# Mid summer 1 day reno- glypho and seed



## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

Hey All-

I have a small section of my front yard that is need of a makeover. Its only about 200-300 sq ft and I have very little good grass growing there due to heavy shade. I've just addressed that with a good trimming, removing a lot of the lower branches. Now that the area is getting much more sun, I have a bunch of foxtail popping up there. I am going to try a one day reno- spraying Glypho and seeding the same day. @ken-n-nancy reminded me of this strategy (and has put a disclaimer on it, lol) @thegrassfactor and another youtuber have discussed this strategy as well and I want to give it a try. I am at least a month early on prime growing conditions, but since this area is shaded I am going to give it a try this week. I am also going to try tall fescue here as an experiment and see if it can make it. If not, I will try again in the fall with a fine fescue blend. Here's the plan

Scalp section
Spray glyphosate with marking dye on the area I am going to re-seed
Wait a few hours
Seed and cover with peat moss
water and wait

I will post here with photos and updates. :thumbup:

Edit to add: here's a photo. There was a small 5' tree I removed you can see. Some whitening from a previous tenacity app but I missd a lot of the foxtail.


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## iowa jim (Jan 22, 2018)

I think you have 1 and two backwards as you need the longer grass blade to soak up the glyphosate. Just a thought.


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## thegrassfactor (Apr 12, 2017)

iowa jim said:


> I think you have 1 and two backwards as you need the longer grass blade to soak up the glyphosate. Just a thought.


Do not scalp immediately before applying gly. It is foliarly absorbed. Keep it on a regular mowing schedule and do not mow immediately before applying.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

iowa jim said:


> I think you have 1 and two backwards as you need the longer grass blade to soak up the glyphosate. Just a thought.





thegrassfactor said:


> Do not scalp immediately before applying gly. It is foliarly absorbed. Keep it on a regular mowing schedule and do not mow immediately before applying.


I'm not trying to be argumentative, but one of the arbitrary "constraints" of the the experiment being described by the OP (@jessehurlburt) is to do this as a "1-day reno." Accordingly, if one is going to both scalp and apply glyphosate on the same day, one needs to be done practically right before the other.

Yes, the ideal would be to give the glyphosate a few days to work before scalping, but then the project isn't a 1-day reno, is it? 

As I understand it (and the reason I did a 1-day reno on a section of lawn a few years ago) is that the 1-day reno is intended to minimize the length of time that the lawn looks dead. By seeding on the same day as the glyphosate is applied, the seed is already on the path to germination by the time the lawn looks dead.

Personally, if one considers it a constraint that the scalping and the glyphosate are to be done in the same day, my personal preference for the greatest likelihood of success would be to do a "partial scalp" (say, drop from a height of 4" to 2", which isn't a really low scalp) first, and then spray glyphosate on the short grass. There will still be plenty of blade/stem surface to soak up the glyphosate. The alternative would be to spray the glyphosate first, and then, presumably a couple hours later, cut off the grass blade surface which just soaked up the glyphosate, which won't give it a chance to translocate into the other portions of the plant.

In short, I think that the OP has the right order of things for the 1-day reno.

I followed those steps for on a small area as an experiment in 2016 and it worked very well: https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4493&p=82113#p82113

Another alternative, which might be what @@thegrassfactor is suggesting is to not even mow on the day of the "1-day reno" but instead to do the 1-day tasks about midway between regularly scheduled mowings. (In other words, if one was mowing every 4 days, one would apply glyphosate about 2 days after the prior mowing, which would be 2 days before the next scheduled mowing.) I think that approach would work well, particularly for folks using a reel mower on low-cut turf (<2").

My concern with a rotary mower would be that the mower would blow the not-yet-germinated seeds off of the soil and disturb them.

My concern with potentially longer cutting heights (my normal cutting height is 3.75") is that the soil would be shaded too much for the baby KBG to get enough sunlight after germination.

I should note that when I did this in 2016, I stopped mowing the 1-day reno area until the new grass was about 3" tall. The glyphosated old grass stops growing getting taller pretty much the same day that the glyphosate is applied, even though it doesn't start looking really sick for a couple days after application.


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## iowa jim (Jan 22, 2018)

I believe that might just work ken- nancy, as i think i read that glyphosate is rain fast in 6 hours. So it must be getting to the roots in that amount of time. As spoken by a guy that has been fallowing for 4 weeks now.


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## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

With a lull at work, I took a mental health day last Thursday and I finally got to seeding this section. I sprayed glypho 4 days before seed down. I wanted to do this all in a day, but there's just never enough time..


While I was at it, I raked out all the dead weeds along the road. I had been hitting them with tenacity for the last month. I got one of those melnor 4 hose timers this weekend and it really makes seeding so easy. Nice to not have to rush home at lunch every day to water. It is supposed to be over 90 degrees today, I so I set it to water for 8 minutes every 2 hours. I covered all the areas with EZstraw seeding mulch, (not pictured here) and went a bit heavier on the slopes.

The plan is to get this section knocked out and out of the way before the real work begins in the backyard the last weekend of august.


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## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

I've got good germination in the shady areas on day 5. Do fine fescues germinate before tall fescue or about the same? The sunnier areas where I planted tall fescue haven't really popped yet.


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## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

Overall the grass is coming in nicely in the front. There are a few areas where I'll need to touch up, but overall looking nicer in the front. I removed the temp sprinklers last night before checking the weather- supposed to be 90 the next two days before rain moves in later this week, so I need to stay on this area until the weather cools off- especially near the road. I seeded another section in the front last night on the other side of my driveway. My goal is to have all of my seeding done in the front before Sept 1st as I will need all my sprinklers and hoses to cover my backyard overseed.





Here is where my front yard was when I moved in 2 years ago vs today. I think this section will look good after some cooler temps and some spoon feedings this fall.


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## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

Mowed my front today. It's been almost 3 weeks since I seeded along the road and the side shady side of my yard. Most of the area I seeded came in well, but there are a few spots where I will need to work on the soil a bit. I sprayed humic/fulvic/kelp last night and then spread urea at around a .25#/M. I watered it in a bit this morning and we are supposed to get some more rain tomorrow. I also raked out a good bit of the EZstraw seeding mulch as it can impede growth I've found if it's a bit too heavy.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Glad to see that the "1 day reno" approach seems to be working out pretty well for you!


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## Mozart (Jul 17, 2018)

Looks good Jesse! Thanks for recommending the EZStraw product to me by the way. I have been lucky with weather so I decided to pass on it. How has the weed pressure been? I've heard straw products sometimes contain crop seeds - hope that's not the case for you :thumbup:


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## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

Wanted to post an update here as I saw @ken-n-nancy asking about the progress of this. Overall it went well. The areas where I spent more time prepping the seed bed by the road came in very good. The area where I sprayed, but didn't remove the old dead grass didn't come in as consistent. This wasn't a full reno either. I sprayed patches of weeds and crabgrass, but did not spray all the old grass. All in all, I am happy with how the front is looking though I don't think I would use this method again. Better the wait for the kill, then prep the seed bed prior to seeding. I also haven't had a chance to take care of the remaining clover in this area yet, but I will get to it this fall.


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## Mozart (Jul 17, 2018)

Looks great Jesse! Especially the slopes - I assume the Lowe's straw tackifier product helped a lot there?


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## jessehurlburt (Oct 18, 2017)

I love that EZ Straw seeding mulch, @Mozart . We had a few downpours I and didn't have any washouts on those slopes. Those areas look better since I spent more time removing the dead stuff and prepping the seed bed. This area has gotten two feedings of urea in the last 3 weeks.


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