# Emerald's Lawn Journal



## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

Hello everyone!

The first thing to note is that the lawn featured in this journal isn't mine. It's my parents property but they essentially gave me free reign over the turf. I figure, why not take care of the grass for them and learn in the process. So, for the last year and a half that's what I've been doing.

I've snapped a few photos along the way, so luckily I can backtrack to showcase the progress from the beginning of the journey, so here goes:

The earliest photo I have is this measly shot of the back yard that was taken during a one-over of the house on the day it was purchased. Not the best, but glad I have it.

*25 June 2018*



*23 Sept 2018*

This is my dad doing the first cut ever. He is a huge DeWalt fan, so naturally he got this electric mower.







For the remainder of 2018 all I did was cut It once a week. There wasn't much note-worthy happening as I hadn't really gotten into lawn care at that point. However, as spring of 2019 approached and the first cut of the year was upon me, I started to do a bit of research on 'how to get your lawn looking really great'.

That's when I came across the LCN's YouTube channel. I started watching his and many other videos from all the YouTube lawn care usual suspects.

I devoured plenty of content, and decided that the most important thing I had to do was dethatch the lawn. Gotta have a good starting point, right? So, I did the first mow and got myself a thatch rake.

Now, let me explain something.

At this point, I really had no clue what I was doing or what I was about to get myself in to. The lawn is 3311sq ft. At that time I'd never even heard of detaching, so I figured go to the hardware store, get a rake, spend a couple hours dethatching, get some exercise and bam! No big deal, right?

Wrong.

It took me over 14 hours to dethatch the entire lawn. I had 16 yard waste bags full of thatch. I learned that day that the yard waste pick-up here is only once per year and it's always in mid May. I dethached the lawn May 14th, and the pick-up was May 15th. So, as the day went on and the procedure became more brutal with each hour, I knew I couldn't section off the lawn and do a bit each day - no. This had to happen _that_ day! It was the best and worst timing possible.

I continued well into the night, but by around 9:30pm I was done. I hadn't even finished. Looking back there was about 700 sq. ft. in the back that I hadn't gotten to on the first day. On the second day I got up super early to try and finish up the back lawn. The clock was ticking and I was determined to finish before the trucks rolled up to pick up the yard waste. I put all the bags I could curb-side and got to work before morning light even broke.

I would go along and every time I'd fill a bag I'd take it to the curb - just in case. A couple hours in, I heard the trucks rolling by at the front pick up waste. I'm not going to lie, I felt a pang of defeat, since I hadn't finished. I got to only about half of what I had left, and now - bleh. The clock had run out, and I didn't manage to finish on time.

Oh well - at least I got the majority of the bags removed. I thought I could probably stuff a few into my car and take it to the waste yard myself. So, I took to the remainder of the lawn. I tried to maintain the same pace just to get it done and over-with. I didn't want to slow down to prolong the endeavour - even though I could now.

As I finished up, I had about 3 bags. I started taking them to the front, and to my surprise all of the other bags were still there! It turned out that the trucks I heard were garbage trucks, and not the yard waste trucks. The yard waste trucks were delayed by several hours, so I managed to get all the bags curb-side. This may seem like small win, but for me it was massive. I'm sure you'd understand if you've ever put yourself into such a predicament as to dethatch a 3300sq.ft. lawn with a rake. This moment was momentous.

Let me tell you something, unless you have under 500 sq. ft. of lawn or you are a serious sucker for major body aches and pains (regardless of age), get a power rake or rent one. It's certainly worth it. More on this later.

But for now, here are a few pics from that insane day. They are from the beginning of the day. By the time I was done with that front section, the excitement of seeing all this stuff come up from the grass was over. I was tired and not interested in adding more to my to do list, so taking pics as I went wasn't even a consideration. The only thing I wish I had taken a pic of was the bags of thatch sitting on the lawn for pickup. That was quite a sight.

*14 May 2019*





I'm standing on the non-dethatched side. All that thatch came up from about a foot in front of the pile.



After I dethatched I fertilized with Scotts Green Max Lawn Food using a hand-held spreader. Here are a few pics of the front lawn 10 days after dethatching/fertilizing a lawn for the first time in my life. Oh, I also removed about a foot of dead grass and threw some topsoil and seed down in an effort to try fix the grass next to the driveway and walkway.

*24 May 2019*

10 days after dethatching/fertilizing.







*28 June 2019*

A one month post dethatch/fertilize shot of the backyard from the balcony. I'm pretty sure this is the point where I became obsessed.



For the remainder of 2019, I did some basic things. I didn't take any other photos but here's a summary:

•Fertilized with the Scotts Green Max every six weeks. I definitely burned the lawn in a couple of spots where the hand-held spreader got jammed. It wasn't the worst thing in the world. Overall, I got a very even application with the hand-held, except the couple of spills, but that was mostly user-end error. I used Scotts Fall Lawn Food after the last mow.

•Got an edger, edged the best I could around the driveway and walk stones. Almost impossible to get a nice clean edge with this type of driveway, but some is better than none.

•Mowed 2-3 times per week on average, always in a different direction.

•Manually pulled weeds, as I live in Ontario Canada where just about everything is banned. I'm not sure I'd use anything even if it wasn't. There's a satisfaction to be had by pulling out a dandelion - tap root and all.

At the end of the year, I was fairly satisfied with the lawn. I wasn't really sure if I'd do anything more extra the following year. I got the sense that my interest in the matter was waning. I didn't think it would survive the winter. But then spring 2020 came and...

More to follow soon.


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

Welcome to TLF! That's a nice backstory and baseline for you to track your progress.


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

Thank you @Chris LI!


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

...to pick up where I left off...

As the snow started to melt and I could see more and more of the grass, I felt that excitement for the first cut. I knew that my 'waning interest' was really just my own version of winter dormancy. Fact is, I was more obsessed coming into spring 2020 than I was the year before.

I picked up a bag of Scotts Green Max again, having loved the emerald green results it gave me last year. I applied only half the recommended rate in the second week of April. I also decided to aerate the lawn, throw down a little bit of topsoil and overseed.


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

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*30 April 2020*

I got a manual aerator (Yard Butler) and core aerated my entire lawn. I knew what I was in for this time though, and was prepared to spend a few hours doing it. Quite frankly, I was looking forward to the exercise. It had rained the day before so the ground was nice and relatively easy to work with. The soil is essentially all clay, and I'm pretty certain had I not waited for the ground to have had the rain that it did, I would have regret it.

The whole aeration job took approximately an hour per 500 sq. ft. for a total of about 6 hours. To be honest, it wasn't that bad. I'm also glad that I did the first aeration manually because it really helped me learn the ground better.

I didn't take any pictures of the aerating. I was going to leave the cores on top, but since the soil is essentially all clay it hardened and I doubted it would break down well. When I picked up a core, after it had dried, it was bone-dry. So I decided that this time around I was going to rake them up.


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

The following day I put down a tiny bit of soil and some overseeding.

*05 May 2020*




I got a fine even layer of topsoil across the whole lawn. I'm glad didn't put anymore that I did because I decided to do something a little backwards at this point. As I was raking in the soil, I just got a nagging feeling that I should dethatch again. I though I could get away without doing it this spring, but the lawn just didn't look right.

So as backwards as it was, I decided to go through with it, but this time I was going to get myself a little somethin' somethin'.


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

That little somethin' something' was a Sun Joe 13" 12-Amp Electric Scarifier and Lawn Dethatcher.

Best decision ever.

The Sun Joe comes with two attachments, a scarifier and a dethatcher. I used the dethatching attachment, and ran the first pass lengthwise and the second perpendicular. I may have gone lower on the depth than recommended but by the time I had noticed I was too far into the front lawn to adjust it. I committed to the mistake, but I got some pretty good results. Except, having scalped the lawn in a couple of spots but that was mostly due to some seriously uneven ground. Overall, this little machine is worth every penny.

*11 May 2020*




I did two passes on the whole yard, but didn't take pics or the second pass in the back.





After finishing everything I felt both mortified and excited. Mortified for how the lawn looked, and excited knowing that the benefits of what was done to it would be slow but sure.

Over the next couple of days, I started to think how I could improve the soil. Based on the LCN's advice on clay soils (he recommends feeding it as much organics to pump it up with nutrients and fertilizing it frequently) So I went out and bought two fertilizers:

Scott's Root-Trients 27-0-4 which includes organic matter like Bone Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Kelp, Worm Castings and Rice Hulls.
and
Natura 8-2-3 organic fertilizer from Home Hardware.

My plan was to apply the Scotts Root-Trients mid-May, then about four weeks later to apply the Natura 8-2-3 in mid-June. But before doing or applying anything else, I took the most important step. I did a soil test.


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

I chose to do the test with the University of Guelph . I took an even distribution of soil samples in a zig-zag pattern throughout the lawn. Mixed the soil and weighed out their required 300g. I sent 350g just to be sure.

*14 May 2020*

Soil test done and shipped. Excited to get the results.


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

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*15 May 2020*

I purchased a Scotts Wizz hand-held spreader. I'm hoping to get better control over the distribution and prevent spillage from jams that happen the manual hand-spreader. I used it to apply the Scott's Root-Trients fert, and I really liked it. Time will tell how it pans out. Just as I finished applying the fert, rain started...perfect timing.

A note on the choice of spreader. I considered buying a push spreader, but didn't like what I saw on TommyTester's review Scotts Broadcast Spreader Driveway Test. Also, my neighbour has one of the Scotts, either the DLX or the mini (probably the Mini) and his lawn is striped...very. I'm not at a point where I need or want to spend significant dough on a spreader. I really like the results I had with the manual hand-held, so this Wizz just seems like an upgrade. So far, so good. I'll keep you posted if things change.


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

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*17 May 2020*

I spent several hours pulling weeds, and trying to reclaim some semblance of a property line. My neighbour has let nature take its course on their yard and it has invaded ours. I noticed earlier in the year that the property line had shifted by about a foot or more in the back, and that's because their weeds had crept into and killed our grass. I talked to neighbour beforehand and made sure she knew what was happening, why and made sure she was okay with it.

I pulled out as much weed as I could over the course of the month. Put some soil and seed, but I highly doubt much will come up. Weeds just keep growing there instead. I see a few blades of grass here and there, but I doubt that's new seed. Anyway, I've been thinking of how to stem their weeds invading the yard. They have this fern-looking thing growing instead of grass for majority of their lawn and it's creeping into our grass and killing it. Where ever it gets to, the grass is just dead. Quite discouraging as it's so hard to get at. And no matter how much I get rid of, it spreads like wildfire.

Any ideas?

I'm in Ontario Canada, so basically anything chemical is out of the question. The lawn is 130ft in length. Fun times. :?


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## Emerald (May 16, 2020)

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*18 May 2020*

Cut the grass at 2 in. One week progress photos from dethatching on May 11.


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