# Bermuda_Newbie's Lawn Journal



## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

This year I finally got the yard I thought I wanted. I've lived here for 4 years and the previous owners had originally put in fescue in the front yard and it appears had added a second layer of fescue sod (without removing the first) years later when it needed a facelift. By the time I bought it, it was neighborhood miscellaneous grass with some fescue in spots. The tax return was good this year so we redid the backyard and front yard. It ended up being a much larger project (lights, new plants, etc.) but it looked fantastic in the beginning. Here's a picture of it right after it was done in the day and at night.









I didn't know much about taking care of grass at that point. I had a gardener and figured he'd take care of keeping it nice. I have Tifway in the backyard and that is what sucked me in to yard maintenance. I've since gotten a reel mower, sprayer, fertilizer, and I'm hooked.

Our fescue looked good in April. Then it started to have trouble with the heat and began to have dead spots. The more I researched how to fix it, the more I learned what a mistake it was for me to put fescue in the front yard. It's incredibly hot here (over 100 dry heat) for June, July, and August. It's normal hot from the middle of May to June and September through October. We chose fescue for the front because it's what was there before. Our house is about 14 years old. All of the track homes built from about 1990 to present in the area have fescue in the front unless they have redone it. It's what all the builders put in the included landscaping. I have no idea why. We didn't really even consider getting a different type of grass.

I got advice from the cool season people and our gardener. For research, my husband and I drove around for about two hours to look at different houses in our city and see if fescue was working for someone in this area. What we saw was that almost all the fescue lawns looked horrible after a few years because it eventually became a bedlam of what we call watergrass around here and crabgrass. I saw hundreds of houses with fescue and maybe 3 of them look ok. What it boiled down to was yeah it was possible to keep a fescue yard in this climate but cool season grasses are a ton of extra work here. I realized how much extra water (I'm on a meter) and money it would be to keep up the fescue. I would need to overseed every year and it would look bad for a couple of months out of the year. Below is some pictures of just a few of the many damaged places in the fescue from the last 3 months.









We talked for a while about sunk costs. Our yard wasn't terrible yet. We could let it sit for a few years until it became the mess that it was when we started. It was expensive to have the previous salad/fescue lawn taken out and the new fescue sod brought in. It was going to be expensive still to water, overseed, and fertilizer our yard every year to keep it looking ok. The biggest issue with keeping the fescue is the lack of self-repair. I have an electrical panel box in my grass that kills the grass around it every summer because of the heat. It also seems to die around my driveway. Bermuda will fill back in when it's cooler. Now that we have Bermuda in the back, we both agreed we prefer the look of Bermuda anyway. I read on here about plugging Bermuda and was encouraged to try it. I bought a ProPlugger that arrived today. Below are pictures of the plugs I did today in some of my fescue dead spots. They are a little hard to see so I did some closeups. I'll take better pictures tomorrow or maybe circle the plugs in MS Paint.















I did 4" plugs from the corner of my backyard. I watered them after I put them in. The sprinklers run tomorrow morning as well so we should be good there. The ProPlugger worked great. I had a little bit of trouble because at 100 lbs, I don't weigh enough to go through the grass standing on the ProPlugger. I've had this problem with the tire iron as well. It means a lot of stomping and pushing with my arms. I could only do about 7 or 8 of them. It was also 100 degrees at 7pm. It took me a half hour to do just those plugs. I'm going to do more tomorrow but have my husband help pull the plugs so it will go faster. I think a better technique would be to get a container and pull them all in the front, do the same in the back and only make one trip. I'm also going fertilize tomorrow. I have Lesco 22-5-7 granular. (I think that was the numbers). It's slow release and it's supposed to last 2 months. I'm going to follow erdons plan of sprinkling some fertilizer on there every week. I know it's not the same kind of fertilizer but it's what I have in my shed.

The plan going forward is to do 3 or 4 every day since I've got a fair amount of dead spots to fill. In a week or two, I should have all the dead spots filled in with a fair amount of plugs. We'll see how long it takes to spread. I told my gardener to just mow normal over the plugs and we'll see what happens. I have no idea what to do with the fescue as the bermuda starts to fill in. I'm hoping I didn't just ruin my front yard. If anyone has any comments or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

There you go, now you are on your way. Your backyard lawn looks so much better imo.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

I have some berfescue in an area where I'm getting rid of the bermuda. It actually looks pretty good from a reasonable distance when it's all green in the Summer here and folks who aren't into turf will comment on how good it looks.

The slightest weakness in the fescue during the heat of Summer and the bermuda tries to really take off. If the bermuda is allowed to do its thing unchecked, I suspect it won't be more than 2 or 3 years before you have plenty of bermuda and only a few patches of fescue left to kill off.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Delmarva Keith said:


> I have some berfescue in an area where I'm getting rid of the bermuda. It actually looks pretty good from a reasonable distance when it's all green in the Summer here and folks who aren't into turf will comment on how good it looks.
> 
> The slightest weakness in the fescue during the heat of Summer and the bermuda tries to really take off. If the bermuda is allowed to do its thing unchecked, I suspect it won't be more than 2 or 3 years before you have plenty of bermuda and only a few patches of fescue left to kill off.


I'm hoping I can get it going quicker if I just keep adding plugs to all the dead spots and eventually to strategic live spots. I have until probably November for my growing season so it's got a good amount of time. I'm trying to figure out how to encourage it to grow without my yard looking like crap for two years. It's a fun experiment either way. I love watching the progress of my grass. I should have been a farmer


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> Delmarva Keith said:
> 
> 
> > I have some berfescue in an area where I'm getting rid of the bermuda. It actually looks pretty good from a reasonable distance when it's all green in the Summer here and folks who aren't into turf will comment on how good it looks.
> ...


Remember fertilizer will be key, if you really want to try to push it, get some urea 46-0-0 fertilizer.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

erdons said:


> Bermuda_Newbie said:
> 
> 
> > Delmarva Keith said:
> ...


Does it matter the time of day that you fertilize? Does it increase the chances of burning if you do it in the morning vs evening?


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Tbh I don't think it matters, but I find I always do it in the evening after work.


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## Rackhouse Mayor (Sep 4, 2017)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> The ProPlugger worked great. I had a little bit of trouble because at 100 lbs, I don't weigh enough to go through the grass standing on the ProPlugger. I've had this problem with the tire iron as well. It means a lot of stomping and pushing with my arms. I could only do about 7 or 8 of them. It was also 100 degrees at 7pm. It took me a half hour to do just those plugs. I'm going to do more tomorrow but have my husband help pull the plugs so it will go faster. I think a better technique would be to get a container and pull them all in the front, do the same in the back and only make one trip.


I've had issues with the ProPlugger myself. Sometimes I can't get the plug to come out of the ground. I don't know what causes it. I just move to another spot. However, I minimize trips like you're talking about. I take my Gorilla Cart and load up about 30 plugs (or however many I need). Just be patient with it - using the ProPlugger is time consuming.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Saturday I didn't get to plugging as I had intended. Instead, we did lots of plugging on Sunday. I also fertilized with the fertilizer I have and ordered some 46-0-0. The plugging went much better with my husband stomping on the ProPlugger. It was easy for him. We did about 20 of them before the neighbors talked to us for a half hour and it got dark. Oh well. Here are some pictures of the new ones. I feel like some of these photos is like a find the object photo. It's a bit hard to see.













One of the difficulties I'm having is that the back yard is flat and the front yard is fairly sloped. It means my plugs aren't sitting in exactly flat. I'm a little concerned about this. My husband just plunked them down without paying attention to this. I think I may have to adjust in the future with a bit of extra dirt or sand or cut off part of it. At this rate, I'm going to have a crazy bumpy lawn. I know I can just sand it later but it's gonna be bad. See below



I'm really glad I decided to do this. Right now, I'm watering for 55 minutes three times a week and it's still not enough water.

Here is the lawn on July 14th



And here it is today





It's been in the triple digits for about 2 weeks now. My poor fescue can't handle it. It's time for it to go. Plugging is slightly addictive. I want to plug everything and have it go faster. I've contemplated getting the minimum number of rolls of sod (I think it's 10) and plugging away. Unfortunately, it's been so hot out, you can't really do anything unless it's at the crack of dawn or almost dark and then your'e fighting mosquitoes. We'll see how it goes. We are putting a shed in the backyard soon so there's a couple of feet of grass that will have to go that I'm currently using to plug. Let's hope the fertilizer helps speed this up. Any suggestions from anyone about the height of my fescue? Should I weed-eat it down around the plugs so the plugs grow faster?


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## sanders4617 (Jul 9, 2018)

I can't imagine having triple digits for that long. Is that normal there? We don't hit 100 much at all here, but we are swamped with humidity that smothers you when you walk outside, even at 87-90.

Fescue is hanging for dear life in those extreme temps though lol!


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

@sanders4617

Unfortunately, it's normal here until the second or third week of August. Then we are in the upper 90's through September. We got a reprieve of 98 on Saturday. That was nice. It's a dry heat though so it's much better than the humidity. The benefit for my bermuda is I have a long growing season. The downside is the air quality here is garbage. It's a valley so we trap all that nasty and breathe it in. No wonder so many people here have allergies and asthma.

Edit: I looked up historical temperatures. Last year it was over 100 for most of the time from June 18th to September 6th. A lot of people have pools here.


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Wow just read 55 minutes 3 times per week, that's a ton of water. Keep chugging along with those plugs, before you know it they will start getting furry to the sides and you'll know you're in business.


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## Rackhouse Mayor (Sep 4, 2017)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> One of the difficulties I'm having is that the back yard is flat and the front yard is fairly sloped. It means my plugs aren't sitting in exactly flat. I'm a little concerned about this. My husband just plunked them down without paying attention to this. I think I may have to adjust in the future with a bit of extra dirt or sand or cut off part of it. At this rate, I'm going to have a crazy bumpy lawn. I know I can just sand it later but it's gonna be bad. See below


It may help if you put the ProPlugger parallel to the slope of the yard. That way you're pulling out a square plug. It's a pain, but it's a lot like a golf swing - if you're on a big slope you want your shoulders parallel to the turf.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Rackhouse Mayor said:


> Bermuda_Newbie said:
> 
> 
> > One of the difficulties I'm having is that the back yard is flat and the front yard is fairly sloped. It means my plugs aren't sitting in exactly flat. I'm a little concerned about this. My husband just plunked them down without paying attention to this. I think I may have to adjust in the future with a bit of extra dirt or sand or cut off part of it. At this rate, I'm going to have a crazy bumpy lawn. I know I can just sand it later but it's gonna be bad. See below
> ...


That's a good idea. So far we just kind cut the bottom off to make it fit right and add some dirt when we needed it. We'll try that next time and see if it works better. It probably will be faster in the long run.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Plugging from the backyard has been slow and I don't particularly care for the damage done to my lawn. My daughter plays in the yard and I don't want a ton of dirt spots for her to dig in (she's 2). For the amount of plugs I'm going to need, plugging from the backyard is not sustainable if I want the plugs to have a chance to spread before the end of the year. I had originally thought the area I was plugging from was going to come up anyway because of a shed but now that's not going to happen.

So today I ordered the smallest amount of sod available (80sq ft) and am going to pick it up tomorrow morning. My plan is to to use one or two pieces to plug lots around the front yard and to pull up a large chunk of the fescue up away from the road where no one can see it and put down the remaining sod. The fescue sod actually comes up pretty easily from the edges. I can then plug from this when I feel like it since no one is walking on it. This will give me a fresh batch of plugs whenever it's cool enough to plug them. I'm also on a time limit with the heat. I can get back to my house around 8ish and maybe plug for an hour or two before it's unbearable (for me). I'm going to try and go out this evening and make a bunch of spots for the plugs so there is less to do in the heat. It's supposed to be 105 tomorrow so it's risky but I'll see what I can get done. I'm thinking 2" depth since the sod isn't particularly deep compared to plugging from the backyard where I was doing 4". Will update with pictures when it's done. Any advice?


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Good idea, that 80sq ft should probably be Enough for your whole make sure you keep that new sod wet, hopefully you can plug it all up right away so it doesn't dry out waiting to be planted.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

The best laid plans....

That was my day yesterday. I'll start back at the beginning. Friday night, my husband plugged almost 600 plugs with the proplugger. He has lots of health problems including joint issues and probably shouldn't have done this but he really wanted to help and I just couldn't do it myself. I was super impressed! Everything was ready for Saturday morning. Originally he was going to get the sod but when he woke up Saturday morning, he was in a lot of pain from the work from Friday night. I went to get sod about 40 minutes from my house, arrived at 7:30 and then on the way back, got a flat tire.



The tow truck couldn't find me (I was way out in the country). My husband, who I cannot sing enough praises for, packed up our daughter, drove out and with the help of a passerby, fixed the flat. By the time I got home, it was almost 11. My husband had bruises all over his hands from the proplugger and the adventures that morning. He couldn't grip anything and it was already in the 90's and smokey from nearby forest fires. A great setup for a great day. All in all, it was for the best though because the original way I had planned to plug wasn't going to work.

I tried to jump on the plugger on a variety of surfaces to get through the sod. As I've mentioned in the past, I'm 100lbs. Turns out 100lbs is not enough to get the ProPlugger through a piece of sod. That sod had some thick roots! I was super bummed that I just wasted all this time, had a ton of holes in my grass, and spent $45 + gas and a flat on nothing. It was supposed to be 105 and my sod was quickly drying out. In defeat, we put the grass under the patio, sprayed it down with water, and used some plastic sheeting and an extension cord around the bottom to seal in the water.

We started brainstorming about what else we could do. I posted on the board in desperation and several people had the best ideas. @TN Hawkeye suggested a knife to cut it into squares or a sawzaw. @Greendoc gave me a step by step on what to do with plugging a square sod piece in a round hole. He told me to cut the sod into 1.5 in square pieces, drop it in the hole, and cover it with sand up to the ground level. That was something I could do but still needed a little help. I went to the store and got some play sand and cutting supplies.

My sisters who had the day off came to the rescue. The showed up and about 4pm, we went out and cut up the pieces of sod. We started with a saw zaw wood blade inserted into a reciprocating saw handle. Cutting it by hand this was slow. We attempted the saw zaw. I remember reading about someone wanting to put sod in a wood chipper for stolons so I thought shaking the heck out of it wouldn't be that bad. We rolled it up tight like a hoho and sawed off as close to 1.5 inch pieces as we could. I used the handled blade and cut up the strips into pieces while my sisters shoved them in the holes and put sand on them. We finished all of the plugs by 8:30pm. It may not be perfect but it can always be sanded again later.



My sisters working the saw zaw.





It was incredibly hot, even in the shade from the fence. All in all, it wasn't terrible though. Would I do it again? Probably not. I would probably have just bought sod and dealt with that whole thing. But I saved myself about $500 + cost of a dumpster to get rid of the current sod. That brings me to the end of my story.

The smallest amount of sod I could buy was 80 sq ft (10 rolls). I thought using the ProPlugger to make holes could do about 128 per roll allowing for a little extra around it. Well, doing it the way we did, we used 3 rolls. The front area of my house didn't have any holes in it so we ripped up some of the sod and laid down the rest of the 7 pieces. The sod pulled up very easily. It's been in for 4 months, should it have come up with just tugging it? It was super heavy because we thought we were going have to pull it up with a shovel so we ran the sprinklers to make sure it was easier to pull up. My sister pulled up most of the sod in flip flop wedges (those are heels guys). She's amazing. They didn't know what work they would be doing when they headed over and they still got all that done. It was 10:30pm when we finished. Here are the photos.

















It's a little hard to see the holes which I guess is kind of a good thing from the neighbors perspective. As we were working, my neighbor across the way stopped by to tell me how beautiful my yard was and that we did a great job with the new landscaping. Of course...as I'm tearing it all up. My grass is going to be beautiful though once it's in. Seeing the sod laid out all nice makes me sort of wish we would have just done it like that and cut around all the curves. I may get another 10 pieces at some point and do the rest of the lower half. My other plugs are doing pretty well there and I only had to disturb one of them to lay the sod.

This probably looks a lot different than what Greendoc was talking about with the plugs and sand but it was in the middle of fescue so it's going to be a little different. If even half of them take, it's a really good start. My plan is to keep cutting the fescue high (4") for another month or so until the sod is well established and hopefully the zombie Bermuda pops up from the sand. Then once I've got enough Bermuda, we'll take it down low which will allow the Bermuda to take off. Once it starts popping up, I'll begin fertilizing it unless I should do that on the sand spots before they spring up. I don't know much about fertilizing so if anyone has some info on this, I'd love some direction.

My fingers hurt from gripping the knife and the sod. My back hurts from all the lifting, twisting, sitting funny, etc. Today we can barely move. I'm going to keep watering the sod so it stays moist. I don't really remember the sod rules but I'll go back and look it up. Because it's a small section, I can water it by hand easily.

Thank you again @Greendoc, @TN Hawkeye and @erdons .


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Wow now that is what I call perseverance and teamwork.


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Great job! You've got irrigation on your side, just keep hydrated, have some Aleve on hand, and you'll do just fine. It's been said that if you can grow fingernails, you can grow bermuda.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Colonel K0rn said:


> Great job! You've got irrigation on your side, just keep hydrated, have some Aleve on hand, and you'll do just fine. It's been said that if you can grow fingernails, you can grow bermuda.


Thanks! I'm hoping that's the case. I love that it spreads. If some of them come up eventually it will all be bermuda. Not sure how long eventually is. I have until November for growing and December/January for the first freeze. I have decided to do the rest of the front patch with a batch of sod so that it stays at the same level. The sand/bermuda filled holes are the same level as the ground so I shouldn't have too much unevenness on that sectiom if it grows normally.

Do you have pictures of your plugs that you did in your video? I'd love to see the progress. What's your ferilizing regimen for them?


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

I don't have any pictures of the plugs specifically because everything has grown in completely where the areas were plugged. Check my journal for the fertilizing regimen that I'm using, which includes some of the controversial NEX-T products from Greene County Fertilizer


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## Trippel24 (Jul 9, 2018)

Colonel K0rn said:


> I don't have any pictures of the plugs specifically because everything has grown in completely where the areas were plugged. Check my journal for the fertilizing regimen that I'm using, which includes some of the controversial NEX-T products from Greene County Fertilizer


I live in Fresno, CA as well and have started using the NEX-T biostimulants the last month and a half. We have had 30 straight days over 100 degrees with most being 105+ and we are "suppose" to only water 3 times a week. I laid my Tifway in April of 2016 and is doing very well, but I do water for 5-10 minutes on days we're not aloud to when it's 108 degrees. OP looks like your neighborhood might be across the street from mine.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Trippel24 said:


> Colonel K0rn said:
> 
> 
> > I don't have any pictures of the plugs specifically because everything has grown in completely where the areas were plugged. Check my journal for the fertilizing regimen that I'm using, which includes some of the controversial NEX-T products from Greene County Fertilizer
> ...


Hey cool neighbors! Our tifway was laid March 31st. It's in the back yard and doing pretty well. It was sanded about 2 months ago and that sort of set it back looks wise. It needs to be sanded again but that's going to wait until next year. You know we can get a rachio for free with the rebate in Fresno county? I have one and water for about 30 minutes in the morning on my 3 watering days. This may be overkill, I don't know. It's been crazy hot here which ruined my fescue but I'm kinda grateful since I realized I prefer the bermuda. We just finished sodding 2/3 of one section of our lawn in the front. It's so hot we can only do a little at a time. I'm going to post pictures later today.

I'm watering on all the days because of the sod and the plugs but I am a little afraid of getting caught. My friend that lives in Woodward lakes has been watering every day for the past month and so far hasn't gotten caught. It's risky though. At least the first step is just a warning.

Edit: As far as fertlizers, I was looking for something that wouldn't kill the fescue that the bermuda is plugged in. I don't think there's a good option there because the grasses are so different.


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## Trippel24 (Jul 9, 2018)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> Trippel24 said:
> 
> 
> > Colonel K0rn said:
> ...


I live in the DeYoung homes just north of Woodward Lakes. Funny you bring up the Rachio, because my mother in law got one and gave it to me since I'm on the wait list and she knew she wouldn't use it the way I would. So, I got one! Milorganite is what I use and is in stock right now here... just got a bag today at the Home Depot on Abby. I throw it down every 2-3 weeks. I also just put down today at lunch some of the Scotts liquid turf builder 29-0-3 just because I was out of town and couldn't mow for 6 days and was stressed from it.

I have been sent 2 notices, but haven't received a fine yet for watering, but I have a neighbor that calls the city I think. I try to water at odd times on non-watering days to go unseen like bath times for the kids.

I got my sod from the golf course I belong too for free, because the Superintendent called me and said they were either going to kill it or they would cut the sod for me to come roll and pick up due to some renovations being done. SCORE!!!

I aerated and sanded in late April to try to level as best as I could in one swipe, but will do again next spring. I will just use the Liquid Air8 NEX-T product this fall. I will also be scalping and throwing PRG seed down this fall now that I am 2 years into the sod being laid. For your issue by the electrical box, the NEX-T biostimulant pack may help there. The RGS and Humic 12 around the area may help, but not sure as I just started using it in June. It has helped though with a spot that was weak due to shade issues. I removed a tree and using that + sprigging and is coming in well.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

@Trippel24 Lucky on the free sod! Was it at the Fort Washington course? I heard from a friend who's a member at Sunnyside that they are doing some major renovations to that one. I don't golf so I don't have any golf connections in town. I am currently using 46-0-0 urea on my backyard to get it to really grow. From recommendations here, I'm putting about 2 lbs a month instead of the recommended 1 lb of nitrogen.

From what I've seen, very few people in Fresno take pride in/care of their lawns. Most everyone has a yard service and fescue in which water grass takes over after a few years and it's mostly weeds. The yard services cut everything with a rotary set to the same level and just mow. I drove around Van Ness Ext. area trying to see what types of grass look nice and there were a few nice bermuda lawns and mostly weeds. Why people pay $800k+ for a house and let the lawn die or become weeds makes no sense to me.

I'll look into the biostimulant pack once my lawn is established in the front yard. This is my first year getting into this and it's taking a while to get all the equipment. I just got the Chapin sprayer and ordered some PGR. It's going to take a fair amount of sanding on my front yard because of the uneven sod but eventually, I'd like to treat my grass and soil right. A soil test is probably in the future. Would it be weird to ask my relatives for that for my birthday? My husband says on the inside, I'm actually a tiny Texan man.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Update:

Today we (mostly my husband, it was really hot outside) laid half the sod in the front section. Only one more batch to get the rest of the front section done. No idea yet on the timeframe for that. I had posted on here that my landscapers had said the sod was really uneven and some people said they were just telling me that. The landscapers told me that they took pictures and told the sod company. Well, they weren't lying. The sod (from the same company) was crazy uneven. There were some pieces that were thin on one end and thick on the other. It made everything really lumpy. We tried as best as we could to level it but it's looking pretty rough. I feel a little better about this after seeing the progress on @Iriasj2009's beautiful lawn. It also looked rough in the beginning but after a sanding it looks good. I'm hoping I can follow suit.







The front row was put in on Saturday. It's the one with the brown on the edge. The rest was laid today. I didn't have a roller or anything like that so it is what it is. We've never really laid sod before but we watched some online tutorials and we watched the landscapers when they put in the stuff in the backyard. The good thing is, it will grow together and sand fixes a multitude of issues.

My plugs are starting to come up in places. I took some pictures of a few of them. It's been 5 days so a little bit of growth. Not sure how much is growth and how much is just the sand getting swept away but it's green so I'll take it. You have to squint a bit to see it in the pictures. It's the tiny green leaves.









I can't really fertilize the plugs without burning the sensitive fescue (at least I think even with watering in). I had the gardener take the HOC down one notch (Whatever that is) this week and I'll have him do it again this next week so the plugs are getting light as they come up. Maybe burning (with fertilizer) the fescue is the way to do it so it thins it out a little. I'm in uncharted territory here and I can't find anyone that's done this before. I'm open to any and all suggestions!


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Just sprinkle a bit of fertilizer directly on the plug, it shouldn't harm the fescue too much, if you want to be on the safe side try it on one plug and see if it damages the surrounding fescue if it does the spreading Bermuda will fill it in pretty soon. If it doesn't then you know you can do it to all of them.


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## Iriasj2009 (Feb 15, 2017)

@Bermuda_Newbie

Thanks for the compliment :thumbup: 
Your landscaping looks great and you'll have that new sod looking awesome in no time. Just be patient. Your sod does look a lot better than mine so once you are able to topdress, go for it and you'll be set! 
Oh and since u didn't roll it, spend some time walking on it and step on all the areas that may use better contact, really helps with the rooting process.


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## Trippel24 (Jul 9, 2018)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> @Trippel24 Lucky on the free sod! Was it at the Fort Washington course? I heard from a friend who's a member at Sunnyside that they are doing some major renovations to that one. I don't golf so I don't have any golf connections in town. I am currently using 46-0-0 urea on my backyard to get it to really grow. From recommendations here, I'm putting about 2 lbs a month instead of the recommended 1 lb of nitrogen.
> 
> From what I've seen, very few people in Fresno take pride in/care of their lawns. Most everyone has a yard service and fescue in which water grass takes over after a few years and it's mostly weeds. The yard services cut everything with a rotary set to the same level and just mow. I drove around Van Ness Ext. area trying to see what types of grass look nice and there were a few nice bermuda lawns and mostly weeds. Why people pay $800k+ for a house and let the lawn die or become weeds makes no sense to me.
> 
> ...


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Laid down the rest of the sod for the front section. Sod is only sold in batches of 10 so it was either 10 or 20 and we didn't want to be short a piece or two so we got 20. Turns out we needed 8. We sodded the rest on the upper half of the yard. I'm not sure how it will do. Once we pulled up the fescue there, those plugs weren't doing well. It's hard to say whether it's too much shade from the house and tree or the fescue was shading the plugs too much. I can definitely thin out the canopy of the olive tree which probably needs it anyway so I think it will be fine. The other plugs are still growing away. We fertilized them Saturday with 46-0-0 and it didn't burn the fescue. I had the gardener mow the fescue a little lower again today although it wasn't as low as I was hoping. I don't have a rotary and I think my reel at its highest setting might be a little lower than I'm ready to go yet. The sod looks so good that I may get too impatient and just end up sodding the whole thing before the year is out. Pictures are below


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Wow that's gonna look awesome!!


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

erdons said:


> Wow that's gonna look awesome!!


Thank you. I'll see if I can hold out for my plugs to take root in the rest. You have tremendous patience for yours. I don't know how you waited that long.


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> erdons said:
> 
> 
> > Wow that's gonna look awesome!!
> ...


Lol I don't how I did it either.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

It's been a while since I've updated. A couple of reasons for that, first off, not that much has happened with my grass. It's been slow going because I can only go so low in the midst of the fescue. The main reason though has been that I'm expecting baby #2 and have been pretty nauseated. On top of that, my husband won't let me handle the chemicals for the lawn since we don't really want a child with 4 arms and a tail. It means though that the grass hasn't been fertilized as much as it could have been so it isn't growing much. I went out on Tuesday (8-28) and took pictures of some of the progress. It's getting harder to see since the bermuda is tall but you can see the color difference in the fescue. I've circled the patches of bermuda so you can see.

The sod is coming along well. It got its first trim last weekend finally with the push mower set to 1". I've not felt up to mowing it so we've just let it kind of grow until my husband has had time to cut it. I'm hoping to get my husband to fertilize it and mow this week but we'll see. I might run the push mower on it later if I feel up to it.

The last picture is our sod caterpillar. We have had to slowly put pieces of the fescue sod in the dumpster each week. So far it's been almost a month and we still have quite the pile left.

























It's not growing as fast horizontally as I would like but I imagine that's due to the lack of fertilizer and it's long for bermuda. I've thought about getting the weed eater and knocking just the patches of bermuda down. Does anyone think that would make a difference in horizontal growth?


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Yes, trimming it low with the weed wacker will promote horizontal growth.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

I haven't updated this in forever but for completion, I'm going to show how my plugs turned out. I also think I'm going to change the title since I caved and put in sod and I'm no longer tracking the plugs. The plugs were actually growing and I think if I had cut the fescue low enough, it would have worked eventually since the fescue wasn't doing particularly well anyway. Towards the end of October, I had my landscapers that we used for the original job tear out the fescue and put down bermuda sod. Now that it's spring and I see the difference in the job they did vs. the job I did, I probably should have had them do the whole thing. Their portion of the front yard is way more level and green because they put down fertilizer underneath it. I'm sure it will all even out (no pun intended) with leveling and fertilizing going forward. Here was the progress my plugs made.

The last two photos here show the plugs after the fescue was removed around them.













One of the reasons I decided to just do sod was creating a level yard with the plugs was going to be challenging. I figured it would take me multiple seasons of leveling to get everything right. Not that it doesn't take that long anyway but I'd be starting way behind. Below is after the sod was installed.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

This year, my yard got leveled. I have some posts on the leveling a bermuda lawn thread about a level I did last year. Well...I didn't really do the level as much as had the leveling done. I had 5 redwood trees taken out and the tree people were inexpensive. They dropped huge portions of the tree on my new sod and made giant dents. The landscapers who had subbed out the job were not too pleased with this but followed through with making it right by leveling the dents. It wasn't a complete leveling but they probably put down a yard or 1.5 yards of what was some kind of dirt. It seemed like sand but it had pieces of bark and stuff in it so I don't know what it was.

This year, with bermuda in the front and back, I got 3 yards of sand ready to do the whole thing. I spent last summer mowing a settling yard with new sod so I knew where most of the low spots were and needed to be fixed in the back. I only mowed the front yard once and saw how horrible my sod job was. The landscapers area was all nice and flat but mine had huge dips, one of which the mower got stuck and stalled on because the grass was so thick. Terrible. I was excited to have it flat or as much as I could do in a season.

We just finished an add-on to our house so there was some landscaping changes that needed to be made (paver walkway out the new door, new shed, etc.) Because of all the extra work that my landscapers had done, they told me they would pick up and deliver the sand for free and all I had to do was pay for the sand. 3 yards for $250. Not sure if this was a good deal but I wasn't going to be able to pick it up and shovel it myself so this was a good option for me. We talked and agreed on masonry sand. They said it was the same stuff the put over the synlawn when they put that in for people. It look plenty fine when we were shoveling it and spreading it.











It was a lot of work to spread but not as much as having to scoop it out on top of it. My husband was a trooper and even though it wasn't his project, ended up doing over 50% of the work. I worked the drag mat since I'm lower to the ground while he did the landscape rake. As more of the sand got worked into the canopy, it seemed like an awful lot of tiny pebbles were left and pretty soon all the drag mat was doing was moving pebbles. Not a good sign.



























We spread 46-0-0 and then watered it in.





It rained the next two days and I found there were some spots that were still low. I planned to get some bags of play sand to fill this in but there was some miscommunication and my husband picked up 6 bags of paver sand. I think we are going to take it back and get some more play sand. I'm a little hesitant though because the last bag of play sand had the same pebbles I'm seeing in my lawn. Maybe that's just how sand is.

The low spots







The pebbles that are left in some spots. They are fairly small and hopefully won't hurt my reel mower. Yard flag for scale.







Worst case scenario, I'll shop vac up whatever doesn't grow into the grass. I ordered a Swardman Electra which gets here in July so I should have a good idea of how the pebbles affect my CalTrimmer to know if it's safe to mow with my very expensive mower.

Tomorrow I'm getting the large tree trimmed way back so I'll have to sort of touch up whatever the screw up with their tree trimming. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so part of me is hoping they postpone it until Wednesday to give my grass a chance to grow through the sand a little more. It's a catch 22 because more sun with the tree cut back is going to make the grass grow faster. As it is, I have to keep touching up the front yard because of idiot Amazon delivery people who think it's cool to walk across my sand covered lawn. I read on here about the guy's neighbor who drove through his pile of sand in the street. I believe it.

It's been 3 days since leveling. Here's what it looks like today.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Day 4 from leveling. Grass is coming through nicely. Got 8 bags of play sand to touch up from the tree trimmers. We are getting a crazy amount of rain today so that should show me where any low spots are and now I have extra sand to fill it. The tree was really thinned out and shaped upward which should help with the sunlight.





Before the tree was cut



And after





Poor tree looks a little sad but it will leaf out a little without blocking the sun to the Bermuda. Looking forward to a better lawn this year.


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## BlackOut (May 24, 2019)

Interesting thread, good work


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

@BlackOut Thank you! It's definitely a work in progress but it's nice that this year I can see more of the progress.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Day 13 after leveling. Tomorrow is one week since it was leveled but I'm going to try and mow either this evening or tomorrow evening so this is my "before" pictures. We'll see how it goes. I tried to mow two days ago but ended up messing up the sand which was still slightly wet. The wheels made big divots in the grass which took some fixing and convinced me to wait a few more days. I'll see if it does the same tonight now that there's more grass and the sand is dry.

I haven't put a bunch of front yard pictures up because I just haven't walked out there. Today we pruned the Japanese maple in the front and this week I got all my mini-rosebuses along the front path cut back and dead-headed. I've got a fair amount of black spot this year because of the weird wet May we've had here. We're normally in the 90's by now and it's been rainy and 60's. The weather is now back to normal at 87 which is good and bad. I don't like to mow during the day when it's that hot so now I have to wait until evening because I can't handle any heat whatsoever. I'm looking forward to getting my Swardman Electra so I can quietly mow in the morning while it's still cool. Lee said he's aiming to get it to me the first week of July. The grass should be all filled in by then.

I put down Milorganite last Saturday to get it out of the shed that my husband reorganized. I have urea and feature and potassium to put down in stronger amounts so it was really just to create some room in the shed. It's stinky! My daughter's birthday party is in two weeks so I'm hoping the smell goes away by then. We've been working hard to get the yard in shape for the party. Not easy with a newborn and a toddler to find the time. We keep switching off on watching them to get stuff done. I did probably about 2x the amount of Milo that I was supposed to but I wanted it gone.

Here's the pictures of the tree pruning and then the lawn with the sand or lack there of


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

After the mow...






You can see the pebbles from the sand on this one. It appears to be growing in despite that and didn't cause too much of a problem that I can tell.



I don't know if you can see it in the photo below but unfortunately the sand wasn't enough to bring the level of the grass even with the concrete. It did in a couple of place but not enough that I can mow straight on top of the concrete. I will at some point spot level this later this season and see if I can make some more improvement on that.







Mowing was easier than I thought it would be. I used ear plugs this time which perhaps helped deaden the sound of the pebbles hitting my reel. Not too much disruption of the sand that I could fix with my foot. I didn't get pictures of the front yard (no overhead lighting in the front) but I'll do that tomorrow. The front is coming in much slower than the back. I think the sand was heavier there because that's where we laid the sod that was both poorly laid and unevely cut from the sod farm. I'll show new pictures of that tomorrow.

Overall it's much nicer to mow but I'm more aware of the uneven parts. Not sure why that is. How does making it more flat make me notice the uneven parts? Hopefully I didn't create hills or something with the sand. My hypothesis is that if it's all uneven, you don't notice. Now with nice spots the bad ones stick out more. I ended up mowing way lower than I thought I would and it looks pretty good. If I go up a little higher, I don't think anyone would notice the unevenness.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

After the mow...






You can see the pebbles from the sand on this one. It appears to be growing in despite that and didn't cause too much of a problem that I can tell.



I don't know if you can see it in the photo below but unfortunately the sand wasn't enough to bring the level of the grass even with the concrete. It did in a couple of place but not enough that I can mow straight on top of the concrete. I will at some point spot level this later this season and see if I can make some more improvement on that.







Mowing was easier than I thought it would be. I used ear plugs this time which perhaps helped deaden the sound of the pebbles hitting my reel. Not too much disruption of the sand that I could fix with my foot. I didn't get pictures of the front yard (no overhead lighting in the front) but I'll do that tomorrow. The front is coming in much slower than the back. I think the sand was heavier there because that's where we laid the sod that was both poorly laid and unevely cut from the sod farm. I'll show new pictures of that tomorrow.

Overall it's much nicer to mow but I'm more aware of the uneven parts. Not sure why that is. How does making it more flat make me notice the uneven parts? Hopefully I didn't create hills or something with the sand. My hypothesis is that if it's all uneven, you don't notice. Now with nice spots the bad ones stick out more. I ended up mowing way lower than I thought I would and it looks pretty good. If I go up a little higher, I don't think anyone would notice the unevenness.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Two weeks after leveling today. Mowed it last night for the first time. Below is what it looked like after leveling and then what it looks like today. 










Tomorrow is my watering day so I might throw out some urea tomorrow evening and water it in. We'll see if I get to it.























Tomorrow is my watering day so I might throw down some urea in the evening and water it in to promote more growth.


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## Brackin4au (Jun 13, 2018)

Lookin good!


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

@Brackin4au Thank you and right back at you. Loving your fun mowing pattern. I can't do much like that with my lawn. It's too small but we'll see what kind of stripes I can get once my Swardman gets here.


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## Brackin4au (Jun 13, 2018)

Thanks. I have a big canvas to work on, but I'm sure you'll come up with some fun stuff once you get going good!


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

I adjusted my reel to bed knife distance and had my husband adjust the tension on the reel itself for my mower. It cuts much better now. I don't know why I've been so lazy about this except it's normally hot or I'm in a hurry to mow and so I just go for it. Thank you @Cory for the help in getting the mower adjusted. Mine doesn't roll as freely as yours but it's much much better.

The grass is filling in nicely. I'm cutting every two days now. Despite the almost 100 degree heat it's not bad in the evening when the sun isn't out. I've learned a few tricks to making mowing better for myself having never used a mower before last year. For any other women on this site (I can't be the only one) who are intimidated by the noise and power of a gas engine, ear plugs help a ton. Also, gloves help with the vibration. The ear plugs really made the biggest difference though. It makes it less scary to use the loud machinery when it's not loud.

I'm experiencing a ton of nutsedge which I intend to spray. I read the instructions for Sedgehammer though and found out I need to wait until two days after I mow and two days after spraying to mow. I'm still trying to get the grass to spread laterally and keep the height of cut short and since I have a birthday party next weekend at my house, this is going to have to wait until after the party.

18 days after leveling


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## Cory (Aug 23, 2017)

Looks great! Glad you got your mower Situated. I have Nutsedge all over the place too.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Last year I was trying to clean up the seed pods my Chinese Tallow tree was dropping. I made a game out of it for my two year old to pick them up and throw them in the flower bed. Big mistake. I should have had her throw them in a bucket. Here is a picture of the baby trees from those that were left on the lawn. I didn't get a picture of the forest of them that is in the spot she threw them all in the flower bed. 


Those popped up over night. I spent an hour this evening getting eaten by mosquitoes and trying to pull them all up out of the grass. I swear more were coming up as I pulled them. They have to come out (as much as possible) because they secrete something that defoliates the stuff around them. I'm not sure if the extra sunlight from the pruned tree made them sprout up or if it was the nitrogen put down on Friday. I've lived here for 5 years and I've never seen it this bad. Here's a picture of my harvest.



The grass is filling in well. Still a little slow over some of the spots that had some sort of winter kill. I'll get some pictures this week. My yard still smells like Milorganite after the sprinklers run. I have my daughter's birthday party this Saturday so I'm hoping it won't be an issue and the dead spots will fill in. Mostly so people don't tease me about spending this much time and effort on my lawn and having it look terrible still. The sand is still in a few spots too but here's hoping that urea will take care of it. It's nice and thick and green in some places. Tomorrow I'm going to try putting some FEature on it. I have to figure out how to use my new sprayer or talk my husband into doing it for me since he already used it once and calibrated it with his walking speed.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

4 weeks since leveling today. I still have some places where it hasn't filled in. I'm pretty sure these were the dead spots in my yard that were there before I scalped and leveled so it makes sense that it has take a while for it to come back. The runners are making their way across the spots so it's only a matter of time before it fills in.

Two exciting things happened while mowing today. The first is that I'm now getting washboarding in some places with my 5 blade. I get that for some this would be bad news but to me, it means my lawn is finally getting thick. Also, I have a ten blade Electra on order and this sort of justifies me getting the more expensive ten blade.

The second thing was exciting but less desirable. A bolt came off the side wheel on my CalTrimmer. I mowed over the nut and it showed up in my grass catcher but thankfully didn't ding the blade that I could see. It did make a huge gouge in my grass and pulled up a bunch of sand that had been there. This happened the day before my daughter's birthday. I don't know if you dads feel the same 
way moms do but for me it's a lot like presenting your new baby to someone only to find your baby has just scratched the heck out of their face with their baby claws. I also have an 8 week old so this is fresh on my mind. I know no one will judge my lawn but I wanted it to look nice. Here's the pictures of the front and back.


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## erdons (Apr 3, 2018)

Looks great, that Electra will be a game changer for you!


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@Bermuda_Newbie I would like to see pictures of the lawn post swardman mow. Congrats on the new mower.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

@erdons It really made a huge difference. I was surprised in the difference in the quality of the cut. Unfortunately, it came the day before I had to go back to work and my husband was in a wedding this past weekend. We got it all set up and the blade adjusted and I got to cut the backyard but that's all I've had time for. Since we were busy we decided to take the opportunity to spray some Celsius and take care of our crab grass problem that frankly, is a tad embarrassing because I have stuff to take care of it and have just been lazy.

@g-man I definitely will. You can see a little behind the mower but I'm going to take some good shots once I have some time. I'm excited to see what it will do in the front yard on my little hill and all the obstacles. The roller in the back makes it so nice. Even though I have the reel roller in the front on my trimmer, I still scalp certain uneven places in my lawn and have a terrible time with the edges since they are natural edges and there's no curbing. With this machine, I just roll over the edges and I can get way closer. My husband had just taken out the landscape blade and trimmed the lawn the day before so I couldn't see how close it got compared to the normal line of grass that's left after I mow. I should be able to tell this next time. I'd imagine it's similar to what you guys with the greensmower experience.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Mowed after letting it grow in after a scalp. It's been in the low 100's for the past week and just too hot to mow. Kinda defeats the purpose of the scalp but it's ok. Better than heatstroke. At 7pm it's been about 98 degrees and later than that it's dark and the mosquitoes are out. They found west nile virus in mosquitoes about a half mile from my house so we haven't been spending a lot of time in the yard lately between that and the weather. I'm excited for some cooler temps.

I'm getting used to the Swardman. I'm going to do a whole review of it in a couple of weeks after I've mowed some more. There was a learning curve but overall I'm glad I got it. It's a lot more enjoyable to mow with than my trimmer but I had gotten fairly adept at using the trimmer. It's a lot slower using the Swardman because I'm not as good with it yet but today the mow was almost as quick as with my trimmer so I know I'm getting there.

I should add to the "you know you are obsessed with your lawn if..." thread but for now I'll put it here. My best friend came to visit and my three year old, trying to participate in conversation asked if my friend wanted to go outside and see our grass. I was so proud. Apparently she thinks it is something to show off. Yesterday my father-in-law asked if he could take her picture with the phone and she asked if then they were going to take pictures of the lawn. I'm sure she thinks this because she hears my husband and I talking about taking pictures of the lawn. My father-in-law, knowing how I feel about the grass told her that her yard was the prettiest in the neighborhood. It was sweet.

We sprayed Celsius about three weeks ago. You can kind of tell in some spots but there is fresh crabgrass coming up. So much for that. I'm hoping the preemergent this fall and in the spring will make this problem better next year. The dark spots are either where I unevenly spread urea or just the spots that were a little lighter of Celsius. This is mowed at 0.5 inches. For those of you who were curious, I am getting a little bit of washboarding with my ten blade at this height but that could also just be the mower bouncing from my uneven yard. It wasn't bad at all and going over it again from another direction fixed it. I can't wait until next year after I level again. This year was fixing the big dips but next year will make it super smooth (at least I hope)


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

Yesterday I tried out my new verticutter and scarifier attachment. Having no experience with any other machine on this lawn, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was a tad concerned about the amount of sand it would pull up since I sanded it a couple of months ago. Someone on here said it took up a bunch of sand and it had been two years since they last sanded. It did pull up a fair amount of sand and stolons. I verticut it cut it first and then scarified and then cut with the regular 10 blade. The sound it made going over the sand made me cringe. I hope I didn't damage my blade. I decided to stop babying the machine since it was purchased to actually work. I don't have a rotary to vacuum things up with so I just did my best with regular mowing. In hindsight, I probably should have used my trimmer and not my swardman to trim over the sand. Oh well.

I decided to only do half the lawn because I didn't know if I was hurting it or not or making it crazy unlevel. I'll see how it grows back. I did two or three circles around the lawn and then did half the remaining grass. The Electra performed great. The machine didn't bog down at all. I don't really have anything to compare it to so I don't know if it did what verticutting and scarifying is supposed to do but it did pull up a lot of stuff. I'm wondering if it pulled up some lingering milorganite given the smell of my yard now. Below are pictures of it after it was done. The height of cut is a little less than 1/2 in.


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## gbestemt (Oct 2, 2019)

Wow. Looking really great! That swardman does a great job. Didn't know you could mow celebration so low.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

@gbestemt Well that's my old grass at my old house. It's tifway 419. I need to start a new lawn journal for my new yard. I'm mowing my celebration a little less than 3/4" but I plan to do at least .5" once I get it sanded. I just got it sodded about a month ago and in about two or three weeks, I'm going to scalp and sand. I'm on almost a 1/2 acre now so I've got a lot more grass!


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## gbestemt (Oct 2, 2019)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> @gbestemt Well that's my old grass at my old house. It's tifway 419. I need to start a new lawn journal for my new yard. I'm mowing my celebration a little less than 3/4" but I plan to do at least .5" once I get it sanded. I just got it sodded about a month ago and in about two or three weeks, I'm going to scalp and sand. I'm on almost a 1/2 acre now so I've got a lot more grass!


 I would love to see that much celebration! Excited to see the updates on that.


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