bloom for more than a day :lol: It gets a decent amount of afternoon sun on the south side of the tree.

I've read that covering the roots with a thick layer of topsoil would kill the tree, so decided _not_ to do that before I seeded. I'll call it a success if the grass gets thicker and they're just less visible. We love the tree. I just wish it was a different variety, though it's probably as old as the house. It perfectly shades the deck, and shades about half the yard on and off throughout the day. It gives a lot of character to the block since it's near the sidewalk. We're in one of those old suburban neighborhoods with tree-shaded sidewalks, and this is one of the biggest on our block.


----------



## social port

samjonester said:


> I hope the areas where there was fungus will turn out fine. There are enough plants there, and some of them are young from a light overseeding after it hit, that when they mature, I'm hoping it will look like it never happened. I got that screamin' green sample that was on here earlier this summer. I'm going to use that when it wakes up next spring. It should cover the area just about perfectly. Think it's worth giving it a couple spoon fulls of urea early in the season as well


Personally, I would be wary of too much N in the spring -- from the screaming green and the urea, but I think other members would be a better guide here.

Decisions around fertilizer in the spring are personal, as there is inconsistent guidance on the matter, at least from what I have seen. Do heavy N apps in the spring increase chances for disease in the summer? (maybe, but that partly depends on how heavy and when) Since N will push shoot growth in the spring, will root growth be compromised as a result? (which you very much need to help you get through the summer) There are a lot of thoughts on these topics, and answers are not the clearest, IMO.

My strategy (being mindful that I am nearly pure TTTF and in the deep T zone): early spring fertilization with a balanced fertilizer. That plays on the safe side with respect to possible diseases as a result to too much N going into hot and humid weather while also hoping that roots are encouraged to dive. Next year I plan to supplement fertilization with GC products--Air-8, RGS, and possibly humic.
I can't remember your TTTF:KBG ratios, but the KBG likes more N.

If I were in your position, I would check out @pennstater2005 's approach last year and what he did early this spring. I recall that he had some fungal issues with his reno--and I think they lingered for a good while. But the area came back with ferocity and now looks about as green as turf possibly can, IMO.


----------



## samjonester

social port said:


> Personally, I would be wary of too much N in the spring -- from the screaming green and the urea, but I think other members would be a better guide here.
> 
> Decisions around fertilizer in the spring are personal, as there is inconsistent guidance on the matter, at least from what I have seen. Do heavy N apps in the spring increase chances for disease in the summer? (maybe, but that partly depends on how heavy and when) Since N will push shoot growth in the spring, will root growth be compromised as a result? (which you very much need to help you get through the summer) There are a lot of thoughts on these topics, and answers are not the clearest, IMO.
> 
> My strategy (being mindful that I am nearly pure TTTF and in the deep T zone): early spring fertilization with a balanced fertilizer. That plays on the safe side with respect to possible diseases as a result to too much N going into hot and humid weather while also hoping that roots are encouraged to dive. Next year I plan to supplement fertilization with GC products--Air-8, RGS, and possibly humic.
> I can't remember your TTTF:KBG ratios, but the KBG likes more N.
> 
> If I were in your position, I would check out @pennstater2005 approach last year and what he did early this spring. I recall that he had some fungal issues with his reno--and I think they lingered for a good while. But the area came back with ferocity and now looks about as green as turf possibly can, IMO.


Good point! I'm at the opposite end of the transition zone, our disease pressure seems to be high from late May through June, followed by drought in July. Things get going in late April.

The screamin green sample should give me ~.8 lbs N / M from composted poultry manure, so water insoluble slow release. I may give it ~.25 lbs N / M from urea out of the gate when I put down the screamin green for an initial boost until the slow stuff kicks in. Then I'll be around 1 lb in the spring, and most of it will be from a water insoluble source. I think my target max for the year will be around 3 lbs N / M total on the reno with the rest coming in the fall. Maybe I will be able to get away with less, depending on how it's looking in the fall. I'm also planning on supplementing with GCF stuff next year.


----------



## samjonester

*Day 55 - Comeback?*

Here's a comparison shot of the trouble area under the tree from Tuesday (2 days ago) and today. It's bounced back pretty well the past couple days.

*Tuesday 10/23*



Timeline:
Tuesday - ~ .5" water
Wednesday - Mow @ 2.25" + K4L Extreme at 15g dissolved powder/M
Thursday - ~ .5" water

*Thursday 10/25*



Everytime I spray the lawn with K4L it immediatly jumps out of the ground. I guess I need to keep up with watering a bit more. I was hoping I could stretch it to every 3-4 days, but that doesn't look like it will be possible. Glad it is bouncing back though!

I wonder if @g-man's ET spreadsheet has a column that adjusts the calculation based on thirsty root density :lol: The other side of the lawn didn't shrivel up like this...


----------



## g-man

It does. It is called Crop Coefficient and it is in the setup tab of my log file.

The average for an established cool season lawn is 0.80. Using grow potential would be a better approach. I think Pete used 1.0 during his reno and I could see using 1.25. If you are pushing the lawn, don't limit the water.


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## samjonester

*Day 57 - Looking at Roots*

This is something I've been wanting to do for a while. It rained all day so the soil was wet. I dug a chunk of the reno up in a nonconspicuous spot.

Roots have driven down to the bottom of the shovelful. The longest ones were about 4.5", and the shorter ones looked like I had just cut them with the shovel.





@g-man I guess I'll be figuring that out for next year! Thanks! It's posted in the cool season guide?


----------



## g-man

The cool season has a link to the log. But wait to next year. Im going to redo the log so it uses DarkSky API.


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## samjonester

*Late Season germination*

The side yard between my house and the neighbors is fairly neglected. You can't see it from the street or the backyard. My overflow rakes and shovels, my wheelbarrow, and my garbage cans are all there. I call it garbage yard :lol:

It had a bare spot that I decided to throw some seed at a couple of weeks ago. The neighbors were all seeding their lawns and I wanted to see how much worse that strategy was than when I seeded in September. I raked the seeds in but didn't cover them with peat like the backyard. It's been mild weather with a frost since I seeded it. I've watered twice a day unless it's rained. Here's where it's at to compare.

*Day 11*

Seeds just started sprouting. You can see a little red popping up. It took 1.5 days to go from the first sprouts to the majority of sprouts looking like this.



*Today - Day 14*
I've got some real grass popping up, now.



At the beginning of September, with peat holding moisture in and the heat, I had widespread germination by day 4 and it looked like this by day 5. The red stage in the first picture went so fast that I didn't really even notice it. I'm curious to see how mature this stuff gets before winter sets in. Luckily I don't have frost in the forecast this week.


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## samjonester

*Day 64*

This past week has been great. Rain and sun, and warmer temps. Everything looks fantastic right now! I was kicking a ball around the yard with my kids last night and couldn't help telling my wife that it felt like a real field! I don't have the desire to flatten everything out to the same level as turf, but wow did it feel great playing on it!


Here's what the general density is looking like now.



Here's the spot that got hit with disease. It's a terrible spot for it to be thinning. It's right by the back door so it sees a decent amount of traffic. I think I'll try to find a non-grass solution for that spot. We want to put a patio along the house but I may need a temporary stopgap until it's in the budget.



And finally, here are a couple of plants I pulled from the edge of a bed. KBG on the left TTTF on the right. I love the structure of the those TTTF plants. They've got to be one of the lower growing cultivars. Rebounder and Firewall are both able to handle down to .5" HOC. They definitely seem to be growing horizontally, rather than vertically like a few of the other TTTF plants I've shown in this thread before.


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## samjonester

*Day 70 - Look who's back  *

The temperature has been pretty mild the past week and a half, but it's been very wet, rainy, and leaves are falling rapidly.



Lots of yellowing throughout the reno, and I'm seeing some lesions. The yellowing has been coming and going with the rain. If im careful to blow off the grass and clear the leaves in the morning after a rain it will mostly subside until the next rain storm. When there's sun and I've dried the grass with the blower, it will seem to clear up, too.



The big picture still looks pretty good, though! Temps are dropping into the 30s for a bit starting today, so hopefully that will stop the progress of disease if I keep on top of the leaves. Here's a shot mid cleanup this morning. You can see patches of lighter color where there is yellowing. In the bottom left corner you can see where a rabbit snacked on the grass about 3 weeks ago. It still hasn't grown back in. Not much top growth since the end of October.



Lessons learned for next time:

Start a couple weeks earlier. I would have loved to have had a couple more weeks of aggressive growth as the plants matured

Use a fungicide at seed down or shortly after. Then keep up with preventative applications until it cooled off.


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## g-man

^look at you last image that shows your middle finger. In the bottom right you can see the damage.

I treated my reno area 2 weeks ago. You need to be careful around spring since it could come back. Once it takes a hold, it could spiral out of control.


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## samjonester

Luckily there is very little of that. Mostly just yellowing, which seems to somewhat come and go. We're in the backyard playing every day so I get to monitor it pretty closely. I've been on the verge of treating again, but haven't pulled the trigger because the weather has been so cool overnight.

The worst part is that damage like that just sticks around. I've had maybe an inch of total growth since I had to treat earlier in the season. It hasn't completely grown out.

You're right, @g-man. I'll have to figure out a preventative plan for the back next season.


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## samjonester

*Season Closeout*

The leaves have all fallen. It's cold outside. The season. is. over.

I did some final cleanup today over lunch, and took these pictures. We've only had frozen ground overnight once, so when daytime temps are warmer (45-55), things are still barely creeping along, though everything around here looks shut down.

Late fall has been hard on my reno, and it's showing now. The color isn't good. There's still evidence of the leaf spot problem I had. The side of the lawn where I dropped the ball on watering is looking thin. The primary purpose of my backyard is to be a green space for our family to play on, so we're still out there whenever we can be. I'm sure the traffic is causing damage, but that's just something I'll live with and fix.

Zoomed out, the coverage still looks good. I've definitely set a solid foundation, despite the setbacks. I'm impatient to see what happens this spring! It's like ordering a new iPhone and waiting for it to ship :lol:



This is what most of the lawn looks like. A mixture of thick green grass and thin yellowed crud.





Here's where the disease hit the hardest. Overall pretty thin with bare spots. It seems like the crowns might still be healthy, though, so hopefully, it will pull through in the spring. Otherwise, I'm looking at an overseed of those areas.



And here's a shot of what it's looking like under the big silver maple. It's amazing how quickly things went south. I neglected watering for only a couple days earlier this fall. Some of the bare spots are from squirrels. They love that part of the lawn.



I'm hoping that I can get away with a pre-emergent in the spring along with a preventative fungicide plan, and let things fill in. Hopefully, I'm not looking at a spring overseed, but we will see next year!


----------



## Green

samjonester said:


> We've only had frozen ground overnight once, so when daytime temps are warmer (45-55), things are still barely creeping along, though everything around here looks shut down.


You mean you've only hit 32 degrees or lower (or had frost) once so far this Fall?! Surprising if true, since a bit North of you here in CT, we've gone below 33 many times already this Fall! I believe we've hit 11F one night already.


----------



## samjonester

Green said:


> samjonester said:
> 
> 
> 
> We've only had frozen ground overnight once, so when daytime temps are warmer (45-55), things are still barely creeping along, though everything around here looks shut down.
> 
> 
> 
> You mean you've only hit 32 degrees or lower (or had frost) once so far this Fall?! Surprising if true, since a bit North of you here in CT, we've gone below 33 many times already this Fall! I believe we've hit 11F one night already.
Click to expand...

I was meaning hard freezes, not frosts.

Here's the date (November), min temp, max temp, average temp from Weather Underground for "the freezing".



I don't remember which of the days it was, but it was one of those two. We've had a handful of frosts. The ground remained mostly unfrozen last year with only a couple stretches where it really got cold enough to freeze. Our average daytime highs are in the 40's through the winter with a few cold streaks in the 20s. We only flirt with the teens occasionally on _really_ cold nights. We get snow, but it's unusual for it to stick around for too long. I'm near Philly, not NYC, so that's 3.5hr from Hartford (not sure where in CT you are).


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## samjonester

*Late Season Germination - Day 41*

Here's a follow up to the seed I put down in the middle of October. Saying Day 41 creates a bit of a strange comparison to the reno's Day 41, because this grass is in suspended animation. It hasn't grown for a while, but I honestly don't pay enough attention to this side yard to know what's happened in the past few weeks. It does, however, illustrate the fact that late season seeding means you won't have a proper lawn again until the next season. I've got terrible coverage as well. Germination was spotty even in this little bare area.

*Day 14*



*Day 41 (Today)*


----------



## Green

samjonester said:


> Green said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> samjonester said:
> 
> 
> 
> We've only had frozen ground overnight once, so when daytime temps are warmer (45-55), things are still barely creeping along, though everything around here looks shut down.
> 
> 
> 
> You mean you've only hit 32 degrees or lower (or had frost) once so far this Fall?! Surprising if true, since a bit North of you here in CT, we've gone below 33 many times already this Fall! I believe we've hit 11F one night already.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I was meaning hard freezes, not frosts.
> 
> Here's the date (November), min temp, max temp, average temp from Weather Underground for "the freezing".
> 
> 
> 
> I don't remember which of the days it was, but it was one of those two. We've had a handful of frosts. The ground remained mostly unfrozen last year with only a couple stretches where it really got cold enough to freeze. Our average daytime highs are in the 40's through the winter with a few cold streaks in the 20s. We only flirt with the teens occasionally on _really_ cold nights. We get snow, but it's unusual for it to stick around for too long. I'm near Philly, not NYC, so that's 3.5hr from Hartford (not sure where in CT you are).
Click to expand...

Interesting. For some reason I thought your area was in North Jersey. Clearly not if you're near Philly. And you must be near the water, too. That has a moderating effect on temps, bigtime. Still, your actual temps were lower than what it sounded like now that you posted them. I am about 1 hour Southwest of Hartford, but not coastal. Avg. max daily highs for my area in the coldest part of the Winter (mid Jan. to mid Feb.) are around 35F, for comparison...so our ground always freezes.


----------



## samjonester

*December Update*

Here's the state of the lawn after a mild December. Lots of rain and warm daytime temps. We've had a slew of mornings with frost recently, but still have decently warm days. The KBG seems to still be spreading and thickening up. After a hard fall, the lawn is looking better than it did at Thanksgiving. I don't have a picture from then to compare, unfortunately. The darker healthier grass in the right of the image is against the house and has mostly avoided frost.



And this is where the lawn was fairly thin where disease struck the hardest. Coverage is increasing. I might not be getting any vertical growth, but the KBG seems to still be slowly crawling along horizontally.


----------



## samjonester

*Spring?!*

It felt like spring today in South Jersey!



The yard has seen a lot of traffic over the winter from the kids playing on mild days. It went dormant during the polar vortex (January I think?). It held some color through December, but not as well as other areas of the yard and most houses in the neighborhood. I blame the fungal activity at the end of the season.

It's just starting to wake up and is gaining a green haze through the brown. Much easier to see since the dormant leaf tissue was worn down from kids playing all winter.



I can't believe how much the KBG has filled in during the winter. It's tough to see the ground in many areas, and all of the larger bald areas have been reduced to checkered bald spots about the size of a quarter at the most.

Against the house it never really went dormant and has been creeping along all winter.



I put out a combo of dithiopyr preemergent and three way post emergent along with my free trial of screening green. We just had a 3rd baby (3 under 3 for a few months!) a few days ago and I wanted to get some stuff done while she sleeps all day and before the circus comes to town. It might be a bit early and I used only what I can easily purchase from Home Depot during an unrelated trip, but it's down.

I've got a couple areas with a poa annua problem. It germinated in the mild December weather we had, after the last of the misotrione wore off from seeding. It looks like it's not more than I'll be able to hand pull when we're playing outback this spring, though.


----------



## g-man

The kid looks so happy in the yard. Hand pulling POA a is a great strategy. Make sure you have a bag to collect the POA a seedheads.


----------



## Budstl

@samjonester congrats on the new baby. I love the spreading of kbg. If you need to do any plugging the pro plugger is a fun tool.


----------



## samjonester

Thanks @Budstl! I've got plans to buy a pro plugger this year. I had to get the sewer line replaced last month which tore up the middle of the front (bermuda) lawn. I'm going to use it to plug the damage and hopefully have grass again by the end of the season.


----------



## samjonester

*Spring Update 2019*

Been a while since I've posted, so this will be a long one. A lot has happened since the middle of March!

The lawn was looking very hungry coming out of winter so I applied my sample bag of screemin green to the lawn. I think it (would have) worked out to .8 lbs N/k. This was *March 24*.


I realized that something was wrong with the lawn as it greened up into April. Here's a shot from *April 7*. Notice the light racing stripe down the middle?



I figured out that the edge guard on my spreader has come loose and closed on me. The darker areas looked much healthier and had started to grow. The lighter lines were still weak looking, lighter, and mostly dormant still. I'm not sure if my pre-emergent application was affected as well. I decided to do two applications of fast release fertilizer with iron at .5lbs N/k spaced about 2 weeks apart to even everything out.

Here it is between apps on *April 18*. The hose is laying on the racing stripe from the last picture. The color is evening out but it's not growing like the rest of the lawn.



I applied the second .5lb N/k dose just after this along with Grub-Ex, and Kelp4Less Extreme blend at 10g/ k.

Here's present day. The color has evened out and the growth nearly has, too. The racing stripes received their first haircut this week while the rest has gotten its 3rd at 2.25".



I'm feeling very happy with the reno now. I was pretty down about it when the stripes were extremely well defined earlier this spring. I think I'm done with fertilizer until fall, unless I do one more application of slow release at the beginning of this month. It took much longer for the reno to wake up than the established lawn on the side, but after a lot more nitrogen than I planned on putting down this spring, the majority of the lawn looks like this.



There are lots of very small holes to fill in (less than 1" diameter), and a few larger ones that are about 3-4" diameter, but I'm not worried about them. There are only a couple thin spots that look like this. Notice the growth in the thin spot is much shorter than the surround turf. It's maybe 1" tall and the rest has been cut by the mower to 2.25".



My only big issue right now is with poa. I thought I only had a small poa problem this spring, but it's looking pretty bad right now. You can see the density of poa in this picture well. You can also see the lighter area of poa in the center of the whole lawn shot above.



I'm not going to try tenacity. With all the time my toddlers spend in the lawn, I don't want to apply any more herbicides this summer unnecessarily. They are always barefoot, rolling around, and my son still puts everything in his mouth. I'm going to wait until fall and asses the damage.

I think I'll be doing a preventative fungicide program this summer, but I'm not sure yet. I may decide I don't want the chemicals and see what happens / only do curative if I need to. I've probably got a couple weeks before I'd need to start.


----------



## samjonester

Friday night. Barefoot in the yard with the kids and a beer.



Someone said that the next spring is the best and that's 100% true! I'm really loving the renovation now that it's filled in.


----------



## OnTheOxbow

samjonester said:


> *Spring Update 2019*
> 
> There are lots of very small holes to fill in (less than 1" diameter), and a few larger ones that are about 3-4" diameter, but I'm not worried about them. There are only a couple thin spots that look like this. Notice the growth in the thin spot is much shorter than the surround turf. It's maybe 1" tall and the rest has been cut by the mower to 2.25".


Hey Sam, i'm curious if you've got an explanation or reasoning for these "thin spots" as you call them? I did a tttf & kbg renovation last fall and have those exact "thin spots" here and there throughout the yard. The rich green color would indicate the grass is healthy but it's just not interested in growing. What gives? Your renovation is looking good.


----------



## samjonester

OnTheOxbow said:


> samjonester said:
> 
> 
> 
> *Spring Update 2019*
> 
> There are lots of very small holes to fill in (less than 1" diameter), and a few larger ones that are about 3-4" diameter, but I'm not worried about them. There are only a couple thin spots that look like this. Notice the growth in the thin spot is much shorter than the surround turf. It's maybe 1" tall and the rest has been cut by the mower to 2.25".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hey Sam, i'm curious if you've got an explanation or reasoning for these "thin spots" as you call them? I did a tttf & kbg renovation last fall and have those exact "thin spots" here and there throughout the yard. The rich green color would indicate the grass is healthy but it's just not interested in growing. What gives? Your renovation is looking good.
Click to expand...

Thanks @OnTheOxbow! My whole reno was starving this spring. I had a problem with leaf spot last fall which must have depleted the grass. After an application of fertilizer this spring it started growing well, filling in, and looking great. The reason why my lawn filled in unevenly was because I had a spreader malfunction. My edge guard disconnected and shut on me while I was applying. I ended up with strips that were over applied and strips that got nothing. There was a stark difference between the two. That picture is right on the border between the two "spots".

I'm happy with the growth after fertilizing, maybe a that would help you, too.


----------



## samjonester

*Return of the Fungus*

*First, the good*
Things are looking great after todays mow. The big kids (3 & 2) won't wear their shoes in the lawn. My 3 year old daughter says "Let's go barefoot. The grass is comfy on my feet." and takes her shoes off. I'm happy with the density in most of the lawn. Where I had the fertilizer mishap at the beginning of the season it's not as dense, but you really can't tell until you're standing right on top of it. Everything is basically growing at the same pace now which is nice.





*Next, the mediocre*

This is the part of the lawn with the poa problem. There's SO MUCH POA! The good grass seems to be filling around and into it, though, so it's less noticeable than it was a couple weeks ago. The color difference kind of sucks. I really wonder what it will be like come fall.



Here's the only part of the lawn that's thin right now. Not too shabby! It's almost all green. I am seeing baby crabgrass growing in my sidewalk cracks, so I know it's germinating around here. I'm just hoping that the dithiopyr holds it off on bare dirt like this until it's all filled in.


*Finally, the bad*

I've got some yuck! I got hit really badly with leaf spot last fall. Seems like it overwintered. The whole lawn has this yellow slimy yuck going on under the canopy and here and there I see lesions that look like it might be leaf spot again. The grass hasn't completely dried in a few days, and it's been warm here overnight. I first noticed it Thursday, but it may have shown up a couple days before that.

I was on the fence about preventative fungicides with all the time the kids spend in the yard. I applied Azoxystrobin (Scott's Disease-Ex) yesterday at curative rate. _I'm not really sure what to do next._ I think I'll apply Azoxystrobin at preventative rate in 2 weeks, followed by 2 preventative apps of Propoconazole, but I don't know after that. The back lawn is the only part of my property with fungus problems, and it's 2,000 sq ft. I'm just going to use Scotts and Bayer for those two since they're easy to buy at Home Depot at 9pm after the kids go to bed, and granular is so easy to apply to such a small area.


----------



## JDgreen18

Looking good overall...I noticed a lot of poa in my tttf & kbg reno I did last year too, but not really in my all kbg reno. Last year I was loving the tttf & kbg but comparing the 2 renos my all kbg looks far superior at this time.


----------



## samjonester

JDgreen18 said:


> Looking good overall...I noticed a lot of poa in my tttf & kbg reno I did last year too, but not really in my all kbg reno. Last year I was loving the tttf & kbg but comparing the 2 renos my all kbg looks far superior at this time.


What makes you say that? I just caught up on the last couple posts in your journal. Both look good in pictures from your post a few weeks ago. The KBG definitely took longer to green up in my mix as well.

After seeing how KBG fills in, I don't think I would ever want to seed pure TTTF. Having the mix, though, does make me ponder what I would do for damaged areas, seed to keep the mix, or plug and let the KBG spread. To be honest, though I don't see much of a difference in the blades between most of the TTTF and KBG. There have been a handful of TTTF plants that I yanked out with my weed fork because they had too tall of a growth pattern. For the most part it takes a close look for me to see the pinstripes on the TTTF blades to tell them apart.


----------



## Green

For some reason, I had been reading your name as "SamonJester" all this time until a month or two ago!


----------



## g-man

@samjonester don't use propiconazole (DMI), it can make it worst. Azoxy is great with a rotation of mancozeb or daconil. Daconil is no longer approved for residential use. :-(

Rutgers fungus guide


----------



## JDgreen18

samjonester said:


> JDgreen18 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Looking good overall...I noticed a lot of poa in my tttf & kbg reno I did last year too, but not really in my all kbg reno. Last year I was loving the tttf & kbg but comparing the 2 renos my all kbg looks far superior at this time.
> 
> 
> 
> What makes you say that? I just caught up on the last couple posts in your journal. Both look good in pictures from your post a few weeks ago. The KBG definitely took longer to green up in my mix as well.
> 
> After seeing how KBG fills in, I don't think I would ever want to seed pure TTTF. Having the mix, though, does make me ponder what I would do for damaged areas, seed to keep the mix, or plug and let the KBG spread. To be honest, though I don't see much of a difference in the blades between most of the TTTF and KBG. There have been a handful of TTTF plants that I yanked out with my weed fork because they had too tall of a growth pattern. For the most part it takes a close look for me to see the pinstripes on the TTTF blades to tell them apart.
Click to expand...

I have to take some updated photos. In the last month the 2 renos went different ways. I had to dethatch and reseed the tttf area so it's looking a little beat up right now. The kbg had a leaf spot issue that carried over from last fall it was thin in areas and took forever to green up. Now that I got that handled puttimg fert down is all it took to fill in . I'm not saying I don't love me some tttf as I am doing a reno right now in my fromt yard with both but for pure repairabllity standpoint kbg is king. All you have to do it feed it and it does the rest lol.
The color is slightly different as well I can't notice it with them mixed but I can between the 2 reno areas. Kbg is more blueish green than the tttf.


----------



## KHARPS

g-man said:


> @samjonester don't use propiconazole (DMI), it can make it worst. Azoxy is great with a rotation of mancozeb or daconil. Daconil is no longer approved for residential use. :-(
> 
> Rutgers fungus guide


I thought Propiconazole was labeled for leaf spot?


----------



## g-man

It is labeled, but not very effective.


----------



## samjonester

Green said:


> For some reason, I had been reading your name as "SamonJester" all this time until a month or two ago!


Lol the transposition sounds fishy!

...I might need to brush up on my salmon jokes


----------



## Green

samjonester said:


> Green said:
> 
> 
> 
> For some reason, I had been reading your name as "SamonJester" all this time until a month or two ago!
> 
> 
> 
> Lol the transposition sounds fishy!
> 
> ...I might need to brush up on my salmon jokes
Click to expand...

Lol!!!! There are actual people named Jester, you know.

Plus I just noticed your username is three consecutive names in one...Sam, Jon, and Ester. How cool is that? Coolest username on the site!


----------



## samjonester

Thanks for the tip @g-man! That link is awesome. I'll definitely be using Mancozeb as my next preventative this spring. Interesting blurb about resistance in NJ. Hopefully it's not Anthracnose misdiagnosed as leaf spot, because that has a developed a resistance to strobulins here.

I'll probably steer clear of daconil for the lawn, though I did use the little ready to spray bottle on a new crape myrtle I planted last fall. It got a different kind of leaf spot around the same time as the lawn.

Ideally I'd like to skip a fungicide during July and August, since this leaf spot seems to like cooler weather. We'll see how it's doing, though. Gotta figure out one more (affordable) fungicide to add to the rotation.


----------



## samjonester

Green said:


> samjonester said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Green said:
> 
> 
> 
> For some reason, I had been reading your name as "SamonJester" all this time until a month or two ago!
> 
> 
> 
> Lol the transposition sounds fishy!
> 
> ...I might need to brush up on my salmon jokes
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Lol!!!! There are actual people named Jester, you know.
> 
> Plus I just noticed your username is three consecutive names in one...Sam, Jon, and Ester. How cool is that? Coolest username on the site!
Click to expand...

Haha! I wish it was more creative. My full name is Sam Jones, and it's so common that finding unique handles on sites like twitter is difficult. I mainly use twitter for some professional self-branding, so I wanted something with my name in it. I landed on samionester - I.e. SamJones-ter a few years ago and said shrug that will work. All my public internet accounts have that handle now.


----------



## Green

Yeah, that makes sense!
Oh, and I guess the name Ester (more an organic molecule than a person spelled that way) is normally spelled "Esther". (Don't get me started the time I had a chem professor call a student named "Esther" by the wrong organic molecule name. He called her "Ether" by accident!)


----------



## samjonester

*Drying Out - Mid Spring Update*

The grass had been wet for a few days with rains on & off before I applied Azoxystrobin last Friday. Then it rained for 4 days straight. Most lawns in the neighborhood were showing some yuck. It's been warm and sunny for the past 2 days. Here's what it looked like under the canopy today after a mow. Things don't look any worse than they did a week ago. I may see fewer lesions actually, I'm not sure. But at any rate, I'm glad I put down a fungicide when I did. It's going to be dry and sunny for the next week, so things should clear up. I'm going to apply .5lbs N / M in the form of a slow release fertilizer along with a heavy dose (15g / M )of K4L Extreme in a few days when I think I can stomach putting more water on the lawn again.



And a few full-lawn shots after my mow.


----------



## samjonester

*Feeling Nostalgic*

My wife was looking at old photos of our kids the other day and showed me a few from them playing in the yard and said how terrible it used to look. She was telling me how she couldn't believe we had such a nice yard to play in, now. That made me very proud of the work I've been putting in.

Here's a few shots from before the Reno. This one's from our real-estate listing.



And here's our first fall in the house. The maple in the background of this picture was dying.



So I cut it down with my dad in February 2018 a few days before we got our fence installed.



And this is what it was looking like in March 2018





So I (not so successfully) overseeded and spent the summer of 2018 cultivating crabgrass.


----------



## samjonester

*The Fence Line*

Wow! Check out that line when you cross the fence threshold!

In the foreground is the side yard that I lovingly refer to as "Garbage Lawn" (it's where I keep the garbage cans and my wheel-barrow). It's pretty low quality, and I don't really care much what it looks like because you can't see it from the street with the hill our house is on.



Here's a close-up of the line (the bare square is where the gate post sits). The foreground is where I seeded past the fence when I renovated the backyard. That side yard is getting cut at 1.25" with the bermuda out front, so this patch of dark green right outside the gate is going to be a tiny test patch for a low HOC during the summer. I don't water that side yard, so it will only see rainfall during the heat, so this will be a good test of the tolerance of that grass when things heat up. We're right in the middle of a couple weeks of 80+ and no rain right now.



Here's the thin spot I've been tracking. You almost can't see dirt from above.



And I've gotta close it out with this shot. I've got a few broadleafs popping up that I need to get with the weed fork. Still going to stay herbicide free until it's fall and I'm thinking about a blitz vs overseed (depending on poa and heat damage).


----------



## cfinden

Looks great. How come you're going herbicide free till fall?

I ask because I'm trying to use minimal herbicides in my back yard for the kids. Just feeding it with N and hoping to thicken it up to prevent weeds.


----------



## samjonester

Same, @cfinden. Mine are little, 3, 21 months, and 2 months. They're out playing in the yard all day every day. Saying stay off the grass for a few days isn't really going to work, since the reason I renovated was for them to have a nice place to play. I applied a 3-way in the early spring, and I'll deal with anything else later in the fall when I don't feel as bad keeping them off the lawn.


----------



## ericgautier

Beautiful @samjonester !


----------



## samjonester

Thank you both!


----------



## samjonester

*Aerial Shots*

I was on the roof cleaning gutters this morning. The maple near our house finished dropping helicopters a couple weeks ago and baby trees were growing in the gutters :shock:

I took a few shots while I was up there. Overall I'm thrilled with the density. Most of the holes have filled in and things are looking pretty even. I put down the last of my spring fertilizer on Monday, .5lb N/M of coated urea with 5% iron, watered in with about .5". We got .75" of rain on Thursday. I mowed Friday. The grass should be looking happy.



The corner between the fisher price basketball hoop and the cement slab is the thin trouble spot I've been following. The poa problem is easy to see from up here. The "shinier" grass isn't quite as thick, but getting close.



There's quite a few holes in this shot. They're all where an old silver maple has surface roots. I may do a bit of leveling around them this fall depending on whether I need to overseed poa damage or can just do a blitz.


----------



## samjonester

*Taking it lower*

My wife doesn't like long grass and has been asking me to cut the backyard shorter. On my old mower, the steps were 1.25", 2.25", 3.25". I was at 2.25" and that was going well. I told her I couldn't go any lower until I got a mower that didn't suck :lol:

Well, guess what I got. Also if anyone wants to buy probably the worst push mower in South Jersey feel free to send me a DM...



I appeased her with a double cut taking it down to 1.75". I'm happy with how it turned out. It feels fantastic to walk on at this height!





The color suffered but should recover quickly. I'm going to hold here for a while and see how it goes. I'm hoping water doesn't become an issue since I think this gives me permission to get out the sprinklers when I need.

I did scalp a couple small spots. This thing is a tank compared to my ridiculously cheap and light 20" push mower. It took a bit of getting used to. However I am extremely impressed with the turf density where I did scalp. Under the swing set in picture above.


----------



## JDgreen18

Nice...congrats on the new mower...


----------



## samjonester

JDgreen18 said:


> Nice...congrats on the new mower...


Thanks! It's about as laymen as the come on this site, but still a monumental improvement for me. The old one was side discharge only and took wrenches to change the height.


----------



## samjonester

*Loving the Lower Cut*

I mowed last night. This is the third mow at 1.75" for the backyard:
- 1st & slightly scalped on 5/27
- decent mow on 5/31
- awesome mow last night on 6/3

The turf has definitely thickened up with the lower cut. Things are looking very consistent and dense across the whole yard. The fungus problem has mostly grown out as well. The color is mostly consistent again, just a few remaining spots that needed to adapt to the lower height. The last mow on 5/31 was at midday which made the grass in direct sun look a little brown and frayed at the tips. This was a much better mow in the evening after the heat of the day left.







Under the swingset leg in the previous picture is the recovery from where it had scalped. Here's a close up. The red arrow points to the worst of the damage, which has mostly recovered / adapted.


----------



## samjonester

*Still Scalping*

Most of the yard looks fantastic at 1.75"! I love it, my wife loves it, and my kids refuse to wear shoes. The grass seems much more dense at this height than when I was cutting at 2.25" with the old mower, especially between mows.



I'm a little disappointed, though. I can't keep from scalping under the swing-set. Maneuvering around the tight space is difficult, especially with the uneven ground.



I think I've got a solution, though! I'm going to mow under and around the swing-set a notch higher (2.5"). I already mow the entire thing separately before the lawn, so hopefully it won't be too annoying. Then I'll be able to keep the main lawn at the height I like. Kind of the opposite of what @ericgautier used to do :lol:! Thanks for the inspiration


----------



## g-man

Why not add sand around the low points in the swing area? You can buy mason sand at home Depot for that area. 3 bags ($3.50) should do it.


----------



## samjonester

g-man said:


> Why not add sand around the low points in the swing area? You can buy mason sand at home Depot for that area. 3 bags ($3.50) should do it.


Mostly because I was thinking I'd need a lot more than three bags... I've used some old play sand to spot level in the front when the kids sandbox needs a refresh and a bag doesn't seem to go very far. You're probably right, though. $10-15 in sand is worth a try first. ok new plan! :thumbup:


----------



## ericgautier

Looks nice at 1.75" @samjonester ! You should keep it at that height.


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## Sfurunner13

It's seems the TTTF doesn't mind being cut that short. I will have to follow your progress. Lowest I have taken mine is 2.25 and I agree it looks fantastic


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## JDgreen18

@samjonester WOW looks really good. Gotta love a nice mowed tttf & kbg lawn. Nice job


----------



## samjonester

@ericgautier Thanks! I'm definitely going to keep it here. It's only 2k sq ft, so not too much area if I need to get the sprinklers out a few extra times this summer.

@Sfurunner13 I think it comes down to the kind of TTTF. Firewall (which I think was a replacement for your Cochise IV) and Rebounder are compact varieties designed for low mow turf fields. It all seems fine at this height, though. It's also way more fun to walk around on than a taller HOC IMO.

@JDgreen18 Thanks! I agree. Now I just need a striping kit 😉 I'm interested in hearing your comparison of your KBG vs TTTF/KBG mix as the summer progresses, though!


----------



## ericgautier

@samjonester what are you mowing the bermuda with?


----------



## samjonester

ericgautier said:


> @samjonester what are you mowing the bermuda with?


Same mower (at the same height actually). I always mow the cool season grass first, then the Bermuda, then clean the deck and bag before putting it away.


----------



## samjonester

*A little bit of sand*

Well I gave it a shot. I got 3 bags of sand spread Thursday night before a storm rolled through. I mowed Friday and the scalping was a little better. After refreshing the kids sandbox I had about 1.5 bags and topped the area off. We'll see how it shakes out with my next mow. Here's what it looked like after spreading and watering it all in. I just dumped straight from the bag into the low spots and spread with the backside of a landscaping rake.





At the lower height the poa problem is less noticeable. There's still some color variation but you can tell that there is good grass mixed in.



This garbage sits above the grass, though. I think it's dollar weed or creeping Charlie. We're going to be on vacation for a week in July. I might spray CCO (triclopyr) before we leave since the kids will be off the grass for a while anyway and I've already got it in the garage.





And to close it out strong... it's tough to find dirt. The density is amazing at this HOC


----------



## Sfurunner13

samjonester said:


> @Sfurunner13 I think it comes down to the kind of TTTF. Firewall (which I think was a replacement for your Cochise IV) and Rebounder are compact varieties designed for low mow turf fields. It all seems fine at this height, though. It's also way more fun to walk around on than a taller HOC IMO.


I had no idea my the majority of my TTTF would probably tolerate a lower HOC. I have it at 3 inches now. I wish I kept it shorter during the spring as now I have to wait till fall to experiment. Not to mention greater than 50 % of my grass is probably KBG. Will definitely be following your progress


----------



## samjonester

*Heat, Rain, Repeat*

The past week has been hot and humid with a lot of rain. The color has suffered a litttle with the perfect disease conditions. Things are looking kind of yellow, but the azoxy seemed to have held off anything too bad. I hardly see any of the leaf spot lesions that were a problem last month. Maybe the lower HOC has helped a bit, too. Density keeps improving, especially where the bumps and humps created an uneven, lower cut. The green in the lawn is much more consistent than when I first took it down, despite the yellowing from all the rain and heat.



The sand has definitely helped. This was after I mowed Friday. You can only see a tiny bit of brown scalped grass and most of the sand has been covered by top growth.



Time for another fungicide application, and to rotate. I need to decide if I should go for mancozeb, which is supposed to do well against leaf spot, or propiconizole for brown patch now that we're moving into July and temps will be increasing. The leaf spot didn't set in until temps cooled off last fall.


----------



## samjonester

*Heating Up*

Highs are consistently in the upper 80s - mid 90s now. We've entered the dry part of summer around here. Most lawns in the neighborhood are showing drought stress (very few irrigation systems) and turning brown. My side yard, which is an old, thin, no-mix is the same, despite getting the sprinkler out a couple times in the past week.

The backyard reno is looking great, though! The new, improved varieties of grass are much stronger and healthier. The next month or so will be the real test for the lawn at 1.75".



Here's a shot that might interest you @Sfurunner13! It's a hump that seems to get mowed a little shorter. Without getting out the tape measure, I'd guess it's righy about 1". It's also a spot that's mostly TTTF. I get more tearing at that height unfortunately.



A couple isolated areas are still showing discoloration from disease pressure during the week of rain we had about one week ago. I _think_ it's all previously damaged leaf tissue, not new fungus. I'm keeping an eye on it.



And we had our first casualty of the summer! My wife left the turtle shell from the kids sandbox upside down on the grass for a couple hours at mid-day when it was 95. Kiddy pools with water are never a problem, so she didn't think anything of it, and felt pretty badly about the damage.



It's getting extra water, and luckily there is still green throughout. I don't know if it came through in the picture, I saw a few fried poa seed heads. Here's to hoping most of the die-off is poa! That part of the lawn has a bunch.


----------



## iowa jim

Thats one way to kill the poa with turtle power.


----------



## Sfurunner13

samjonester said:


> Here's a shot that might interest you @Sfurunner13! It's a hump that seems to get mowed a little shorter. Without getting out the tape measure, I'd guess it's righy about 1". It's also a spot that's mostly TTTF. I get more tearing at that height unfortunately.


That looks awesome! I actually made a mistake mowing the other day. I have a very high spot that gets nearly scalped at 3 inches. I forgot to raise my deck and cut it at 2.25 inches by mistake. I scalped it down to the ground, oops. If I remember I'll take a photo since it's been a few days. Either way that means it's been cut at around 3/4 inch for months and I didn't even notice it was that short. Color was uniform with the lawn so it never dawned it me that it was that short. It's an all TTTF area as well.


----------



## samjonester

*I Think I've Got My First Brown Patch*

I got home Saturday from a week away. It was in the 90s and humid with a decent amount of rain while I was gone. I wanted to put down my next fungicide before I left, but well, life with babies got in the way. I came home to a lot of brown patch and a day of hot sticky thunderstorms. I couldn't get out and do anything in the yard so I put the toddlers in one of those Home Depot shopping carts with the kiddy seats that look like a car and bought some propiconizole.

When the rain slowed down I took a look at the lawn and there was a lot of disease. Early this morning I mowed it back down to 1.75" (it's amazing how much more slowly _real_ grass grows), put down granular PPZ, and watered it in. The low cut with the bagger and a dry day seems to have helped.

Here's how it looked after a mow this morning. The overall discoloration doesn't show as well in this picture as it does in person.



And the obligatory close up.



Looks like I might have had some die off, too. I'm not too worried though, after seeing the turtle shell recovery in 7 days in the worst part of our summer.



And finally, a progress picture from the turtle shell incident.


----------



## Mondeh6

Hi, 
I am considering taking on a TTTF Reno for the front of my home. 
The heat and high temps have been a concern, just like you I have 90 degree summer (not all the days).
How much do you water to keep things going or you're not watering at all, also how often are you fertilizing?


----------



## samjonester

@Mondeh6 I've been making sure that it experiences a watering event when it's showing drought stress, which has seemed to mean 4-5 days give or take. If it's rain over about 1/3" I count it, otherwise I drag hoses. I've only watered a handful of times this year. I haven't really seen any problems from lack of water. Most issues I've seen have been fungal. This is true, even with a typical, hot July and cutting it at 1.75", although we've gotten more rain in July than we did last year.

I haven't fertilized since the end of May, but it looks like it could use some. I'm planning on doing 1/2 lb slow release N next week when summer plans calm down here and I can pay more attention to watering and mowing again. I put down much more N early this spring than I had planned on (~2.5 lbs) because the new baby grass come out of winter very hungry. It's still growing much more slowly than the old no-mix side yard and the Bermuda front yard which haven't gotten the same level of fertilization.

Good luck going to TTTF! I think this is an ideal climate for cool season grass. Winter is pretty mild, so If you can water a handful of times in July and August between rains, you'll have green grass most of the entire year. I would highly recommend putting 10%-20% KBG in your TTTF mix if you can't stomach doing 100% KBG.


----------



## samjonester

*Disease Recovery*

The disease has been inactive for a bit, and the damage has set in. The overall color hasn't improved a ton, but it's still not too bad. I spread some ironite I had in the garage when I put down the PPZ, and it helped. Ironite seems to help a little with color, but it's no milo or screamin green. I'm hoping that when I have the capacity to baby the lawn again in a couple of weeks, some fertilizer will help.



Here are a couple close ups of the worst of the brown patch damage. I'm kicking myself for not finding the time to put down a preventative before vacation, but I caught it early enough that there wasn't any large scale die-off.





And finally the turtle shell recovery. Holy cow has it recovered quickly.


----------



## Mondeh6

@samjonester , thanks


----------



## samjonester

*Peace Out Poa*

I was out of town again last week. This time it was during the heat wave, and it was about 100 for a few days and finally peaked at low hundreds before we got a massive storm with a few inches of rain. It was a bit overgrown when I came home, but I'm still very impressed by the amount of growth in these compact grass types compared to the common bermuda I have out front.

Here's a shot after my mow. The lawn is mostly back to a nice green color. The sunny part of the lawn was the most affected by this second round of fungus and had yellowed the most. The shady area kept its color and didn't catch the brown patch (?) from the other side of the yard.



The brown area right before the shadow line is where the majority of my poa problem existed. Here are a couple close ups.



Since I wasn't home and able to drag hoses during the heat, it all died out! It looks kinda bad, but now I can focus on repair and hopefully most of the poa is gone. I'll be better with a preemergent this fall.



I raked out the dead stuff with a dethatching rake and a metal leaf rake. It worked well.







Overall I'm extremely impressed with the way the lawn handled 9 days of neglect during the recent heat spell, even being cut at 1.75" right before we left and the heat picked up!

The hardest part of the summer is over. I'm done with extended travel and can stay on top of watering and fungicides more easily, now.

I applied another round of granular PPZ at a curative rate along with .5lb N/K of a coated urea. I also sprinkled some 10-10-10 I use in the flower beds on the bare spots. Then I watered it all in. It should fill back in quickly, based on the turtle shell experience. It's been 3.5 weeks since and here's what it looks like now. This was the recovery without fert and during the long periods of neglect while I was out of town.


----------



## samjonester

*Recovery?*

It's been almost 1.5 weeks since an update. It's stayed hot (highs of 85-95 F) and we've seen no appreciable rain.

Here's a few progress shots for the middle of the yard.

July 24th (last post)



August 2nd. Things have gotten worse. I think the die-off peaked about halfway between this picture and the previous. I plugged into the barest spots as well, and those are looking rough in this picture from the root damage.



August 5th. A little bit of recovery is noticeable in person. Not much in pictures. The plants left between all the dead stuff are thickening up, and the plugs have recovered from being transplanted.



Even though this picture set looks grim, most of the yard has done pretty well. Here's a less dramatic perspective. The shady area under the tree never had any poa, and didn't have an issue with brown-patch.



And my youngest daughter appreciating the turf density She looks like she's spotted a weed :lol:


----------



## ericgautier

samjonester said:


> And my youngest daughter appreciating the turf density She looks like she's spotted a weed :lol:


That is an awesome picture! :lol:

I'm with you... I can't wait for cooler temps.


----------



## samjonester

ericgautier said:


> I'm with you... I can't wait for cooler temps.


I'm so torn! I know my backyard will be much happier when the weather breaks, but I love this weather! I love going to the pool (nearly) every night with the kids. I love that they're outside everyday playing because there hasn't been rain. I like wearing shorts and tanks every day and working on my deck (perks of working from home).


----------



## samjonester

*Will I need to seed?*

Here's the progress after another 6 days. Yesterday I raked out some more of the dead grass, fertilized with .3lbs coated urea, and watered it in with about 2/3" water.





It seems like it's not changing much. Or maybe still getting worse. In a couple weeks I'll either be re-seeding, or putting down pre-emergent and starting my fall blitz.

Anyone have any idea if this will fill in or is the damage to extensive and I'll be stuck seeding?

Here are a couple close ups.


----------



## social port

samjonester said:


> Anyone have any idea if this will fill in or is the damage to extensive and I'll be stuck seeding?


Sam, I am not going to be able to offer a prediction here, but could you clarify: This is a TTTF-KBG mix that has been struggling with BP? For about a month?


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## samjonester

@social port There was a bit of brown patch a month ago, but I was able to control it with PPZ. I haven't seen any new lesions for several weeks. I caught it fairly early.

The damage came with the hot, dry weather the past month. That area had a large scale poa annua problem coming out of winter. The stuff that's dying is fairly shallow rooted and had poa seed heads all over the place when I was taking it out. I'm fairly certain it's almost entirely dead poa.

For reference, here's an overhead shot showing the poa from earlier in the spring.


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## social port

Sam, you haven't received much feedback, so I'm going to throw my 2 cents towards your question.
Bearing in mind that I really don't know (because KBG is relatively new to me)...
If it were me, I would reseed this area to minimize risk -- provided that I had the original mix that I could use for reseeding. With a TTTF/KBG mix, I see the option of relying on spreading as a risky one. The lawn area in question could pretty thin for another year instead of taking care of it in a couple of weeks this fall.


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## Harts

Because you have a mix of KBG/TTTF, the KBG would likely take a while to fill in. If it were my lawn, I would seed this fall. If you can get it down early enough, you may still have time for a late pre-em app.


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## Sfurunner13

So sorry to see the damage! Should you seed or not, tough question. It looks as if you rake out the dead grass you'd have a fair amount of bare dirt which would be easy to throw seed down and get fairly good germination. You'd sacrifice pre emergent so I don't know if you'd have to deal with POA again next year. Also watering might cause further fungus to the remaining grass. But you'd have a thick lawn again in a few weeks and wouldn't have to stress over if the KBG will fill it in. I always doubt the repairability of KBG in the mix. Would you throw down KBG or TTTF?

You do have KBG in the mix but that's a fairly big area to fill in and from the picture very thin and may not contain KBG in that area. May be at least a season or two before it's filled in if all goes well. I contemplated overseeding some of my bare areas because I don't always have faith that the KBG will fill it in.

Not sure if that helps but I think I'd throw seed down mostly because I'm impatient and wouldn't want to wait two years for it to fill in.


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## samjonester

Thanks for the advice. I thought it was worth asking what KBG is capable of since I've seen bermuda fill in damage like that no problem. I was hoping I wouldn't need to seed since it's a hassle with the kids playing out back everyday. I'll have to figure out a plan to quarantine that area or just temper my expectations.

@social port I bought about twice what I needed last year to seed so I've get plenty left for repair.

@Harts that's what I messed up last year. I thought the meso from the starter fert protected me late enough into the season and skipped a late pre-emergent app.

@Sfurunner13 I think you sold me with the point "may not contain KBG in that area". It's probably about 400 sq ft of damage so not too much to hand water to prevent fungus everywhere else. I work from home so 3-4 10 minute watering sessions isn't too much to handle for a couple weeks.


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## Harts

Temper your expectations. I have 2 young kids as well and over seeded my back last fall. Turned out great.

Even if the kids end up ruining a small percentage of seed, it should still full in that area.


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## samjonester

Looks like this is our last week of of 90 degree weather. Towards EOW I will be looking at the rain forecast and reseeding when the forecast looks clear. I'm seeing clover and goosegrass germination pick up in where there is no grass. I'm hand pulling for now.

I've got Scott's starter with meso that I'm debating applying at seed down or waiting a couple weeks. I'm leaning towards waiting. That should kill anything else that germinates with the grass and give me coverage until the highs drop to 80 degrees.


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## Green

I agree with everyone else who says reseed.


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## samjonester

*Seed Down*

The weather finally broke. Upper 70s and low 80s the next 10 days with only one day that has 30% chance of rain. We've gotten ~2 inches of rain the past 3 days. I also put out ~1 inch before a surprise storm Thursday. It's pretty swampy out back.





Today was seeding day. I used the thatch take over the whole lawn as prep. I hate that thing. It ripped up a lot of green as well. Occasionally I pulled up a whole hunk of turf and left a divot. It was too wet and the rake is too aggressive. I've gotta find the budget for one of those sun joe things if I need to do this again next year.

I decided to put down the scotts starter with meso at bag rate. Weed pressure is picking up where it's bare. My nice sprayer broke this spring or I would have used tenacity alone, but I suppose the grass that survived could use some fertilizer, too.



I spread what seed I had left from last years reno. It was 8 lbs. The whole lawn got a light over-seeding then I focused on the damaged areas. I think it's heavy enough in those spots, but I'm going to have to buy more as backup. I'd also like to overseed my side yard late in the season - probably around October 1. I'm going to email Hogan and see if I can get another 25 lbs of a comparable blend.


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## pennstater2005

Nice work! Was it a rented dethatcher? Those are aggressive.


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## Sfurunner13

Is it just TTTF or is there KBG in your mix?


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## samjonester

@pennstater2005 it was a manual thatch rake. I got a bunch of garden shovels and rakes off for Facebook marketplace for $20 when we first bought the house. There was a thatch rake in the lot. Great buy!

Took about 2.5 hours on 2k sq ft. I had to do it after the kids went to bed under the spotlights in the back yard. It was Friday tho so I had a couple cold 🍻 while I was working.

@Sfurunner13 the same mix as last year 90% TTTF 10% KBG. The cultivars are in my signature. I doubt any of the KBG will germinate where there is existing grass but it would be nice if if it does where it's bare.


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## samjonester

We have grass babies! No the seed hasn't germinated :lol:. Looks like the KBG has started doing its thing. Noticed this today when I was checking out the seeding. It's not everywhere but I'll take what I can get!


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## samjonester

*It has begun*

I'm seeing germination starting today. This is Day 4 since seeding.



The meso is also starting to do its job. This stuff is turning white as well as clover that was starting to pop up.



I ordered 25 lbs of the same seed mix yesterday from hogan as backup for this project and also to overseed my side yard next month. I'm not 100% sure the cultivars but with 8 already in the grass, what's a couple more new ones. I did order the same 90% Hogan Blen TTTF / 10% Alley Blend KBG ratio again.


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## social port

samjonester said:


> I'm seeing germination starting today. This is Day 4 since seeding.


Congrats :thumbup:


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## pennstater2005

Oh yeah! I see those little suckers in there!


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## Mrotatori

wish you look with your lawn. I had to reseed some of my areas to. I broke it up into three sections. ( reseed, plugs, and repair ) We will see which one does the best. I work from home to. What kind of job do you have, if you don't mind me asking? I am a Software Eng.


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## samjonester

Thank you @Mrotatori! I have germination across probably 70% of the lawn and in almost all of the areas with severe damage. I've also got a lot of KBG already shooting up from rhizomes as well. I think it will turn out just fine.

I'm learning the hard way which things to be more proactive about. I wanted to avoid the chemicals this spring when I started to see poa and I was a bit late on preventative fungicides on a lawn I know is prone to disease. Now I'm stuck with a large reseeding project 

I am also in software actually! I'm a consultant and my company is distributed.


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## Mrotatori

@samjonester my company makes the bill pay software for financial institutions. We provide it to mostly credit unions, and we have a few banks. I would say 60% of the company works remote. The company name is Payveris. Our hq is in CT.


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## samjonester

@Mrotatori That's great! Sometimes it can be tough to work remotely for a company that is mostly co-located. With that percentage, I'm sure it is working well for you. I love the freedom it provides me and all the extra time I get with my family. I also feel like I can focus my time better and I have a lot less filler time in my day, so I work less and get more done.


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## samjonester

*Rust in a Reno?*

I mowed my side yard today and it has rust. Its been pretty dry for a few weeks with morning dew every day. I haven't been mowing the side yard much because it's awkward to irrigate so it hasn't been growing.

I hosed my mower well after mowing. Should I be worried about it finding it's way into the backyard where I'm currently seeding?


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## Jconnelly6b

I wouldn't think so from the mower. You should have a lot more growth back there too with the starter fert - it might be growing too quick for rust to catch on.

I have quite a bit too and lowered my hoc by 0.25" on the last mow and did some morning watering in the worst areas to get them growing again. It's mostly gone now.


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## samjonester

Thanks @Jconnelly6b. I wasn't worried about the established grass for that reason. With the starter it is growing fast now. I want sure if it would affect baby grass more strongly, but didn't really think about it needing time to set in.


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## samjonester

*Day 7*

Seven days since seeding. I'm a couple days behind where I was last year. I didn't spend the time or money on peat this time, and temps were about 10 degrees cooler during germination.



The established grass has exploded after the starter and has begun filling the bare areas back in along side the baby grass.





I'm still seeing a few spots of poa that survived the summer :evil: The starter with meso barely even bleached it. I already told my wife I want a backpack sprayer for Christmas so I will be able to use tenacity on it next spring.



I also got my re-up of seed from Hogan. I ordered 90% Hogan Blend TTTF and 10% Alley Blend KBG. I'm about ready to touch up thin areas in the back. Luckily I survived without a washout.



Last years cultivars:
TTTF - Rebounder, Firewall, LS1200, Houndog 8
KBG - Midnight, Award, NuGlade, Granite

This year:
TTTF - Cochise IV, Hot Rod, Michelangelo
KBG - Midnight, Award, Bluenote, Legend

The two taller TTTF cultivars (Houndog 8 & LS1200) are out. There's also a compact america (bluenote) in the KBG Blend this year.


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## samjonester

*First Mow*

First mow after the overseed today. It's been 11 days and I couldn't hold off on the existing grass any longer. I was a little bummed mowing. It didn't seem like much has changed. Then I did a collage pic with a comparison between seeding day and now. I'm feeling much better about progress and also the color that is returning with the fertilizing.





Here's what the thin spots look like:





I'm going to put some more seed down on the thinnest areas later today and water it in with Kelp4Less humic fulvic kelp. The temps are going down to the 70s tomorrow, so I'm also going to try to go down to 1-2 waterings per day and just giving the second seeding extra water as needed by hand.


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## samjonester

*Day 14*

14 days after overseeding. The TTTF has 2 blades, now. It's still thin where it was bare coming out of summer.



I intended to put more seed out Wednesday but a pop up storm and the chance of rain from Dorian Friday pushed it off until today. I mowed before I put 5 lbs of seed on the thin areas. I applied Scott's disease ex Thursday as well. We're in the low 80s this next week with no forcasted rain.


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## samjonester

*Hello Old Friend*

Poa is rearing it's head again :evil:


Got something in the mail yesterday.



I'm 1.5 weeks post germination on the first round of seeding. I should be seeing germination in the next couple of days for the second round of seeding. I'm going to spray this in about a month. Fall flush should be in full effect then. I've only got a cheap 1 gallon hand can right now. It's going to take a while to spray...


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## Jconnelly6b

If you want to upgrade your existing pump sprayer without going backpack, this one from Chapin is fantastic. It's 2 gallons, has the air release vent, comes with the upgraded Chapin wand, and has a wide mouth and easy to screw on lid.

I am always surprised at how far 2 gallons goes in my lawn, I use for spot spraying weeds but have also used for large spot spraying of tenacity and liquid fungicide.


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## g-man

Fyi, the battery power Chapin (4g) is on clearance at some Walmarts.

 Hot deal


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## samjonester

*Looking like a lawn again*

3 weeks since the first overseed. 1 week since the second





It's looking green again. And pretty good from this angle. It's still thin when you're right on top of it. I've got some clover. It's kind of bleached from the Scott's, but hanging in there.


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## samjonester

Current progress. 3 weeks since second seeding. 5 since the first. I applied the first fast release fertilizer at about .3 lbs N / M along with a second app of Scott's disease ex. in 2 weeks I will be applying tenacity.

Progress is slow but the overall density has improved dramatically.





Unfortunately it seems like a lot of the light green is a resurgence of poa. Almost time to wage war.


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## samjonester

*Fall has arrived*

Fall came to South Jersey about a week ago. Our nighttime temps had mostly fallen into the 60s - 70s before that but it was still hit during the day until last week. We have gotten a little rain and I see more in the forecast.

I've been fertilizing the back at about .3 lbs N / M as close to weekly as I can manage. Color is returning. A lot of the density is returning as well.





There are still thin areas where I got mediocre results with the overseed. I have done my best with watering but I probably fell short with the heat. I also skipped a top dressing of peat moss.



Rabbits are an issue again this fall



I'm also noticing issues with drought stress in the same area under my large silver maple as last year. That tree gets thirsty by the end of summer. It's still pretty dry and most lawns are brown here despite the break in temps.



In another week or two I will be spraying tenacity to try to knock down the poa that looks bad again.


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## samjonester

Here's a shot from my side yard which is very long and narrow. I overseeded 2 weeks ago on October 5. I've got to move an impact sprinkler to 6 different spots to get coverage so I waited until it was cool enough to keep moisture in the ground during the day and there was rain in the forecast. I think I timed it well. Outside of rainy days I've watered at most twice a day and that was only a couple times.

Germination came very easily compared to the backyard in September when it was 85-90 still.



Depending on how well this develops, I may never overseed or patch earlier than October in my backyard. It's nearing time for my first frost, but we likely won't see a hard freeze for a couple months.


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## Green

samjonester said:


> Depending on how well this develops, I may never overseed or patch earlier than October in my backyard. It's nearing time for my first frost, but we likely won't see a hard freeze for a couple months.


I've used the same strategy. Usually by late September, things are cooling off here and there's more rain, so it's easier to seed. I've been walking around once or twice a day with a one-gallon sprayer spot-watering my seeded areas. I can pretty much hit everything with one gallon.

Last year, I had to do a major overseed, and didn't start until late Sept. It was great because I could get away with watering once per day by hand. But then I got washout. It happened 3 times, and I think I kept adding more seed until mid Oct., and then even dormant seeded 2-3 times in the late Fall/Winter/Early Spring. By May it was looking really filled in.


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## social port

samjonester said:


> Fall came to South Jersey about a week ago. Our nighttime temps had mostly fallen into the 60s - 70s before that but it was still hit during the day until last week. We have gotten a little rain and I see more in the forecast.
> 
> I've been fertilizing the back at about .3 lbs N / M as close to weekly as I can manage. Color is returning. A lot of the density is returning as well.


Glad to see things moving in a positive direction. It seems like this was a tough summer. :thumbup:


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## samjonester

It sure was @social port! I definitely wasn't prepared for it and it got the best of my lawn. Good thing grass is easy to fix. I'm hoping I can do a better job keeping it going next summer.


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## Jconnelly6b

I have always been in silent disagreement with most of the members on this forum on the east coast that you need to drop seed in mid to late August so it can make it through the winter.

August and even early September are still very hot and humid, often with little precipitation. This year was exceptionally dry even through all of September.

I have spot seeded in early October, as I have again this year, with great success and no problem with that turf making it through winter.

So much easier, less input of water and time, and don't have to bother with fungicides because of all the water you're putting down in the middle of August. Much better stewardship of the environment.

Rock on Sam. Throw down that N and enjoy your beautiful piece of property.


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## social port

samjonester said:


> Here's a shot from my side yard which is very long and narrow. I overseeded 2 weeks ago on October 5. I've got to move an impact sprinkler to 6 different spots to get coverage so I waited until it was cool enough to keep moisture in the ground during the day and there was rain in the forecast. I think I timed it well. Outside of rainy days I've watered at most twice a day and that was only a couple times.
> 
> Germination came very easily compared to the backyard in September when it was 85-90 still.


Yesterday, I meant to mention how well this looks. That is what I would call perfect coverage. Love the spacing and evenness.


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## samjonester

social port said:


> samjonester said:
> 
> 
> 
> Here's a shot from my side yard which is very long and narrow. I overseeded 2 weeks ago on October 5. I've got to move an impact sprinkler to 6 different spots to get coverage so I waited until it was cool enough to keep moisture in the ground during the day and there was rain in the forecast. I think I timed it well. Outside of rainy days I've watered at most twice a day and that was only a couple times.
> 
> Germination came very easily compared to the backyard in September when it was 85-90 still.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yesterday, I meant to mention how well this looks. That is what I would call perfect coverage. Love the spacing and evenness.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I wish the backyard would have come in as easily and evenly!


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## samjonester

Jconnelly6b said:


> I have always been in silent disagreement with most of the members on this forum on the east coast that you need to drop seed in mid to late August so it can make it through the winter.
> 
> Augaust and even early September are still very hot and humid, often with little precipitation. This year was exceptionally dry even through all of September.
> 
> I have spot seeded in early October, as I have again this year, with great success and no problem with that turf making it through winter.
> 
> So much easier, less input of water and time, and don't have to bother with fungicides because of all the water you're putting down in the middle of August. Much better stewardship of the environment.
> 
> Rock on Sam. Throw down that N and enjoy your beautiful piece of property.


Agreed. Last year was very very hard to keep the new reno watered in September. Same with an overseed this year. Our winters are so mild I don't even worry much about winter kill in my bermuda. I just looked at historical weather this past winter for the Philly airport (10 miles from me) and there were only 10 days with highs below freezing.

How mature is it by the end of the season? I'm wondering if it would be mature enough to handle traffic from my kids in the cooler months shen seeded later.


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## samjonester

*Hitting it's stride*

Our trees are turning their fall colors. The contrast when I was mowing between the leaves and the grass was awesome! Here's our sugar maple. The silver maple is always the last to turn and it's kind of a blah yellow color... not as pretty.



The poa really stands out in this light. Tomorrow is the day I spray my first tenacity app. I'm not hoping for much, and I'm also not sure if I'll be able to squeeze another application in before winter.


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## Green

Is that all Poa annua? Or do you have Triv, too? I just ripped up a bunch of Triv today...Tenacity really makes it easier to see. Consider lower-rate apps, like 2oz/A. These will tend not to bleach your TTTF and KBG like the 4oz rate does, so it's less confusing. You can then treat multiple times over the coming month or so.


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## samjonester

Green said:


> Is that all Poa annua? Or do you have Triv, too? I just ripped up a bunch of Triv today...Tenacity really makes it easier to see. Consider lower-rate apps, like 2oz/A. These will tend not to bleach your TTTF and KBG like the 4oz rate does, so it's less confusing. You can then treat multiple times over the coming month or so.


Thanks for the advice on the rate, @Green! I'm not positive that there isn't triv mixed in, but I do know there is a lot of annua by the seed heads.


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## samjonester

*Back in Business*

The lawn is finally back to a density and color I am happy with. It's grown a lot in the past week and I'm hoping to have a little more growth left in it this season. I've got some overnight lows in the 20s coming up this week.

Finally have most of the lawn looking like this again!



The thin spot I've been tracking. Rabbits have been snacking here which makes it look worse.



Under the tree is starting to recover after a week of rain.



I missed my target tenacity app last week when I got rained out. I applied today at 2oz / acre, which was ~.3 tsp / M. Took a while with a 1 gallon hand pump. 3 passes to get the full amount so I'm hoping for even coverage despite the poor application method. Here's a good before shot without the sun to highlight the poa.



I'm planning on squeezing in another fert this week before it gets cold. Depending on how the lawn responds to the cooler overnight temps (should stay warm during the day) I'm hoping I can fit in another app of tenacity in 2 weeks.

A little clover I'm happy to hit as well.



This was about when the lawn took a beating from what I believe was leaf spot last year. Preventative azoxystrobin and propiconizole, along with bagging seem to have kept it away. I noticed this year that the neighbor has a very heavily diseased elderberry tree (leaf spot I think) that drops leaves on the area that got hot the hardest last fall. I'm happy to not be leaving those on the ground even if it's not transferable between plant species. I've been bagging all clippings and leaves with my mower all since spring. I also spiked my tenacity app with chlorothalonil for another MOA that does well on leaf spot. I wanted to avoid that one, but since I'm going to keep the kids off for a few days after spraying tenacity I thought I'd mix it in.


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## Jconnelly6b

Keep in mind that if you spray Tenacity at this point, chances are high those spots in your lawn will be white from now until April.

I regret even spraying 4 weeks ago as there is still quite a bit of white remaining.


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## samjonester

*Closing Shop*

Mowed today. More for the leaves than the grass. I cut some off but not much. Fall felt very short this year. Barely a month with the right combo of temperature and moisture for recovery growth.

Still not seeing disease like last fall, which is making me very happy! The poa is looking weak and has been turning yellow/brown. It's been 2 weeks since since tenacity. I think I forgot to post, but I added 2/3 rate triclopyr to the mixture I sprayed. I'm only seeing bleaching in the wild garlic in the lawn.



This area was very neon green a couple weeks ago. Seeing some darker green mixing into it now that the poa is weakened.



And a close up.



It's far from eradicated but I'm pleased with the damage that I'm seeing from a single application so late in the season. It's showing promise for what tenacity can do next spring. Night time temps have been too cold for me to want to waste time on another tenacity application without any active growth.

Oh and the only thing on my Christmas list is a new sprayer :lol:


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## Green

@samjonester, did you pre-M this past Fall with something like Dimension or Prodiamine due to the Poa annua seeds? I know you were seeding, so maybe you didn't get to...?


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## samjonester

Green said:


> @samjonester, did you pre-M this past Fall with something like Dimension or Prodiamine due to the Poa annua seeds? I know you were seeding, so maybe you didn't get to...?


I got dithiopyr out but it was pretty late. Almost 2 weeks ago. It should stop the winter weeds I had pop up last year but was much too late for any of the poa that germinated after seeding.


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## samjonester

Roof shots while I was cleaning gutters and hanging lights!



On the right is the drought stress from late fall under the silver maple. Terrible type of tree...



Lots of discolored poa. A positive sign I think, even though it's going to look gross for the next 3-4 months.


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## Green

samjonester said:


> I got dithiopyr out but it was pretty late. Almost 2 weeks ago. It should stop the winter weeds I had pop up last year but was much too late for any of the poa that germinated after seeding.


It may not even do much for the Chickweed, etc. I think you really need Gallery for the broadleaf stuff...the regular pre-Ms are mostly for grasses. The Dimension might prevent late-season Poa a germination, though.


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