# Oakland, CA Lawn Journal



## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Hey folks,

I'm loving all all the info on this site! I'm in Oakland, CA and thought I'd start posting what I've been doing in case its helpful for others. I'm an avid golfer and have always loved grass, but I haven't had a flat property with an area suitable for grass until recently! I've always dreamed of having fairway-like grass, and I started reading up on how to grow/maintain. I'd love to get to Tier 3, but we'll see if I have the persistence to get there (I'm still very much a n00b).

We demolished the backyard in the fall of 2020, had the ground leveled, and put 100% PRG sod in. I considered just going with seed, but I have 3 young kiddos and a dog, and wanted to get a usable space sooner rather than later.

Early September 2020:


End of September 2020, a week or two after the sod went down. You can actually see spots in the yard where the workers damaged the sod as they were putting it down. 


My dog also discovered that he likes digging in the yard. This is insanely frustrating, and we've had to really watch him when we let him outside. There are a couple big holes in the yard that I wasn't able to fix before the temperatures got a bit low for new seed, so I'm planning to address in the spring. 


This is mid-January 2021. 


This is the same grass but at a different angle. You can see that there are small bare spots all over the place (I think this is from whenever the dog runs around frantically). I'm really looking forward to addressing in the spring. 


Here's a shot of the front yard from today. The front used to be a lot thinner. I've been mowing pretty consistently once every 2-3 days for an entire month and its helped tremendously. 


2021 Plan
My plan for 2021 is a bit unknown. I've tried to read through a ton of posts on TLF and most folks have to deal with cold winters and warm summers. The Oakland / Bay Area is blessed with pretty awesome weather, and I'm assuming I'll have longer growth periods. I'm tremendously curious if folks have any advice on what I should be doing based on the weather here. Here's a snapshot of the historical temps.


I want to overseed once the ground temperatures get a bit warmer (maybe in March?) to fill in those holes. I've already got a bag of SS9000 rye that I used to touch up some spots in the fall. I also want to do a bit of leveling too - the sod and underlying ground has settled a bit and you can tell where there are lower spots.

Mowing
I've currently got a Sun Joe MJ506E electric reel mower. The lowest it goes is 1", so I'll eventually be replacing this with a more serious reel mower (I also hate having to drag the cord everywhere) that can cut lower. Once I do figure out what to get, I'll be messing around with shorter cuts! Frequency wise, I'll keep mowing every 2-3 days for now. I'm guessing once the temperatures get warmer, I'll be doing it every 2 days consistently.

Pre-emergent 
No idea what to do here. I'll be reading up though, and will hopefully be identifying what to do shortly before the temperatures get warmer.

Fertilizer
I've been using granular since the sod went down. I haven't had my soil tested (thats also on the list of todos this spring), and I've just been using Scotts.

Irrigation
I've got a Rachio system that controls the irrigation. Its got a good soaking process, and I try to get the standard inch down once a week.


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## ayylmao (Apr 13, 2020)

Welcome! Always love to see some more Bay Area content.

I'm right over the hill from you in Orinda.

Following your journal to gleam insight, as I'm still a Tier 1 n00b too, although I have a couple (semi-successful) seasons under my belt.

Check out my journal to see if there's anything that helpful for you there. My soil thermometer is already reading ground temps of 53 degrees here, and the air is in the 60s this coming week with sun... I'm considering some nitrogen this week already!


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Awesome. Orinda is great. Do you typically look at average soil temperatures or I you also care about the min? I check Greencast's tool online pretty regularly but not sure when to start overseeding. I'm think in a month when the low temps are consistently out of the 40s.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

Looks good. Looking forward to following.

As far as the sod, do you have matching seed? If not, you can take and transplant plugs with a proplugger or similar to partially fix moderate areas of damage (about the size of your fist...PRG can often fill in gaps that are smaller than this over the course of a year or even a few months in some cases). But hopefully the dog won't destroy it constantly.

Speaking of the sod, you said it's 100% PRG. Since that's not a species known for great sod strength, I'm curious how they got it to hold together. Is there netting?

You'll get to tier 3 in no time with that as a starting point...as long as it doesn't keep getting torn up. And you have a longer growing season than almost any other area for cool season grass. It looks like it won't have Winter or Summer dormancy based on the temps. For example, you've got 4 months more growing season in Fall/Winter/Spring, and 1 month more growing season in Summer--than my area. That's up to 5 months more...60% more growing season. The 3 lbs of N per year guideline won't work for you most likely. You'll probably need 5 lbs. to be equivalent.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

No - I don't have matching seed, but its still all PRG. I hadn't considered plugs actually, but that might be interesting. The idea would be to grow some grass in an area where the dog can't F up constantly? My front yard gets no traffic whatsoever and it ROCKS. Maybe I just transplant from there? I'd be okay with constantly fixing holes in the front yard for sure 🤔.

My dog is INSANE sometimes. He actually put a new hole in the yard a week ago, and he's now on 100% supervision from me when he goes outside to the backyard. He sticks his nose/tongue into the small dirt patches and makes them a bit bigger, and also digs much larger holes which is fairly infuriating. When we play fetch around the yard, his running also spits up tiny bits of turf, which hurts the soul a bit too 😂. I'm optimistically/hopelessly thinking that when the turf is thicker and there's less immediate access to dirt, that he won't do that 😅. The dog is only 16 months old too, so hopefully those bad habits die quickly.

For the sod, there was no netting - it merged together fairly well, although it wasn't quite as dense as I would have liked. I've seen a lot of ryegrass sod on golf courses and those are super thick/dense. I was really worried about whether it would pan out, but I was really happy with things about two months after the sod was put down. But one potentially paranoid thing was, maybe their dirt was a bit compacted? It just seems to hold an insane amount of water. the small spots of just dirt just pooled water this morning after maybe a quarter inch of rain.

With regards to the advice on recommendation for 5 lbs instead of 3 lbs - THANKS! I've been really struggling with what to change in planning with the extending growing season. What timeframes would you recommend that the added N gets put down?

@ayylmao How did your yard fair with all the rain today? My was f'ing sloshy, and not terribly happy. Had me thinking about better irrigation and the like.


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## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

The general N recommendation for a quality lawn is 0.5 lb per month of actual growing season, with more of that applied in Fall than Spring, and little or none in Summer. You also might not need any in January-Feb., depending. As growth slows in cooler weather, smaller apps are needed. But your cool weather is still warm enough that it probably will never be more than 6-8 weeks without N.

In the first year, your new sod might use a bit more, maybe an extra pound. It really depends how established it is. I think the rooting and thickness are good measures of how established it is.

Potassium and other nutrients are longer-lived, so get applied according to soil test results, but are equally important. More N also requires more Potassium (whether already present and available in soil or applied). There's a ratio for N:K needs in turf, which I don't know off the top of my head.

As for plugs, that's a good idea...take from an area the dog won't dig up. But getting him to reduce the digging over time will be key, as you cannot keep up, whether with plugs or seed. The seed should really match if you use seed. Not all ryegrass is the same, so using a different variety might not blend well. Peeing might be a problem, too.

If it's fertilized well, small holes up to a couple of inches wide in the longest dimension and narrow in the other dimension can fill in over time if they're not disturbed. Anything more than 3-4 square inches probably needs help since Ryegrass isn't a prolific spreader and probably won't fill in adequately...that's probably bigger than a single grass plant, and the species doesn't produce fully independent new plants that can grow at a distance from the existing plant. That's why they call it a bunch grass. It doesn't mean it doesn't fill in at all, but it does so only nearby and slowly.


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## ayylmao (Apr 13, 2020)

@kevchuey my yard does pretty well with heavy rain; it's at a very slight angle towards a creek down the hill. i try to keep my dog off the lawn while it's wet. i think that regardless of whether the lawn is wet or dry, having a dog just mean inevitable small patches as they tear around during their zoomies sessions.

regarding average temps, it's still a bit cold but i prob will drop a bit of N this weekend. i think what pushes me more towards the yes direction is that all the hills are super green already - if all the wild fescues are growing already, why cant mine?


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

I overseeded the backyard and focused a bit on a bunch of fist sized holes (and two dog-face sized holes) on Feb 23rd. I was going to wait until the lows got out of the 40's, but I tried to take advantage of last week's warm spell. The warmest it got was in the 80's, but most of the other days were high 60's. Still had lows in the 40's though.



I started getting worried after about a week - but just had a few holes spring up this morning 🥳. 11 days to germinate. The two major holes have no germination yet, but I'm still hopeful.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

ok. Its been another 9 days, and I have a bunch of holes that have some good growth going, but others that aren't doing anything. It got much colder in the last week or so, and maybe thats what prevented more success. In hindsight, I probably should have just waited until the nightly lows were out of the 40s (patience is hard 😅).

A couple photos from Friday (Mar 12, 17 days after seeding):

No germination


Partial germination:


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

A friend came over for dinner in the backyard on Friday. He asked how I liked my astroturf &#128514;. When I corrected him, he was surprised and said that it looked too good and consistent to be real grass. &#127881;


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

I made the mistake of cutting the lawn too early in the morning. I thought 10:30 am would give the dew enough time to evaporate but I was totally wrong. I had to deal with a whole ton of clumping on my super weak Sun Joe electric reel mower.

Also - later in the afternoon, I noticed the grass was totally frayed!



My first reaction was, TIME TO GET A REAL REEL MOWER 😂. But waiting for the Electra to be back on the market in the US this fall. My second thought was the mower was probably just having a really hard time with all the wet clumps of grass jammed in the mower by the blades. Just a guess though. I'll be cutting again in two days (when its dry) to see if the cuts are clean...


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Still seeing light frayed ends. Not quite as much as the day it was wet a couple weeks ago, but the back doesn't look good at all. Going to leave the grass alone for a bit and raise the HOC to 1.5 or 2".


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

I decided to only mow the yard with totally dry grass (usually mid-day), and the fraying disappeared completely, so we're back to normal. Still feeling the extreme itch to getting a Swardman Edwin, but holding out till the Electras are back on the market.

Also - I was finally able to sample my yard. Here's that thread, and also the report itself.
https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=27614



I'm totally amped up on the test that arrived an hour ago!


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

@ayylmao Are you concerned at all with the upcoming drought? I know some golf courses in the area have changed up their spring maintenance to prepare for a lack of water. I'm considering how high to increase my HOC to (I'm at 1" now).


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## ayylmao (Apr 13, 2020)

1" dang!! You're running a putting green over there! I've been over 2.5" since spring started. I'm very concerned about the drought. My back lawn is already under a tremendous amount of stress from two trees that provided shade being removed last year. I fear I'm going to lose my back lawn this year.

How did your holes fill in? I did some spot seeding in early spring and saw the same germination but nothing really stuck.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

I'd like to go way shorter than 1" . I can't do it until the fall though. I am planning a sand leveling project then, and I'll also need to get a new mower to go lower.

The holes I tackled in late February have filled in nicely. The grass is still immature but you don't really notice unless you're standing over the spots. I do have new holes though, that I filled in a few weeks ago. Those are also filling in nicely. I noticed that it germinated WAY faster (3 days) than the February timeframe (which was maybe 7-10 days?) because of the warmer weather. We had most days hit the 70's in the last few weeks.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

An update for the last 30 days!

I've switched back to my manual reel mower (American 1415-16) because it cuts better than the electric that I have. I chose this last year because it could get down to 1" HOC, but I've also set it to just a bit higher than 1" (I haven't officially measured, but its definitely not the lowest setting).

Whats AWESOME is I don't have to deal with the damn power cord, so it's actually even faster to mow. I only have about 1,000 sq ft so it takes me less than 10 minutes to cut AND i've got my 9 year old excited about doing it 😁. This has actually gotten me to start cutting almost daily now. The actual cut on the grass is tremendously cleaner than what I was seeing with the Sun Joe that I have. In a lot of thicker areas for my PRG, the Sun Joe would frequently fray edges. Could it use some sharpening? Maybe? No idea, but the mower is a few months old and I'm not digging the quick dip in performance. The only benefit I see with the Sun Joe now is the bagging. If I need to collect leaves or something, I'll use that (but probably after manually cutting).

Anyways, HOC has gone up a bit, frequency of cutting has also gone up. And I've spoon fed. And I went through some lime treatment after getting my soil tested. The lawn looks RIDICULOUSLY GOOD. But - i'm still worried about the impending drought, so I decided to tackle PGR (t-nex) sooner rather than later. I mostly wanted to delay that because there was a sprayer that I had to purchase and it's something that I was totally uneasy about. But, the switch to liquid fertilizer really greased the rails and it really felt like the right move after getting used to spraying shit (I got the 24v Chapin that everyone has). First application of t-nex went down today, and I can't wait to see the results this summer.

I also just pulled the trigger on an ego edger... I've been using rotary scissors (something I saw a ton of youtube videos on), and its awesome. But I've got some walkways that I needed to tackle, so I pulled the trigger tonight on an edger (I will admit there was some beer involved, but I'm sure it'll be fine).

For reference: 
This is the PGR thread I painstakingly reviewed: https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=533
This is the spray thread I looked at (thread is about 20v, but I went with the newer 24v model): https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=170
Here's the YouTube of Ware's rotary scissors DIY setup: 



Here's the YouTube I ran into (also Ware) of the ego edger: 




And here's a shot of my front. The greenness is off the charts, and I can't wait to get something to stripe with.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

AND - I started using Greenkeeper. Took me a bit of time to figure it out and get all the fertilizers / PGR into the app, but I'm hoping it helps. Just going off of what folks had said in the PGR thread listed above. A ton of folks mentioned looking at GDD, so I'm gonna do the same.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Still going strong with the manual reel mower, and I've had to do way less cutting now that I've started applying T-Nex. Even with reduced watering due to drought, the yard is still looking awesome.

There is an area of my backyard that gets a ton more sun than the rest and also gets less water (the irrigation wasn't set up properly). I left for a couple weeks and some areas got toasted. The weather forecast looks really good so I decided to actually seed into those spots.





The rest of the grass is crushing it.





I also decided to get an Allett Liberty 43 (hasn't shipped yet). I didn't feel confident that Swardman was going to figure out their Electra any time soon based on the Electra thread.


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## M32075 (May 9, 2019)

Just returned from a vacation in San Francisco you have some great weather up in Oakland. Lawn looks great keep it up I'm a big fan of perennial ryegrass when done right and your well on your way


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## SeanBB (Jul 11, 2020)

those kinda look like skunk marks...dunno..

also, what kind of wood did you use on your fence? is that ipe?


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Skunk marks?!?!?! Had not considered that. Its an enclosed backyard and we haven't smelled any skunk odor but I'll research.

The wood is ipe. Beautiful wood (but overly expensive).


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## SeanBB (Jul 11, 2020)

Eh if you're all fenced in maybe not...but they are notorious rooters. We have that issue here in SD.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Ok. Those track marks have started to fill in with new grass. One issue now is, I have a rat that is doing some small digging here and there. Still researching what to do.

On another way more exciting note, my Allett Liberty 43 came in.

Stripes!


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

So - a few updates.

Lawn Mower Damage
My Allett mower started really damaging grass on just one side of the mower. I thought it was because the weight was mostly on one side, but it turned out I just needed to adjust the cartridge. Once I got the blades to cut paper cleanly on both sides of the cartridge, all was well!!! I now understand why people check that frequently.

Scarifier!
I also got the scarifier attachment and did a round of scarifying. CRAZY how much dead material I got in a thousand square feet. I pulled up two full lawn bags of crap.

Aeration
I also started aerating right after I did the scarifier. I got a quote from a lawn care company that I thought was too high, so I decided to manually do it. My thinking was, I only have 1k sq ft - how hard could it be? I got a manual aerator, and clearly it was a mistake. I either should have just sucked it up and paid, or at least not been lazy and rented a machine. Oh well. I'm 2/3 done and while its 2-3 hours I'd like back, its not the worst situation.

Sand
Next up will be sand. I'll be done aerating on Sunday or Monday, and I've got the sand being delivered on Wednesday. I'm hoping it gets delivered dry so I can immediately take care of the application!


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Some notes on what happened this past fall with the yard.

*Sand* (mid-October 2021)
I was in fact, able to do some sand leveling this fall. I did this manually as well but I haven't been able to find a service that does this, and I'll still plan on doing this myself unless I find someone to do this for me. For the sand, I don't think I had the right kind of sand either. It was a bit coarse (I was actually really worried the tiny pebbles were going to screw with my reel mower, but I think this panned out okay enough) and I'll get something finer for the next go around.

*Dog Damage* (end of October 2021)
Shortly after aerating and sanding, my dog started peeing and pooing in the lawn, instead of the mulch where he always went before. My theory for why, is that I dumped some aeration cores into the mulch. I'm thinking my dog didn't like the cores and didn't want to go near the mulch (maybe instinct to not step in your own shit? cores to look like little turds).

*Birds!* (November 2021)
Naturally, I wanted to fix the 10 holes that were now in my yard because of dog pee. And - normally when I fix a hole or two, I put a wire cage over the area so birds (and my kids) don't get into the spot that I'm trying to fix. BUT - I had too many holes to fix, so I couldn't protect everything. Birds would consistently dig through all of the seed a couple days after dropping it. Super irritating. But, after reading through some TLF posts, I decided to try scare tape. WORKED LIKE A CHARM. I basically attached about a foot of the tape to these little flags I have to mark the yard, and voila! No birds.

*Pre-germinating Seed* (end of November 2021)
Because of the cooler weather (and the aforementioned bird problem), I was attempting to seed holes for like 3 weeks. To speed up the process, I decided to try pre-germinating some seed for the last two holes I needed to fix. I wet some seed in a fine metal strainer that I found in the kitchen (I'm sure my wife was happy about this) about every day for 3 or 4 days until I started seeing the seeds change slightly. Then I mixed the damp seed with dry sand to make it easier to spread. This drastically sped up the process. Some of the holes took 7-10 days in the cold weather, but the holes with pre-germinated seeds came in lightning fast and way more dense than the other holes I fixed. I don't think I'd do this step if it were warm enough though. It had started getting to below 50 at night...


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

OH - forgot that I had a rat problem (September 2021). A rat set up shop under my deck and none of the rat traps were working. I'd also try to fill in this hole here:


The rat would just keep digging the hole each night. And the hole was just getting bigger. Fortunately my dog killed the rat somehow - which makes up for all the pee spots he put in the yard 😂.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

The weather is starting to warm up - the average soil temp right now is 50.2 degrees, and I'm looking forward to getting the grass to fill in. It definitely thinned out over the winter:






Just recording this to see if I see this again next year. HOC is 0.75".


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Some spring updates:
I attempted to use Tenacity (I needed to fill in 3 damaged spots, so I decided to use Tenacity instead of Prodiamine) and failed spectacularly. I put it down on March 12, and had nasty bleached stripes on the lawn for nearly 3 weeks. Its back to normal now though.

I started spoon feeding every week starting in mid-February , and the lawn is doing great at 0.75". I've also been mowing every other day, and the clippings is steadily increasing - just applied T-Nex yesterday.

Of the 3 thinned out areas from the January 2022 photos, 2 of them are way more dense (bottom right hand corner of the below photo was thinned out). The 3rd doesn't get enough sun, and is a bit slower to fill in.


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## dennisschlosser (Jun 21, 2021)

Lawn looks great! Like mentioned earlier its cool to see another bay area member. I'm over in Benicia so pretty close. New at this myself. In the last year I just bough jugs of Speedzone, Drive XLR8, Prodiamine, and Poa Constrictor to do a few family members lawns. If you need any let me know, I have plenty to split. Not alot of bayarea lawn on here but your looks pretty good. BTW my lab pup tears mine up too.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

@dennisschlosser Are you worried about this summer and the probable drought? I'm concerned that all this work getting HOC down will be for nothing when I can't water over the summer.

Also - thanks for the offer on supplies! Its comical how big the jugs are for some of them (it feels like I have enough prodiamine for an entire neighborhood).


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## dennisschlosser (Jun 21, 2021)

Seriously but for the cost it's like Costco toilet paper u just buy in bulk! I have some family with lawns and a 20k lawn in Montana so I bought Costco style! Water in Benicia is high but mostly for sewer and monthly fees. Consumption is only like $50 extra each month in the summer. I took out the front lawn. 1500 square feet for a rebate and they 1099ed me. The back yard lawn stays!


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

Just when I thought things were going well, I found a mole trail in my backyard this morning 😭. Stomped it down but the tunnel was back a few hours later.

I just applied GrubEx to kill the food source, and also ordered a Victor mole trap.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

FUCKING GOT HIM.

I ordered a trap via Amazon, but got impatient. Went to a nearby Ace and got a trap. But instead of just waiting for the trap, I just took a shovel and stabbed down at the tunnel where I saw him moving.


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## Wiley (Dec 2, 2019)

Nice catch! Are you for hire? Good luck this season.


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

So - my wonderfully thick grass has been smoked by the reduction in water. In hindsight, it was a terrible idea to drop the HOC down to 0.5" (but man did it look and feel good).

Half of the front yard is basically dead (it gets full sun all day), and maybe a third of the backyard is toast.

I'm starting to consider different grass types that require way less water and are more heat tolerant. Mostly thinking of bermuda but not sure the weather is right. During the spring, summer, and early fall, I think its warm enough during the day. But the night time gets cool enough to where perhaps the bermuda wouldn't do so well. Still researching though. I do know of a golf course or two in the area considering the same thing, so maybe it'd be fine.


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## Wiley (Dec 2, 2019)

@kevchuey sorry to hear that you've been hit hard by the watering restrictions. I think potentially considering Bermuda is a reasonable, especially if the watering restrictions continue to tighten. It's interesting that there are some high level golf courses in the Carmel area that are transitioning to Bermuda and with varieties improving I believe there may be some good options moving forward. This is something I've researched a bit and will more than likely consider in the future. Delta Bluegrass company has some quality offering that are worth taking a look at.

Also, here's an article about one course in Carmel that made the transition. 
https://asgca.org/water-saving-santa-ana-hybrid-bermuda-from-west-coast-turf-installed-at-the-preserve-golf-club/


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