# Rooster's BIL Project Lawn 2021



## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

BIL and family recent moved into their first house, same zone as me. They have about 13,000 square feet of wholly neglected lawn. I would guess ~50% is common bermuda also with a smattering of fescues, and 80% at least is covered in a hodgepodge of broadleaf weeds. In the back yard alone-- where you can barely see any grass through the weeds-- I spotted an abundance of the following:

Speedwell
Hairy bittercress
Clover
Wild garlic
Henbit
Chickweed
Carolina geranium

Along with those I counted at least 4 different weedy grasses that I didn't bother to identify for now.

BIL and SIL want a "nice lawn" but won't be fanatics and won't spend a lot, and I'll probably be the one doing all of their applications. They'll be using a rotary mower, probably between 1" and 2". Since the existing situation is more bermuda than any other grass, I'm urging them to just encourage the common bermuda to become the lawn.

Yesterday was day 1 of the project. I sprayed a tank mix of Spectracide 4-way (2,4D, MCPP, dicamba, sulfentrazone), prodiamine, and MSO to kick things off. Hopefully by mid week most of the broadleaf garbage will be fading and we can really see where we are as far as bermuda coverage.

Here's quick picture to show how bad the weed coverage is:










I meant to take more but they all pretty much look like that anyway.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

That first round of Spectracide killed a lot of the broadleaf weeds, but there's a lot more coming back. BIL hasn't decided if he wants to eliminate the fescue and go 100% bermuda or the reverse, so I'm advising we wait til may and see how much bermuda is there among the fescue. One thing is for sure-- there's a ton of dallisgrass that's green and growing too, so there's not as much fescue as he originally thought.

So yesterday I spot sprayed about 1ksqft of broadleafs in the front with another round of spectracide, mostly in the places where I suspect the bermuda will already be strong, sprayed the side yard with celsius as an experiment to see how much bermuda there is underneath the fescue, and applied 0.5 lb N via 13-13-13. I think we will know in a few weeks what the plan of action will be for the summer.

I took some more pics this time to show where things are starting:

Front:








Side from road:








Fescue, dallisgrass, broadleaf weeds . . . how much bermuda under there?








Side area that has now been sprayed with celsius:








Back:








Side below driveway:


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

Celsius pretty much nuked the side yard where I tested it. Pic is from BIL from the back yard. I do still see a haze of green, and hopefully that's the bermuda ready to push its way out.


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## Rooster (Aug 19, 2019)

An update: The area that looks nuked above is mostly a sold green carpet of nearly weed-free bermuda now. One big area needs to be plugged and we started that process.

BIL has now agreed that we should do the same to the rest, so Sunday I sprayed Celsius in the front and back yards. I'll post pics when the results of that are coming in. There will be a lot of smallish bare areas and a few more larger bare areas when that Celsius works. There will also be surviving dallisgrass to take care of, but we'll cross that bridge when we see what's left after Celsius.

I think this will be at minimum a two-season renovation since he doesn't have a good way to irrigate multiple/large areas. But I think in the end it's going to be a really nice transformation.


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