# Ironman77 Lawn Journal 2021 (Maryland)



## Ironman77 (Aug 27, 2019)

I thought I should try doing a lawn journal this year, mostly to try to keep track of what I am doing, but also to try to keep myself accountable for keeping up with things. I have about 6000 sq feet of mixed cool season turf, with maybe ~200 sq feet of zoysia, here in Montgomery County, Maryland, just north of DC. I moved into this house about 7 years ago, and up until last year, I had a lawn company take care of fertilizer and weed control. I've always done all of my mowing and edging. Because the cool season turf is predominantly TTTF, I was on a rotation of over seeding every spring and fall to try to get the grass back into shape. I got frustrated with the lawn company's inability to communicate when they were coming to overseed, always timing it to seed and aerate just before I desperately needed to mow the grass.

In August 2019, I decided to attempt an overseed of KBG. With a heavy layer of compost, and scalping the turf down to an inch, I managed to get some decent growth. Inspired by my success, last year I decided to go off on my own, cancelled the yard service, and I cobbled together a yard plan based on information gathered here and from YouTube. I struggled with areas of dead turf in my backyard and on part of the side - could have been lack of water, could have been disease. All seemed to be better in the fall with an aggressive overseed of GCI TTTF with some Scotts shade mix thrown in.

The front yard (about 2500 sq ft) appears to have mostly survived the winter. I've got an infestation of hairy bittercress in the front flower beds, and few patches of what I think is poa annua. Otherwise the yard looks mostly weed free.




Here's the little patch of zoysia. When my neighbor resodded his entire yard about 3 years ago, he offered to have his service rip up and sod this section with whatever grass he was having installed for $1000. I politely thanked him for the offer and declined. 


Here's the remainder of the side yard. This section has been a problem over the last 2 years. We did a renovation of our kitchen and bathroom about 2 years ago, and has a dumpster parked in the driveway for the summer, and I think this area got baked from the heat coming off of the dumpster, combined with inconsistent watering. The grass has always been thin in areas despite multiple overseeds.



The backyard had come long quite nicely until last summer. I had large patches of turf die off, and I did an aggressive overseed with GCI TTTF. I had good germination and good coverage, and then the squirrels attacked and kept digging holes in my newly sprouted turf. 


The most damage, however, was done was done by our dog Sugar. Here she is by her handiwork. She started digging right where the squirrels were doing the most damage, and ended up digging out a large area.



Of course I have some dog spot damage in another area, and thin grass in the area just to the south of Sugar's bare spot. 




I just had a soil test done, and saw some improvement in Ph, organic matter, CEC, P and K levels.



Here's what I've done so far: 
Lightly raked the front and back yard to get rid of matting and winter debris. Applied the recommended 30 lb per 1000 of lime (used AMP XC granular lime with humic and iron) and added 10 lb per 1000 of LESCO CarbonPro-G Soil Optimizer to help the soil wake up. Fired up the mower and mowed the front yard (mostly to suck up leaves and winter debris).

Here's the plan for this spring: 
For the front yard, I plan to apply a preemergent (granular prodiamine). I measured the soil temp at 48 degrees this morning, so I have some time left. I'd like to try more regular feedings of the lawn to see if that makes any difference. I'm not sure what I'm going to apply - I like the convenience of granular, but it's hard to get spoon feeding -levels of granular. I also need to figure out a fungicide program to get with. Last year I alternated between Scotts DiseaseX and BioAdvanced Propiconazole.

I obviously need to overseed the backyard to fill in the damage and prevent this from being a muddy, weedy mess this summer. Plan thus far is to overseed with a mix of GCI TTTF, Barenbrug Turf Blue HGT, and Barenbrug Turf Star RPR. I've chosen the last two because the back yard gets rough use between the kids and the dog, and I thought maybe I need to treat this like a sports field and aggressively overseed with something that will have some self-repairability. I'm going to try the NeXT seeding pack to provide fertility. My thought is try to get that down next weekend. We'll see how that goes.


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## Ironman77 (Aug 27, 2019)

It's amazing what a few weeks does to the grass in the spring. On March 27, I applied a 1/2 rate of granular prodiamine to the front lawn. Other than that and the humic-laced lime and soil improver, I have not applied any fertilizer. I got in a mow on Saturday evening, and it looks pretty good, even 2 days later.


Side is even looking decent as well.



Last Saturday, April 2, I did a major overseed of the back lawn. Started out with mowing at 2.25 inches, then used the Sunjoe to scarify the lawn, then dropped mowing height to 1.75 in and mowed again to collect up all of the debris. After words, I filled in a few dog holes with 2 bags of Scotts Lawnsoil I had from last year. After that I sprayed out 12 oz per 1000 of GreenePop and 3 oz per 1000 of RGS, and 1/2 tsp per 1000 of Tenacity. I followed that with a mix of GCI TTTF, Barenbrug Turf Blue HGT and Turf Star RPR. To ensure good seed to soil contact, I rented a lawn roller and rolled the seed in. Then I topped it off with 5 bales of peat moss.









Now we just need to water and wait for germination.


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## Ironman77 (Aug 27, 2019)

And we have germination! Noticed it on Saturday morning in the larger repair area. Here's a shot of a smaller repair.

That would put the germination time at 7 days. It's probably the PRG, but could also be the TTTF. Mowed the front over the weekend again, and it's looking good. The Tenacity spray definitely highlighted some poa and other grass in the back. I've got some areas of Poa A and what is likely Poa T. There's also some odd grass and weeds that got lit up. I'll hand pull some of it.

I'm gonna try my hand at using Anuew PGR in the front to go after some of the Poa and see if it does anything. It should be here by the weekend and then I can give it a whirl. Also upgraded my backpack sprayer with a DFW wand. I had real issues doing the tenacity spray with them stock wand on my Ryobi backpack. It kept clogging and the Teejet tips i purchased would not fit the stock wand. I tested it out with water and it seems to work quite well.


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