# Deltahedge Fulshear Texas 2021 Lawn Journal



## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

A picture is worth 1,000 words. So, I'll show what the lot looked like when we started in 2017.



For some reason I like doing things myself. So I went out and cut all the vines off of the trees with a hand saw and some shears. About 14 trees in total. I thought it might take me 2 full days' work, and it ended up taking about 6 days.





Many of the trees had so many vines on them that the actual tree wasn't visible. And from afar, when you thought you were seeing the leaves of the tree, you were actually just seeing the leaves of the various vines.





A couple years later the house was done, and we had sod around the exterior. The lot is nearly 3 acres, and it didnt make sense at the time to sod and irrigate the entire thing, so we sodded out from the house about 40-60" with tifway 419 Bermuda.



After we moved in, I began working on a single tree each weekend to clean up some of the vine roots that were attempting to grow back. Once again, I underestimated the effort it would take to dig some of those roots up, and lost steam after finishing about 10 trees. There are still two tree to do before I consider it done, but I stopped working on them and moved on to other things. Maybe someday I will clean those up as well. But for now, there are things I can work on that give more bang for the effort.



The dead vines up in the top of the trees continue to decay and I'm guessing I'll be picking them up for the next few years as they continue to fall.

And here is a photo I love from summer 2020 with the wife and two of my kids on the tree swing. This is what makes it all worth it.


It's come a long way from where it began.

We moved into the house we built on this lot in July 2019. When I get frustrated that the yard isn't looking great, it helps me to go back and look at how far it has come in only a few short years.

I'm starting up this lawn journal in the off season with the hope that I can get a running start in the Spring of 2021 with a few projects.

Irrigation System.
I have 21 zones on the irrigation system, and it takes nearly 11 hours to run through all the zones to put out 1/2" on the lawn. There's only room in the control box for 1 more station. The builder planted tifway 419 Bermuda on the irrigated sections of the lawn, and the rest of the lot is just native grass and weeds.

It is my goal to drill a well for irrigation and to irrigate the entire lot, and transition the entire thing to reel low zeon zoysia over the next X number of years. (I really don't have a goal for how long this will take, so let's just call it "X" for now)

I have learned so much on this forum, I am thankful to everyone who posts, because I gain knowledge with every thread that I read.

I currently mow the entire lot and ditch at 2.75" with a Bad Boy Maverick zero turn. I have a very tiny area that I maintain at 0.875" with a John Deere 260SL that I bought this fall from a member of the forum.

2021 Applications: *Scheduled
Pre-M
2/9/2021 - Prodiamine 65 WDG .21oz/M
4/8/2021 - Snapshot 4.6lb/M to beds
5/5/2021 - Prodiamine 65 WDG .205 oz/M
10/7/2021 - Prodiamine 65 WDG .42oz/M

Post-M
4/11/2021 - Celcius 0.085oz/M
4/11/2021 - Certainty 0.8g/M

Insecticide

Fungicide - (I need to research a 3rd mode of action to rotate in this plan)
4/21/2021 - Propiconazole 41.8% 0.7fl oz/M
4/21/2021 - Azoxystrobin 22.9% 0.7 fl oz/M
5/5/2021 - Propiconazole 41.8% 0.7fl oz/M
6/21/2021 - Azoxystrobin 22.9% 
*7/25/2021 - Propiconazole 41.8%


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## UltimateLawn (Sep 25, 2020)

Congrats on the new lawn journal. I used to live in Fulshear. Great place.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

UltimateLawn said:


> Congrats on the new lawn journal. I used to live in Fulshear. Great place.


Thanks. Fulshear is a great place.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

The yard will be going through quite a transformation over the next several years. Here are my plans, somewhat in order of when I am planning on tackling them.

2021
- Pool and Landscape design. (Nov 2020 - Jan 2021)
- Updated irrigation design and rainwater capture design (I need to take my existing system and merge it into a system that covers my entire lot) (Jan)
- Drill water well for irrigation and pool. (Feb - March)
- Pool construction and backyard renovation (Spring/Summer)
- Install rainwater capture (Spring/Summer)
- Glyphosate front yard bermuda and ditch (April 1)
- Glyphosate front yard bermuda and ditch (April 15)
- Glyphosate front yard bermuda and ditch (May 1)
- Add a few irrigation zones to front yard (April/May)
- Install Zeon Zoysia Sod in front yard and ditch (May)

2022 and Beyond
- 3 rounds of Glyphosate to remaining areas (Spring)
- Install irrigation for remaining areas. (Spring)
- Sprig Zeon Zoysia on remaining areas. (Spring/Summer)
- Grass Tennis court construction. (2022 or 2023) (Planning on Trinity Zoysia)


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## Meximusprime (Jun 21, 2019)

Hello neighbor! Just down the road from you and looking forward to this big project.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I have some updates to my plan for this year, but before I post any of that, I wanted to give an update of the yard after last week's very hard freeze in the Houston area.

At the end of August last year, I laid some Zeon Zoysia sod on a couple spots in my tifway 419 bermuda lawn. This was to test if I wanted to do an entire lawn renovation and grass change to Zeon. The answer is "YES".

You can absolutely see the exact line running through this picture; Zoysia on the left, Bermuda on the right. It almost looks as if it's two pictures stitched together, but this is just the line where the Zoysia meets the Bermuda.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

It has taken a little longer to get the completed pool design than we initially thought, but that's ok because it has given me time to reflect on the plan a little more.

I'm holding off on the front yard renovation until we build the pool. We are removing a lot of the sprinkler zones in the back yard, so this will free up more zones to use in the front yard.


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## ILoveGrits (Sep 22, 2019)

Great picture of the wife and kiddos. Nice looking property you've got.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

ILoveGrits said:


> Great picture of the wife and kiddos. Nice looking property you've got.


Thank you.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I edited the first post to to show pictures of the lot in the beginning, before we cleared any vegetation. I also included some progress photos of the first couple of years since I didn't have a lawn journal at the time. I think the first post does a good job getting you caught up to where I was this last offseason, Nov20-Feb21, and I'll update the thread with new posts from here on.


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## Lawniac (Jul 25, 2020)

Beautiful house. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress this season!


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I spent all day yesterday scalping the front yard. I mowed it down to around 2" with the zero turn with side discharge spewing clippings everywhere. Based on the advice of a few of you who bag the clippings on some fairly large lawns, I decided to tackle it and bag some clippings. I went over the entire lawn at 1.75" and then again at 1.5" with a buddy's rotary mower and bagged the clippings both times. At the end of the day I got out my greens mower and cut it down to 0.75" with the grass catcher on.

The front yard has never been leveled, and I was surprised that the greens mower did just fine at 0.75". It went so well that I decided I would give it a go at 0.25" today. Obviously 0.25" was a little too low and kept hitting dirt, so I am going to attempt 0.50" tomorrow.

So far I have over 700 gallons worth of trash bags full of clippings! and I'll have even more after tomorrow's 0.50" haricut.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I made a ******* back-lapping machine.


I have the drill mounted to a piece of wood with this.
https://www.amazon.com/Dico-541-41413-Switch-Drill-4-Piece/dp/B001F7AJIA

I bought it for pinewood derby, I don't use it for PWD anymore as I have a drill press for that now, but it came in handy for back-lapping.

Upgrades would be some type of linkage that has some play in it like a U-joint, so it doesn't have to be lined up perfectly. A better way to control the speed on the drill would also come in pretty handy.

It confuses me how the professional back-lapping machines cost between $600-$1,300.


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## jbow03 (Sep 19, 2019)

@Deltahedge yard is looking great! I'm just down the road from you in Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek. My yard is loving these warm days already!

Keep up the good work!


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## GrassDad (Sep 18, 2019)

Looks awesome. Looking forward to following your progress!


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

jbow03 said:


> @Deltahedge yard is looking great! I'm just down the road from you in Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek. My yard is loving these warm days already!
> 
> Keep up the good work!


Thanks. I have many friends in your neighborhood. We're over there all the time. Also, since I have such a large property, I'm always buying pretty large quantities of Celcius and Certainty. If you ever need smaller quantities of those, just let me know and I can piece small quantities together for you.


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## jbow03 (Sep 19, 2019)

Deltahedge said:


> jbow03 said:
> 
> 
> > @Deltahedge yard is looking great! I'm just down the road from you in Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek. My yard is loving these warm days already!
> ...


Yeah, I've never been able to justify purchasing the large QTY's it comes in for just my 1/4 acre. I've heard great things about both. Purchased some Pennant Magnum last year with great results t-nex to try out this year.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I've been scalping the yard at 0.50" so far this season, but I raised the HOC to 0.57" for tonight's mow. I only had 3 loads full of clippings, so it's pretty clear the Bermuda hasn't quite woken up yet. I haven't started irrigating yet, and our rain has been on the low side for the past few weeks. I'll spend some time on Saturday turning on the irrigations and checking all the zones.

Here's a photo from tonight. It's my first time trying double wide stripes, and I think they look pretty good.


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## Redtwin (Feb 9, 2019)

Doubles are way easier to keep straight! It's looking good and will get super tight with the T-Nex. I also love the stone work on your house... beautiful!


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## Trent161 (Jul 25, 2020)

You have a beautiful home. The standing seam metal roofer is BALLER!


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Thank you @Redtwin and @Trent161

I'm interested to get out and get some more mows at 0.600" to see what the grass looks like as it thickens up at that height. As I looked out in the yard this morning, my plans from last week were solidified; I need to put my lawn on a preventative fungicide plan. I'm already too late.

It showed up in both grass types this morning.
in the Bermuda


Also in the Zoysia.


In a spot of the yard I've been mowing with the reel, the valve boxes have been about 2" below grade of the rest of the yard. It seems that the entire area around the valve boxes have settled in the 2 years since they were installed. A 3 foot radius around the boxes slowly slopes down to the boxes, so I raised the boxes up to nearly level with the rest of the yard. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy and quickly this can be done.

During the dig


After:

The new height of the boxes is obviously above the grass right next to them, but what you don't see here is that the grass right next to them is lower than the rest of the yard. This will be less pronounces after I sand level, and if the boxes settle at all. After a few sand top-dresses, these boxes will be below grade.


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## Boy_meets_lawn (Sep 27, 2020)

I'm in Clear Lake and started prevention apps of my fungicide a few weeks with all the soggy weather we have been having. I had an alert from greencast maybe a month ago also.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I did a broadcast spray of Celcius at .085oz/M and Certainty at 0.8g/M on 4/11. I mixed up a batch for 40k sq ft in my 41 gal sprayer. My calculations on paper last year showed that I need to drive 3.8 MPH to spray out 1gal/M. I think I did a very decent job at maintaining that speed for at least 90% of the time, but when it was all said and done, the 40gal covered about 30k sq ft. Which means the grass got a little bit of a hot dose, but I'm sure it will be fine.

The 3.8 was calculated by timing how long it took to spray out 20 gallons, and a measured 8.5' swath. Even last year, I noticed that the spray never quite lasted the entire area I wanted to spray, but last year each time I looked at my speedometer, it was usually hovering around 3.5-3.6, and I attributed the hot dose to me driving too slow. I'm fairly certain that wasn't the case yesterday, so I will adjust my theoretical calculations to the real world and try 4.0MPH next time.

I think turn-row overlap, and normal overlap during the pass has something to do with it, and I also assume the there is some sort of wheel traction loss where the speedometer is showing 3.8MPH, but the actual ground speed is something a little slower.

It really has me thinking hard about buying a foam marker for the boom tips. (wasting 10-20% of the product to excessive overlap can add up when you're spraying 40K sq ft).


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I mixed up 40k sq ft worth of fungicide yesterday. This is the first fungicide treatment my yard has ever had, and I have dollar spot in quite a few places. I tank mixed Propiconazole 41.8% and Azoxystrobin 22.9%. I think I am overlapping too much as I spray. I'm using the 41 gallon Northstar sprayer, and it is sometimes very difficult to see where the last pass exactly ended. I am considering rigging up some type of foam marker, or just dragging chains from the ends of the boom.


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## UltimateLawn (Sep 25, 2020)

@Deltahedge , 40K ft² of treatment area! Whoa...that is a lot of fungicide. It seems like fungicide is becoming a lot of my lawn chemical costs.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Been a while since I posted. I supposed I could probably add my soil test results.

Here's the result for the front yard.


This is the test for the area I am about to kill and renovate with Zeon Zoysia


The pH in both tests is high, so I will start trying to work that down over the season.

Since I am going to kill off the 500 sqft side yard anyway, I am going to get pretty aggressive with changing the soil pH. I've chatted about it with @Greendoc and also got some feedback from @thegrassfactor.

I am going to put down 200lbs of elemental sulfur and 10lbs of citric acid on the 500sq ft area. I'm also planning on doing a home soil test each week to see how the pH changes over time. I would like to sprig or plug the Zoysia around the middle of June, so it's time to get going on it.

This small side yard also needs to be leveled. I haven't decided how to do it yet. I might just level with sand on top of the dying Bermuda, or I might till the entire area up and level the soil with a rake, and then top dress with sand over Zoysia sprigs.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

This afternoon I put down a tank mix of Propiconazole and Prodiamine for 41k sq ft.

Propiconazole 41.8% at a rate of 0.7 fl oz/M =28.7 fl oz
Prodiamine 65WDG at a rate of 0.2075 oz/M = 8.51 oz


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## UltimateLawn (Sep 25, 2020)

@Deltahedge , Prodiamine? Seems late for a Spring pre-emergent?


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

UltimateLawn said:


> @Deltahedge , Prodiamine? Seems late for a Spring pre-emergent?


I do a split application in the spring so this is the 2nd round. First application was in February.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

It has been a while since I've updated this thread with any photos. The yard has greened up, I haven't applied any fertilizer yet. But I will do that this coming week.



We have had a few storms pass through that have unloaded buckets of rain on us in the Houston area.



This has shown my my mistakes from early in the season. The first mow of the season was taking my grass down from about 2.5" from last fall down to 1.5" with my zero turn mower, with side discharge. Then after that, I borrowed a friends rotary walk behind and went down to about 1" and bagged it. The rotary didn't suck up as much thatch from the zero turn as I had hoped, and it shows in these photos.



The following is a before/after thatch roping sits on your grass for a few days.

before


I still need to level with 20 tons of sand, and I hope that is the subject of a future post.
After cleanup with a rake and blower.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I have been delaying doing a sand leveling job on the front yard, mainly because I need 20 tons of sand to do it properly, and I really didn't want to do that by hand. I have been looking for places to rent a topdresser, with no luck. I contacted some local compost companies to see if I could hire them to use their topdressers, also with no luck. On Friday, @Boy_meets_lawn sent me a message that he had seen a used ECO-250 for sale on Facebook in the Houston area. I jumped at the opportunity to buy it, so I'm the new owner of a used ECO-250. I've already started going over it to see if it will need some parts, and have contacted ECO Lawn to see about buying replacement parts. It doesn't need any major work, as it was still being used by the compost company that sold it to me. The Honda GX160 starts on the first pull.


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## Sbcgenii (May 13, 2018)

Awesome buy. Now you need a mini front end loader lol. How is the weather down in Houston now?


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Sbcgenii said:


> Awesome buy. Now you need a mini front end loader lol. How is the weather down in Houston now?


You are so right. I have thought about skid steer rental for the day I actually do the leveling. Houston is wet wet wet. It has been raining all week, and I think it's supposed to rain all next week as well. I mowed the lawn during a small break in the rain on Friday evening, and made it about 90% of the way before a downpour forced me back into the house.


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## Lawniac (Jul 25, 2020)

Nice score on the spreader. If you're willing, I may have to rent it from you someday!


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Lawniac said:


> Nice score on the spreader. If you're willing, I may have to rent it from you someday!


Yeah, I plan on renting it out after I use it, so that I can make sure everything is working like it should.


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## Meximusprime (Jun 21, 2019)

Nice! Definitely would rent it from you as that is a time saver for sure.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Well, after cleaning up thatch roping for the third time in about 3 weeks. I have decided to get the GTC on my JD 260SL working. I think I need about $250 in parts, but I'm willing to try it. It will be better for the turf as well.

I will let the GTC cut into the thatch roping to break it up, and then my reel will sweep it into the grass catcher as I mow.

With each storm, I am noticing that there is less and less roping occurring, so hopefully by the end of the season, it will mean a smaller problem.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Here is the final photo of the 500 sq ft Tifway 419 section that will be getting renovated with Zeon Zoysia next month.

I am going to spray it with gly tomorrow night, and keep it on the same watering schedule that is has been on while trying to grow green grass.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I still haven't sprayed this area with glyphosate. I keep checking the rain forecast and waiting to spray. I think today is the 14th or 15th day with rain in the past 18 days.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Round up down on 6/2/2021. We have a break in the rain before this afternoon, so I sprayed over the dew this morning. That might impact the effectiveness of this first application , but I have planned out to spray this at least 3 times, and I wanted to get started. There's no going back now.



And about 4 hours later, once it was obvious we aren't getting rain in the next few hours, I sprayed Clethodim 26.4% at 0.36 oz/M. I forgot to mix in surfactant with the Clethodim, but I'll make sure to include surfactant in two weeks when I hit it with round 2.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Yesterday was a long day of yard work with a heat index of 111 degrees.

I ordered 21 tons "Fairway Topdressing Sand" from a local sand company that supplies golf courses with sand. It was delivered at 6 AM and then it was time to get busy. 




After the sand was delivered, I mowed and caught the clippings. Then, I drove to the local rental place and rented a 19" Ryan aerator and the diesel Toro Dingo.

I got back home and aerated the 17k sqft reel cut section of yard. I expected there to be a lot of hard work on a day where I'm mowing, aerating, and sand leveling, but I did not expect to get so exhausted by operating the aerator. It constantly wanted to pull to the left, so I had the muscle it right to keep it on a straight line. I assume there was some type of operator error, but It was a beating.


I think I would be kidding myself to ever think I would be able to collect the plugs from an area this large. So I just left them out to dry in the sun with the hope that they would break up once I get the drag out.

Now it was time to get the sand onto the lawn. I bought a used ECO-250 a few weeks ago. It's not in the greatest shape, but the engine starts on the first pull, so I can't really complain. The plan was to have a buddy help me, and use the Dingo to load sand into the ECO-250. While I was out in the yard spreading with the ECO, have the Dingo take a load out on to the yard itself and dump it. Then we would both meet back at the sand pile and do it all over again. The dingo is much lighter than a traditional skid-steer, but it was still too heavy to drive on the yard without making an indented track through the yard. So we scratched that idea and just used the dingo to load the topdresser. It saved so much effort having the dingo do the heavy lifting. I can't really imagine shoveling 21 tons of sand into the hopper.



I got all the sand spread out on the yard, and now it was time to drag it around to get it moved over the low spots. I had a very well built and heavy pallet laying around, so I screwed some 8' 2X4s to the bottom of it to use for a drag.



I pulled the drag with my Bad Boy Zero Turn until about 9pm, at which point my wife let me know that it was time to call it a day and stop making so much noise.

I set the sprinklers to put out 1/2", two times over night. And I'll drag it some more this afternoon.
Here's what it looked like this morning, after 1" of irrigation.


Things that went well.
1. The Dingo is a must have when dealing with this much sand. I'm not sure what I would consider the cutoff. Is it worth having if you're doing 1 ton of sand? No. 5 tons? Maybe so. I paid $270 for a single day rental.
2. The pallet drag worked really well. I think this is because the pallet weighed over 100lbs before I added the 2X4s.
3. The ECO-250 worked well. It was nice having a way to move 500lbs of sand with a self-propelled cart. A gorilla cart behind a 4-wheeler or lawn mower would do just as good, although with less material per load.

Things that I will do differently next time.
1. I will not mow and aerate on the same day as a sand level again. I will mow and aerate the day prior next time around. Walking behind a reel to mow 17k sqft is a decent workout on it's own. Fighting an aerator over the area was too much for a warm up to a sand leveling job. It was nice being able to rent the aerator and the Dingo at the same time, but next time, I will be renting the aerator the day before, and I'll pick up the Dingo as I am returning the aerator.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Here is the lawn 2 days after the sand went down.


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## rjw0283 (May 11, 2020)

Nice! That's a lot of sand! Looks like it could have taken more!
I leveled a small area (about 2300 sq ft front yard) First time I did 4 tons and it ate it all. A year later I did the same amount and it was way too much! Which is a good sign. 
It's a never ending battle, every time I level my HOC lowers, every time my HOC is lowered I notice more areas that need leveling. :lol: 
The cycle continues.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

rjw0283 said:


> Nice! That's a lot of sand! Looks like it could have taken more!
> I leveled a small area (about 2300 sq ft front yard) First time I did 4 tons and it ate it all. A year later I did the same amount and it was way too much! Which is a good sign.
> It's a never ending battle, every time I level my HOC lowers, every time my HOC is lowered I notice more areas that need leveling. :lol:
> The cycle continues.


Yep, I totally get it and see why people level Year after year. This is my first year mowing with a reel, and my normal HOC this year has been 0.550" because it scalps if I go any lower. I'm fact, it is too bumpy to even scalp at all because some places will just dig into the ground. So, the sand level this year will help me do a proper scalp next year so that I can do an even more proper leveling job, so that I can lower my HOC to 3/8ths.


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## Boy_meets_lawn (Sep 27, 2020)

Looks like that was the best way to level that amount of space. Let me know if you need a hand next time, I've got a friend with a Classen aerator which in my opinion is easier to operate then the Ryan.

I collected my cores and dont know that I would do it again, took me like 4 hours with a backpack blower.

Why did you choose zoysia over say celebration for that smaller front area?


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Boy_meets_lawn said:


> Looks like that was the best way to level that amount of space. Let me know if you need a hand next time, I've got a friend with a Classen aerator which in my opinion is easier to operate then the Ryan.
> 
> I collected my cores and dont know that I would do it again, took me like 4 hours with a backpack blower.
> 
> Why did you choose zoysia over say celebration for that smaller front area?


I might take you up on that Classen next time. It would at least be good to try something different to get an idea. As far as I can tell, things seem to be going pretty good without having picked up the cores. I think the only way I would ever attempt to pick them up is if I had some equipment to do it, some type of lawn sweeper or a used golf course core collector.

In the renovation section, I just want to do a test plot of zoysia to see if I like it. It's an easy enough space to redo whenever I want, so I could see myself changing it to a different Bermuda in a few years. I already have a few Zoysia plots under some trees where I can compare it to Bermuda, but it's to early to tell if it will live in shaded areas where Bermuda cant live. I have about 2 acres that aren't irrigated or planted with any type of grass, so this is all a test to reno those areas sometime down the road.


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## Boy_meets_lawn (Sep 27, 2020)

I will be trying a lawn sweeper next time I aerate this year but if doesn't work out ill just leave them.

Sounds like you have a good plan.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Today is the 4th day since the sand went down, and it is growing back quickly. We just got about 1.3" of rain, but it seems like it was gentle enough not to wash anything away.


And, I even noticed some grass peaking its head up from beneath 2" to 3" of sand near one section of concrete. The lawn was well below the concrete before the sand leveling. I thought about cutting out the sod, adding sand underneath, and then putting the sod back. But instead I just covered it in 2-3" of sand.


I can already tell that in 3 or 4 days I am going to be fighting the urge to get out there and mow. I want to wait as long as possible to minimize sand in the reel. But yesterday, it also got its first shot of fertilizer this season and I'm sure it's about to take off.


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## SeanBB (Jul 11, 2020)

Yea baby! lookin good!


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

It's been two weeks since I sprayed the renovation area. So I sprayed it with the second round of glyphosate and Clethodim, this time I remembered to add surfactant. It's pretty brown for the most part, but you can definitely see greenish areas where the Bermuda was going to hang on and make a comeback. The greenish streaks look like my spraying ability could really use some improvement.


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## Lawniac (Jul 25, 2020)

Looks good! The front also looks to be filling in quickly after the topdress.


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## monsonman (Dec 9, 2020)

Nice work!! That is going to look fantastic ones it recovers


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

monsonman said:


> Nice work!! That is going to look fantastic ones it recovers


Thanks!


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Here's the sand leveling with one full week of growth. From this angle, it really looks like it is growing back in nicely and very dense and green in a few spots. The further away you are, the better it looks. The grass at the far end of this photo looks like it's dense from this far away.


But here is a close up photo of what the nicest looking dense green spot in the entire lawn looks like standing right on top of it.


I'm not worried at all. It's still just one week of growth, and this project will be totally worth it. I think the next month will show some amazing results.


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## Boy_meets_lawn (Sep 27, 2020)

Get the PGR ready!


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Boy_meets_lawn said:


> Get the PGR ready!


I went to siteone in katy and bought the 2.5 gallon jug of T-Nex for $301, I asked them to price match Domyown, and they even beat them by $20.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Here's an update on the 500sq ft renovation area that im changing from Tifway 419 to Zeon Zoysia.

On the morning of 6/2/2021, this is what the area looked like before its first round of Glyphosate and Clethodim


6/10/2021


6/16/2021
Round 2 of Glyphosate and Clethodim

I then applied 150lbs of Sulfur (300 lbs/M rate) and 5lbs of citric acid (10lbs/M rate) to try to bring my 8.2 soil pH down.

After some grading work on 7/11/2021


This week I am going to add another 50lbs of sulfur and 5lbs citric, which will bring the entire amount added to 400lbs/M and 20lbs/M.

Plan for the next couple of weeks.
Week #1. 
Sulfur, Citric, Glyphosate, and Clethodim. At this point spraying Gly and clethodim seems unnecessary. The site looks like a nuclear wasteland. But, I'm going to spray anyway just to be sure there's nothing trying to live through this torture.

Week #2
Irrigate

Week #3: Sprigs in

Since its a small area, I can basically sprig with whatever rate I want. I plan on 1,000 bushel/acre rate. Which comes down to only needing 11-12 bushels of sprigs. Which I will make with a pro-plugger and wood chipper.

Add 1" sand cap and level.
Continue to irrigate renovation site so that the soil has moisture in it. Continue to irrigate the site that will furnish the plugs/sprigs
10-20-10 Fert down at rate of 1 lbs N/M

July 28th, 
1. Rent Wood Chipper in the morning.
2. Pull 230 plugs in the afternoon. (The pro-plugger pulls 2" diameter plugs, every 4 plugs is 1 sqft, and 5sqft of sod makes 1 bushel of sprigs. I'll get the kids to keep them hosed down and wet in buckets and gorilla cart while I pull the rest of the plugs)
3. Wood chipper the plugs into sprigs
4. Hand spread the sprigs until they're all gone
6. Sand top-dress the sprigs with the Eco-250
7. Drive over the area with Zero Turn mower to crimp the sprigs in.
8. Roll with JD 260SL with full crass catcher
9. Water every hour totaling 1"/day for 2 weeks.

Thanks to @Greendoc and @osuturfman for information on how to make sprigs and rates to spread them, and rolling and watering . I've probably messed it up somehow, especially with the order of top dressing and driving on with zero turn, but I think I've got the general idea.


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## Boy_meets_lawn (Sep 27, 2020)

Sounds like a great plan. Your pH in that section section should be looking good. Have you been spraying the citric acid on the rest of the yard?


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

Wow great journal. Now I understand your desire to supplement potable water irrigation. Nice to see the sweat equity you've put in, I can definetley relate doing it on a large scale! How fast does that top dresser throw sand out of the hopper? Looks like it holds a 1/2 yard or so right? I'm working on a 12 yard delivery by hand so perhaps on the next load I'll rent one of those.

I may have missed it by why are you converting Tifway to Zoysia in areas?


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

cglarsen said:


> Wow great journal. Now I understand your desire to supplement potable water irrigation. Nice to see the sweat equity you've put in, I can definetley relate doing it on a large scale! How fast does that top dresser throw sand out of the hopper? Looks like it holds a 1/2 yard or so right? I'm working on a 12 yard delivery by hand so perhaps on the next load I'll rent one of those.
> 
> I may have missed it by why are you converting Tifway to Zoysia in areas?


Thanks. The top-dresser can hold about 500 lbs of product. It has a gate that opens and closes to adjust the rate of application. With the gate wide open (which is how I have always run it), it can throw out 500 lbs of sand in about 20-30 seconds.

As far as the 500 sqft Zoysia renovation, there's really not a great reason for it. I'm kind of just using this little section as a test plot to determine if I like it more than Bermuda. I have a few other sections of Zoysia planted next to Bermuda, and it typically looks more green, and also seems to be doing better in the shade under some of my trees than the Bermuda. But, I want to give it all a little time before I make a decision on changing anything in the rest of the yard.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I was out of town for a week around July 4th. With no PGR applications beforehand, the lawn was tall when I got back home.

I used this as an opportunity to reset the HOC, so I scalped it down to 0.375". The stripes looked good, but the color did not.
*The flower beds are pretty barren after the freeze killed off a bunch of stuff. I have nothing but good things to say about the Snapshot pre-M that I've been using in the beds. Its keeping them very clean (except it doesn't provide protection against sedge).

The focus of this journal so far has been on the reel mowed front yard. I basically think about my lawn in three categories.
1. Reel mowed, irrigated, tif 419(12-15k sqft)
2. ZTR mowed, irrigated, tif419 (25k sqft)
3. ZTR mowed , natural, unimproved (2 acres)

The unimproved area doesn't drain very well, and when I have wet weather, there are areas that can hold water for days. The sedge loves this and I have some areas that are 99% sedge. I haven't sprayed anything to manage the sedge. I don't want to waste time and effort on the area until I come up with a plan for drainage, and grading.

Here's what a sedge field looks like for its weekly mowing

*the ZTR mower blades' edges wear down quickly, and they are overdue for a sharpening

Update on the reno area:
The area looks like a nuclear wasteland, but I noticed something as I was raking dead Bermuda up yesterday.

It is the only living thing on this entire 500 sqft. The leaves are sprouting out of one stolon that isn't completely dry, and there are another couple stolons right next to it that also have some moisture/green hue. 
Last week I would have said the area is 100% dead. Now, I would love to say that these two or three stolons are the only living plants. But, I've learned my lesson. Never underestimate Bermuda. If there are a few living plants, I'm betting there are dozens more. One last chemical application will go down today. If anything lives through this application, they will get treated next year. I need to get the Zoysia sprigs down in a couple weeks so they have time to grow in before winter.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I think I am going to change my normal pop up sprinkler heads in this section to MP Rotators. There are heads running down the left and right side of this picture. There isn't quite head to head coverage as the water only shoots about 3/4ths of the way across the area. Because of this, the middle of the area gets more water than the edges and water starts running off and down the driveway.



There are a couple reasons. 
1. Better coverage. I think with MP rotators, I will have head to head coverage.
2. I would like to get a little bit slower precip rate. At the rate of the pop-up heads, it puts out 1/2" in about 10 minutes and the water runs off pretty quickly. There are solutions to this specific problem if it were my only problem.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Update on the Zeon Zoysia Sprig Project.
I finally had some free time to rent the wood chipper this weekend to attempt to spread sprigs over the area. I don't want to call it a complete failure, because I think eventually I will have a grown in area. But there were multiple flaws in my plan. Learn from my mistake.

Mistake #1. Using plugs as stock for making sprigs just isn't worth it. If you're pulling plugs, go ahead and plant them as plugs. If you want to make sprigs, rent a sod cutter or just buy sod to make the sprigs.


Mistake #2. I tried to remove as much dirt as possible before sending the plugs through the wood chipper. The plugs are coming from an area of the yard that has never been topdressed. Since they are going into an area with a sand cap, I only want grass sprigs going on top of the sand, with as little dirt as possible. Washing the sprigs make them too wet to work well in the wood chipper.

Mistake #3. Renting a wood chipper with a vertical chute outlet. I think many wood chippers have an adjustable outlet, or an outlet at a 45 degree angle. Those would be better for making sprigs. The vertical outlet wouldn't allow the grass to flow out, and it just kept clogging. If I turned the throttle up high enough that it would consistently throw grass out, it would vaporize the plugs and wouldn't make viable sprigs.


At the end of the day, instead of constantly taking the chipper apart to clear the clogged outlet, I just pulled a bunch of plugs, washed them, and then picked them apart by hand as I walked around the area spreading the torn off pieces. The area is only 500 sqft, and it took all day to do this.

I have the sprinker set to run 5 minutes every hour from 9am until 8pm. Here's what it looks like at the moment.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

One week update on the sprigs. I have the sprinklers running every hour. It has been a pain trying to keep the leaves off this area. I just pick them by hand.

Here's what the sprig project looks like after one week.


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## CenlaLowell (Apr 21, 2017)

You switching your whole yard to zoysia?


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

CenlaLowell said:


> You switching your whole yard to zoysia?


I'm not quite ready to make a leap like that yet. I want to see what this section looks and feels like first. I also want to see what kind of disease pressure I have with the zoysia. I haven't mentioned it, but I also have about 150 sqft of Zoysia planted right next to some Bermuda underneath a tree that I'm testing to see if it performs any better in the shade.


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## CenlaLowell (Apr 21, 2017)

Deltahedge said:


> CenlaLowell said:
> 
> 
> > You switching your whole yard to zoysia?
> ...


I would love to learn from your experience because I'm switching to Bermuda and eventually I will have a shade problem in areas


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

CenlaLowell said:


> Deltahedge said:
> 
> 
> > CenlaLowell said:
> ...


Yeah, I will snap a photo of the area under the tree this week to show you what it looks like. That section is rotary mowed at about 1.5" just FYI.


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## traderntexas (Jul 20, 2019)

How are your sprigs looking?


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

traderntexas said:


> How are your sprigs looking?


The sprigs themselves look great amd have taken root and started growing. However, the actual sprigged area doesn't look all that great. I needed to use a much higher sprig rate. The small areas that were sprigged the heaviest look fine but lighter areas will take a while to grow in. It hasn't gone so bad that I wouldn't consider sprigging another area, but I have learned a few things along the way.


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## traderntexas (Jul 20, 2019)

How is your sprigged area looking these days? I've got Cavalier Zoysia that I'm considering doing the same thing you are.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Here's an update on the sprigs.

The sprigged area looks pretty bad. It's probably bad enough that I would consider it a failure. But, I think it will make it, and fill in at some point, but, I have learned enough that I would definitely consider doing it again another time if the situation requires it.

The main lesson is to make sure you sprig the area with PLENTY of time left in the growing season. I assumed planting in mid-august would have left enough time for them to take deep roots and fill in pretty good, however, this was not the case. In my area, if I ever plant sprigs again, I will try to get them in the ground in the first part of June, but no later than June 30th. That would have given them another 6-8 weeks of growth last season, and I think that would have been enough to get moderate coverage out of the area.



I decided to plug the worst areas.


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## cnet24 (Jul 14, 2017)

Do you plan on continuing this thread for your 2022 journal? Would love to follow along and appreciate the detailed posts.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

cnet24 said:


> Do you plan on continuing this thread for your 2022 journal? Would love to follow along and appreciate the detailed posts.


I hadn't really thought about it. It's probably a good time to start a new thread.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

cnet24 said:


> Do you plan on continuing this thread for your 2022 journal? Would love to follow along and appreciate the detailed posts.


I created a new journal to capture everything from here forward HERE!


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