# Coloradograss lawn journal - Improving Northern mix



## coloradograss (May 3, 2020)

Hey everyone,

First post on this forum and excited to get started on improving my lawn! I live in Fort Collins, CO along the Front Range. I will admit that I am a novice to lawncare and stumbled on this site 4 weeks ago, mostly because of the increased yard projects that I've been able to think about with stay-at-home orders. I have been learning a ton. Figured I would start a log to track my progress.

Brief backstory: Bought home fall 2018, did major renovations for a year which involved a lot of construction equipment that tore up a fair amount of the lawn. Lawn I believe is a northern mix. Some landscapers put in KBG sod last summer after construction on bare spots. I didn't know what to do last fall so I dethatched, aerated, and overseeded with a 80% TTTF/10% PRG/10%KBG mix. The lawn is about 20k sqft and has a complicated, 15 zone irrigation system that I need to understand more. Lots of sun and typical Colorado clay soil. Based on what I read early on here, on 4/15 I put down prodiamine with 1lb N/ksqft.

Below are some pics of the lawn currently. As you can see, a mix with some bare patches and thinning.

Here are my goals/plans for the next 3 months. I see myself striving to become a Tier 2 type of guy for now.
1. Get a soil test
2.Put down a post-emergent (tons of dandelions) with 1lb N/ksq ft around Memorial Day
3. Learn my irrigation system, with plans for deep, infrequent watering
4. Mow 2x/week, currently HOC in 3", may increase over the summer
5. Calibrate my tow spreader

I am open to any input you all would have! I have the following specific questions:
1. Is there a particular tool to use for soil sampling? For a lawn my size, can I get away with one test or do I need multiple?
2. Is there a tutorial on how to manipulate sprinkler heads?
3. On one of my trees (pictured), there are shallow roots and a slope where no grass is growing. Is it realistic to have grass grow here or should I extend the rock bed more to cover it up?
4. For grass that seems dead, is there any benefit to scalping/removing them now in hopes that some KBG around it will fill it in?
5. For the fall, would you recommend overseeding or just developing regular practices? There are a decent amount bare spots which I'd like to address and the wide blade grass (tall fescue?) is pretty ugly mixed in with the other grasses. If I do go down the route of overseeding, what mix would you recommend? I was thinking 80% TTTF/20% PRG based on what I've read so far, but open to suggestions.
Thanks!


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## coloradograss (May 3, 2020)

5/20 put down Scott's Weed N Feed at bag rate (0.8N/M)

From now till August I'm just planning on optimizing my irrigation system and mowing frequently. Questions I have currently:
1. I'm thinking of overseeding in mid August. I'm debating between TTTF vs PRG, gonna stay away from KBG based on what I've read here. Any thought on what to pick? Luckily I found a local seed company that sells both seeds with no weed seed for around $2/lb.
2. I have some mild bumps throughout the property. Thoughts on leveling now vs at time of overseed vs next year once things are more established?


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## coloradograss (May 3, 2020)

6/1 sprayed Weed B Gon + crabgrass
6/10 sprayed Weed B Gon + CCO

Installed Rachio gen 3 and it seems to be watering a few times a week. It's been calculating a crop ET rate of 0.20-0.25 daily so I'm assuming it's just trying to keep up.

Grass overall seems to be steadily improving. I do have one area that I have questions on, pictured in the final 3 pictures. What is this? Fungus? It seems to be getting adequate water. My rider mower does go over that area a lot as that is the connection between my front and back yard.


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## coloradograss (May 3, 2020)

Have been very delinquent about this lawn journal but lots of updates.

I spent the second half of June and most of July doing two things 1) digging out my mulch beds and 2) optimizing my sprinklers. Digging out the mulch beds took way longer than anticipated and I didn't realize how much dirt I would have to dispose of. The bed just in front of our home in about 800 sq ft and it was dirty rock with ragged bushes. We decided to pull everything out and put down mulch. I hired some college students to help me out, cause there was no way I would have finished all of that myself this season.

I also jumped into FAS and PGR and have put down my first two applications, first on 7/16, second on 8/2. FAS was 4.0/3.4 and TNEX was 0.3. Definitely noticed the need to mow less, can't say that I noticed a big change in the greenness of the grass.

I am now knee deep in my overseed project. I decided to purchase 100lbs of 100% PRG from a local seed company with no weed seeds. At the last minute I was temped to do a reno, but I decided to do a test reno this season with my side area that is about 650 sq ft.

I have already finished two rounds of glypho a week apart from each other and I aerated yesterday. Today I took the string trimmer to the dead and mowed at 1.75 (have been mowing at 2.5 generally). Tomorrow I plan to level and have 14 cu yds of material in my driveway - 9 cu yds of topsoil/compost mix and 5 tons of sand. I also bought a 5'x3' drag mat, which was only $84 from target when I purchased it last week:
https://www.target.com/p/yard-tuff-ytf-53hpdm-atv-utv-5-x-3-zinc-plated-field-surface-leveling-drag-mat/-/A-76024121

Saturday is seed down. Plan to light rake, seed, peat moss bare spot, rent a roller and roll everything, and finally spray with tenacity. I decided to do tenacity last minute since I'm bringing in the topsoil with no time to fallow.

I might be a week early with seed down but we will all be out of town for the next week, and not having 3 kids on the lawn will be priceless. I plan to put the sprinklers on 4 times a day.

Here is how things look after tonight. Pretty beat up.


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## coloradograss (May 3, 2020)

The last few days were busy but we're done! Here's what happened:

Friday, 8/7: Moved 14 cu yards (9 topsoil/compost mix, 5 sand) over the yard and level with a steel rake and drag mat. The drag mat didn't work as well as I thought - generally if the pile was more than a couple of inches it would largely just go over it. I added a couple cinder blocks which helped a little. With two other guys helping it took us 4 hours total.

Saturday 8/8: Put down 100% PRG, 4lbs/k in the overseed areas, 8lbs/k in the reno area. Used the hand spreader for all edges and small areas and the tow spreader for the two larger areas of 9k sqft and 7k sq ft.

After that rented a lawn roller from HD and pulled it using the mower. Surprisingly quick.

Peat moss over the bare areas and weed areas that I had killed. This took a lot longer than I thought. I did it by hand and distributed 6 bales over around 3k sq ft. Took about 4 hours.

Wanted to spray tenacity at the end but didn't have time. Ended up doing that Sunday morning, 4oz/acre rate.

Here's how it look after all this. Most consecutive work I've put into the grass but hopefully it's worth it!

With putting seed down with temps still hot, my plan is to water each zone for 5 minutes 5x/day.


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## coloradograss (May 3, 2020)

Got back into town 8 days after seed down, very curious as to how things had gone. Unfortunately, we had temperatures in the 90s for most of the days, with lows in the 60s. I ended up running MP rotators 5 minutes 4x/day.

Overall, there is a wide spectrum with how things are coming in. My renovation area appears to be coming in the best. Other areas of overseeding seem to be coming in, but others do not seem to have started, which seems concerning for PRG.

I had about 4lbs of leftover seed and put it down in bare patches. I may purchase another 10lbs to reseed in a few weeks.

I'm assuming the variable germination rate is due primarily to keeping the seed moist? When I got back I spent some time to make sure there was full coverage, and I increased watering time to 5 min 5 times a day.

Currently new grass is about 2 inches (11 days after seed down). My plan is to mow with a electric (light) mower in 4 days, holding watering for 24 hours prior. On that day I also plan to spoon feed urea at 0.25lb/k...I didn't put any fertilizer at seed down.


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## coloradograss (May 3, 2020)

8/22 mow
8/22 0.25lb urea
8/29 seed down #2
8/29 0.25lb urea

We're now almost 3.5 weeks after initial seed down. Last weekend I put down some more seed on areas that I thought were bare. I wasn't planning on putting down much but it ended up being about 20lbs for my 20k sqft lawn. I'm assuming that if the PRG hasn't germinated yet it isn't going to. Due to time constraints, I didn't top dress this second layer of seed. Hoping that regular watering and stepping them down will be enough.

My water bill is already through the roof, but this week I figured I need to step up my water frequency. I'm hoping if I am extremely vigilant this week, it will pay off. There are some areas where the sprinklers don't get well that I'll hand water twice a day.

Overall, though, things seem to be improving!

I've already spoon fed urea twice. I plan to do two more spoon feeding sessions weekly, followed by 0.5lbN every two weeks.


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## coloradograss (May 3, 2020)

8/29 0.25 urea
9/9 0.25 urea
9/12 0.25 urea
9/16 0.25 urea

Things continue to take shape, and what I'm most pleasantly surprised by is the dark green color that the lawn has never had before. I do feel like there is some color inconsistency, which I guess should be expected with an overseed. It may be tempting to do a partial reno next year, but we'll see how things look next year.

The 600 sq ft reno area still has some inconsistent growth. I put seed down again in that area with some improvement. Should I expect PRG to thicken as the year goes on, or is my coverage at 45 days gonna be what I get?

We've got wildfires here in CO so irrigation is banned starting on 10/1. Very glad I laid seed down early (8/6). Plan for two more apps of urea, 0.25 on 9/24 and 0.5 on 9/30.


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