# KLS259's Lawn Journal



## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

A little background, I live in Atlanta, GA and have been in this house for 3 years now. Over the course of this time, the lawn has transformed quite a bit but no real progression so to speak. There have been incremental steps and set backs based on the weather and my desire for a better yard. I mainly concentrate on the backyard as that is where we spend most of the time and it requires the most work.

Back in 2018 was my first attempt at working on the yard and establishing more grass. The first attempt (2018) and second (2019) attempt were with Fescue which I had no problem establishing but during the summer it thinned out quite a bit as well as the stress from the dogs and also their urine/burning. Over time I have thinned out the trees myself and just recently had a few trees removed to allow more sunlight in the backyard. The other issue is that it never dries out except in the summer during the hottest months which makes it hard for the grass to survive.

With all that said, I had 3 larger trees removed (wife wouldn't let me remove the one on the right side of the hill :? ) from the backyard which will allow much more sunlight in the back to help remedy the wet/muddy landscape as well as allow the potential for a warm season grass (Bermuda). In the interim, I prepared the backyard for another re-seed (SPF 30 ***) and I brought in additional top soil and compost and leveled it as best as possible given the time frame I was working with.

I would like to see how SPF 30 KBG holds up when the warmer months come about. I was not prepared for the long establishment time frame and so far I do like the grass itself. It does seem to spread decently and I feel that I need to give something a chance for more than a year to establish. If it does burn up during the summer I will consider putting Bermuda in the back. I'm a bit wary of the yard getting enough sunlight for Bermuda since there is substantial blockage from the trees in the yard to the left of my backyard.

2017


2018


2019 - added the correct photo for 2019.


2020 - SPF 30 KBG @ 2 inches. left side added drainage to help. I'll show details in a follow up post.


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## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

Prepped the backyard for the fall. Removed dead grass/thatch manually with a rake. Next year I will buy a dethatcher or at least split up the raking. After, I applied PGR, Iron, and Urea. We'll see how the lawn looks in a few days or a week. I'm planning on maintaining it at or below 2 inches. I'm currently cutting the grass every other day at 2 inches and it still grows a little too much.


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## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

Cut to 1.5 inches today. I still have some longer grass laying down. Going to maintain at 1.5 inches until the grass gets used to it and it continue to cool down a bit more. It's been a year since the grass was cut this low.

At the moment it's hard to tell but the backyard needs to be leveled. I don't think that will happen this year but it depends on how well it does growing short and thickens up between now and then.


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## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

Another shot today... keeping track of it. I'm going to work on the edging around the creek bed to make it more crisp. I started on some of it when I was weed eating and I'm liking how it looks and it may make it easier to cut around.


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## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

Down to one inch and this is right before the second PGR application.

You can see many more urine burn spots filled with compost and sand mixture. it's going to take time to recover.


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## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

Cut at 1 inch. This is nearing the end of the second application of PGR. I think I hit it a little too hard on the second application either with PGR or Nitrogen. As you can see the less mature, thinner blades of grass died off or were stressed/burnt. What's left is the thicker blades of grass. The color and texture looks better. Of course I can't get around the dog urine spots. I water them in, the wife doesn't always, sometimes the dog only goes in the mulch. Just part of the battle.

I'm going to continue to apply PGR and Nitro and see how it fills in over the fall/winter. Definitely have some leveling to do.


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## CenlaLowell (Apr 21, 2017)

What made you put the KBG in the lawn?


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## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

It's hard to tell, but there were a lot more trees when we moved in (look at 2017 up until now). The backyard had fescue and with the dogs and urine burning it was tough to keep up. I was also new to fescue/cool season grasses. In addition, with all of the trees I didn't think the backyard would get enough direct sunlight for Bermuda. Since then, I had a smaller magnolia removed, a massive oak tree, and another large tree that I'm not sure what species it was. Based on this past year I would say that 95% of the yard gets enough sunlight. I'm trying to convince the wife to allow me to remove the other massive oak tree but I also see benefit in it remaining.

If I could go back, I would seed Arden 15 instead of the KBG although I do enjoy the soft blades of grass and it being green all year. I think this spring I will attempt a bluemuda backyard with Arden 15. Part of it keeps me busy and I enjoy a challenge.


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## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

Battled a lot of heat, fungus, and disease towards the end of last year. The yard has been in recovery. I plan on moving to Bermuda in the spring/summer but split between what to do... Here is a picture of the cut today at 1.25 inches. With all the warmer weather the grass grew a lot in a week.


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## klsmith259 (Oct 6, 2020)

scalped and leveled the yard with white sand. 3 tons hoping to help with it being so bumpy while the grass recovers.


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