# what mistakes have you made and learned from?



## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

I'm realizing what an incredible learning experience this lawn care thing is! So far I've messed up by:
1. Not watering my weeds after spraying glyphosate, during my renovation. Didn't realize that drought stress could keep them from dying. 
2. Tilling. Enough said. HUGE mistake.
3. Using cheaper seed to save money, from a slightly sketchy company. 
4. Not having Carfentrazone on hand to deal with the weed pressure during the early days of seed emergence. (biggest mistake I made)
5. Using Sulfentrazone on grass I was trying to get to spread/thicken up. I didn't realize it had pre-emergent qualities that would prevent new shoots coming up. Couldn't figure out why grass wasn't spreading. Now that it has worn off the grass is spreading like crazy, although so are the sedges, lol. Going to do certainty next. 
6. overdosing my yard with kelp as it came out of PGR suppression, on top of a heavy fertilizer does. Got stupid fast top growth that came down with a fungus. 
7. under watering due to standard advice that didn't match my soil or weather conditions (second biggest mistake?)
8. Not recognizing army worm damage until it had really thinned out the grass.

So lots of mistakes but hey, I'm learning a ton! Most of those are a matter of wait it out and it will fix itself, but the tilling left the ground so uneven I can't mow anywhere near as low as I'd like to. Will be leveling next year.


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## Movingshrub (Jun 12, 2017)

ktgrok said:


> 5. Using Sulfentrazone on grass I was trying to get to spread/thicken up. I didn't realize it had pre-emergent qualities that would prevent new shoots coming up.


Where did you read/see this? Most of the sulfonylurea class herbicides have a soil residual and many can also have a PGR like effect. That soil residual impacts different plants depending on which SU is used. I was familiar with sulfentrazone being used as pre-em for sedges, but I hadn't read anything about it preventing new shoots. With that being said, I am assuming you followed the label and waited at least a month after seeding before applying the herbicide.


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## Hexadecimal 00FF00 (Sep 20, 2018)

ktgrok said:


> 8. Not recognizing army worm damage until it had really thinned out the grass.


This is my rookie season so I haven't had a lot of time to make many mistakes but your #8 happened to me last year.


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## Hexadecimal 00FF00 (Sep 20, 2018)

My first ever PGR application was pretty spotty and striped. I learned to better calibrate my sprayer to my walking, to use marker dye, and to not only go in one direction - basically, half the application in one direction and the other half perpendicular. No more stripes and spots!


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## Redtwin (Feb 9, 2019)

Hexadecimal 00FF00 said:


> My first ever PGR application was pretty spotty and striped. I learned to better calibrate my sprayer to my walking, to use marker dye, and to not only go in one direction - basically, half the application in one direction and the other half perpendicular. No more stripes and spots!


This is good advice for everything from PGR to fertilizers to herbicides... spray or granular. This is my first year of seriously managing my turf so I am also still adjusting my technique.


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## LawnSolo (Jul 17, 2018)

This for me:


> 7. under watering due to standard advice that didn't match my soil or weather conditions (second biggest mistake?)


I personally learned to listen to my grass and understand the weather around my area. Every time I do it "my way" my lawn goes back to domination mode


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## Darth_V8r (Jul 18, 2019)

Biggest mistake I made was trying to force the land to accept a type of grass that I wanted rather than selecting a grass that worked with the land I had. So much of lawn care got so much better for me once I accepted the land was what it was and just found a grass to suit the soil.

Next biggest mistake was cutting the grass too short, because I read it on the internet. Damn near killed my yard. Use your own observations as to what works for your yard. if the internet says 1-1.5" HOC, but your grass flourishes at 2", go with what works.

Third mistake I made was getting impatient. Yard maintenance is an exercise in long-term planning and vision. I want to see results in three days, and get tempted to over-treat the yard.


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## andymac7 (Oct 30, 2018)

1. Not focusing enough on lawn fungus. 2 apps of a light cheap Scott's isn't going to cut it.
2. Not leveling. So they call the nearby Shawnee State Forest "The Little Smokies". My yard might have taken that title away. So, SO stupid to leave it as is. Especially with trying to grow Bermuda. If I so much as cough on my mower I have a scalp mark.
3. (Probably the most hilarious one) Not realizing the difference between common bermuda and nimblewill.  Wow, just wow. I now have a real problem, although I can accept this bermuda imposter a little better than most other weeds. I will have to non-selectively deal with it gradually.
4. Buying/Using Liquid Soil Aeration (the Amazon cheap kind). Another dumb move. More wasted money. More well-deserved eye-rolling from the wife.
5. Not pushing growth enough in spring by thinking foliar fert was enough. Well.. it's not. Next year it's fast release granular.

Yep, that about does it. Lol. I learned a lot. TLF is helping me along, and thankfully bermuda is VERY forgiving of my stupidity.


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## BermudaBoy (Jun 27, 2019)

Where do I begin?

1. I bought the wrong mower. I wanted to go green and bought an electric mower that cuts fine but has a minimum cutting height of 1 and 7/8 inches. I had to raise my mowing height to 3 inches to keep my lawn green and I don't like my grass that high. It looked much better when I was able to keep it around 2 inches.

2. I overseeded my bare spots with Princess 77. I spent a good bit of money on seed but later learned that I should have just pushed my Tifway with proper fertilization and irrigation. It eventually took off and overtook the Princess. Money down the drain.

3. I didn't apply a fall pre-emergent last year. I went away for a week around New Year's and came home to a Poa infestation.

4. I bought products from a certain YouTuber without doing proper due diligence. I spent a lot of money early this growing season buying products that have cheaper alternatives that more readily available.

5. I didn't invest in a good spreader. I thought I could get the job done with a hand spreader and I was wrong. My backyard is bigger than I though.


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## Bmossin (May 31, 2018)

Overseeded/seeded bermuda instead of just pushing what I already had.


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Movingshrub said:


> ktgrok said:
> 
> 
> > 5. Using Sulfentrazone on grass I was trying to get to spread/thicken up. I didn't realize it had pre-emergent qualities that would prevent new shoots coming up.
> ...


I've pieced together a few things, plus just observing how the grass reacted. It was used well after seeding, but I had bare spots from a massive invasion of Florida Pusley I finally killed off (see the mistake about not being prepared for weed pressure) and other areas that were thin/bare from the armyworms. So more like a sprigging/plugging grow in in those areas than anything. After the sulfentrazone wore off the difference was obvious. I don't know the exact mechanism, but it definitely slowed it and seemed to keep anything new growing in those bare areas.


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## sabanist (Mar 28, 2019)

Not sure I've learned any lessons yet. I'm fightin this lawn. Not sure what the problem is as of yet. Not enough water? too much water? fungus? pests?

I got some spots growing fine, some with weeds and some just looks like its not growing, not dead, but has this "hay" in between the live grass.

I think I was cutting too low, setting on the mower was the 2nd highest. I've held off on cutting and now about to cut with the highest setting.

I put down a fungicide last week, then about 4 days later put down some turf builder

Added a sprinkler head where it was dead/dry

Was watering at 3 days a week, 55 minutes a per zone. neighbor's lawn looks good and said he was watering hour per zone every day. So I cranked up to every day about 5 days ago.

Waiting to see what it does now.


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## Cory (Aug 23, 2017)

Overseeded with Annual Rye even though I was warned not to. Also trading my California Trimmer for the Toro 1600 wasn't a good idea


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

I made the mistake of waiting to spray my crabgrass. Now it's too big for Celsius (from what I understand) and it's not responding to it. I'll have to wait until winter and deal with it next year. Next year, as soon as I see crabgrass, it's getting sprayed. Procrastination has real consequences.


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## ENC_Lawn (Sep 9, 2018)

Overwatered my seeding / renovation the first couple of weeks after "worrying" about not watering enough. I backed off watering and the Bermuda Jumped out of the ground.

Also removing old turf and seeding or even better installing SOD is great....but if you already have Bermuda "regardless of the cultivar"...don't underestimate what a good sand leveling and reel mower can do for your lawn.

I am convinced that having the proper "tools" is just as important if not more than the cultivar.

That's good advice I have seen @Greendoc give before if memory serves me correctly.


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## jhealy748 (Jul 25, 2019)

This is a great thread!

1: The hardest lesson I learned was that Gly doesn't always work if the plant is stressed and or not watered. Then once you water seed 5 times a day it comes back up in your seeded area and you have to hand paint a lot of prairie grass.

2: underground irrigation is tricky. I wanted to have everything perfect so the heads wouldn't need to be adjusted in height after the fact but it messed up all of my leveling work and was way harder to come in with a drag and level while trying not to hit any heads with the tractor or drag. Made for a lot of hand raking. Not sure if I learned anything with this as I don't know if there is a better way or order to do this!

3: It doesn't take much slope or rain to have your seed wash away. I didn't use anything to retain the seed other than raking it in due to the size of my project and even with a slight grade and a quick fairly heavy rain, half my yard ended up pretty spotty and needed to be re-seeded.

4: Do a really extensive test of your irrigation system when it is bare dirt to look for both dry spots and low spots as they are way easier to fix before seed down. It may look perfectly level but as soon as there is water on it you will find low spots!


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> I made the mistake of waiting to spray my crabgrass. Now it's too big for Celsius (from what I understand) and it's not responding to it. I'll have to wait until winter and deal with it next year. Next year, as soon as I see crabgrass, it's getting sprayed. Procrastination has real consequences.


Well, hopefully if you use a pre emergent next year it won't be an issue?


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

ktgrok said:


> Bermuda_Newbie said:
> 
> 
> > I made the mistake of waiting to spray my crabgrass. Now it's too big for Celsius (from what I understand) and it's not responding to it. I'll have to wait until winter and deal with it next year. Next year, as soon as I see crabgrass, it's getting sprayed. Procrastination has real consequences.
> ...


I read the longer you use a preemergent for the less it becomes an issue. This past spring was my first time using a half-dose of pre-emergent so I think it will get better as time goes on. I'm going to try @Darrell_KC 's suggestion of spectracide and see if that helps. Can't hurt!


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

Cory said:


> Overseeded with Annual Rye even though I was warned not to. Also trading my California Trimmer for the Toro 1600 wasn't a good idea


Why was the GM 1600 a bad idea?


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## WDE46 (Mar 11, 2019)

Seeding my zenith zoysia is where I learned the most. I'm glad I just did a ~1000 sq ft area to try it out.

1. Biggest mistake was lack of erosion control just after seeding. I decent bit of my seed washed away and it would've grown in a lot thicker if I had used a blanket or maybe some tacky straw. Part of it was just luck though. I seeded and 3 days later we had several inches of rain in a day.

2. Mistook barnyard grass for my zoysia initially and then was reluctant to pull it once identified because I didn't want to walk on the seeds. It was a lot of work to catch up with that weed. A couple days of pulling for 2 hours after work sucked and that was only 1000 sq ft. Will try tupersan preemergent next year or just pull diligently every couple days.

3. More soil prep would be good. My soil sucks and has tons of gravel from the cheap contractor construction practices. I should've dug out any gravely spots. Grass will not grow or spread there so I have to do it anyway later.

4. I need to get a better nozzle for my sprayer and be more careful about tracking where I sprayed. Overlapped an MSMA application and that strip of bermuda suffered for a couple weeks. Oops.

5. Sprayed celsius in the backyard that was mostly weeds to see if bermuda would come up and spread. Well, some did, BUT now I have celsius resistant weeds that took the place of the celsius vulnerable weeds. There is no real practical impact to me since I'm glyphing the whole area next april, but it's something to be wary of. You have to replace what you killed before something else unwanted comes back!

6. Manual dethatching. It worked, but should've bought the Sunjoe dethatcher. $100 totally worth it. Would've been done in a day instead of several days and lots of soreness. Pros are that you get a solid workout.

Best decisions:

1. Buying celsius and putting down dimension in March. Front yard was mostly winter weeds and the bermuda is back and doing pretty well.

2. Only trying 1000 square feet of zoysia seed at first. If I did all 3.5K, I would've failed miserably. Now I know how much work it is.

3. Dethatching and scalping. Despite it sucking labor wise, it brought the front yard back. I thought it was a lost cause but the bermuda recovered well from years of neglect.


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Agree that scalping is a huge help. I think the 2 biggest things helping my grass finally spread out are scalping it and giving it more water. Water seems to be my limiting factor for spread. Which is ironic, given that I have super cheap water, and yet kept putting money and time into things like kelp, humic, soap, various fertilizers, etc etc etc. Water was what it really wanted. (I have some issues with sprinkler coverage I need to address, but am trying VERY hard to wait and do that over the winter or better, early spring, when it isn't a zillion degrees out. I probably need to switch to rotors instead of spray heads for at least one zone and I'm just not dealing with it right now. I'll take the hose out a few times a week and hand water the dry spots.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

Commercially, the first two things I address are irrigation and mowing height. Worst things I have seen done to lawns are to mow them high but often, this is on warm season grasses where their correct HOC is less than an inch. Next worst is watering daily on heavy clay or not watering often enough on sand. What negates any attempts to correct frequency and duration of irrigation is poor/uneven coverage by an in ground irrigation system. Coverage is key. Last thing I have seen gone wrong, is too many fertilizers, supplements, magic powders, etc. I had to deal with a lawn that got Milorganite. What a nightmare for the homeowner and myself. Imagine Zoysia growing 6" in 7 days for then next 9 weeks after being in semi dormancy for 8 months. Bag rate of Milorganite finally activated when daytime temps got into the low 90s.


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

MIstaking Nimblewill for common bermuda prior to rennovation. Killed 22k SF and realized that all my bermuda was concentrated in top 1/2 of the lawn. Fought weeds and erosion all summer long on the bottom half.


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Greendoc said:


> Commercially, the first two things I address are irrigation and mowing height. Worst things I have seen done to lawns are to mow them high but often, this is on warm season grasses where their correct HOC is less than an inch. Next worst is watering daily on heavy clay or not watering often enough on sand. What negates any attempts to correct frequency and duration of irrigation is poor/uneven coverage by an in ground irrigation system. Coverage is key. Last thing I have seen gone wrong, is too many fertilizers, supplements, magic powders, etc. I had to deal with a lawn that got Milorganite. What a nightmare for the homeowner and myself. Imagine Zoysia growing 6" in 7 days for then next 9 weeks after being in semi dormancy for 8 months. Bag rate of Milorganite finally activated when daytime temps got into the low 90s.


Yeah, i'm a believer now. Both you and my father have preached "water it and mow it" as the big two things. And at least now I know what my grass looks like when it's too dry. What I was sure was some crazy exotic problem was just dry, lol. In my defense, the last time I saw a bermuda lawn I was 11 years old - pretty sure our next door neighbor had bermuda. I always had st. augustine and then bahia, which I'm realizing are just not even in the same category in a lot of ways. And with the irrigation, I improved it greatly when I redid it, and on paper it should be full coverage, but our water pressure is so high that I get more misting than I should, and that plus even a slight breeze means I get areas that don't quite get enough water. When I put it all in we didn't have any wind - now it's been windy. Definitely going to work on that, but for now hand watering the two or three areas that get a bit dry seems to be working. When it cools off I'll get out there and redo things.

At least I've listened to you, and stuck with quick release fertilizers for the most part. I now have on hand AMS, a sprayable MOP (didn't realize they gave me MOP and not SOP until I got home - was a wholesale place that just loads it in the car for you so I never saw the bag and it was cheap enough I didn't bring it back), and a 10 lb container of Miracle Gro.

Pretty sure you, @Greendoc also told me to use Certainty instead of Dismiss for the spurge, and I cheaped out and used the dismiss anyway - which was also on my list of mistakes as far as it really slowing down/dinging the Bermuda. This time I'm using Certainty 

Mowing is still a challenge...if I go as low as I should for bermuda it scalps badly in a lot of places. I'm keeping it as low as I can without doing that, but it should be lower. I'm assuming it is too late to level this season? Definitely will in the spring, so I can get a nice low mow going.


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## Cory (Aug 23, 2017)

Greendoc said:


> Cory said:
> 
> 
> > Overseeded with Annual Rye even though I was warned not to. Also trading my California Trimmer for the Toro 1600 wasn't a good idea
> ...


It needs all new bearings and an 8 blade reel because I can't keep up mowing under 1/2". my Trimmer wasn't even 2 seasons old yet, practically brand new. I haven't even used it since July, I've been rotary mowing everything. Didn't want to do any more damage because the bearings are completely shot. I may just do the repairs and sell it next spring.

But that's not really my issue with it. Short answer, basically my ditch has to look good because it takes up so much of my front yard 
and the toro doesn't handle it as well as the Trimmer did. And it's much harder on me to mow it with the Toro, I have a bad back.

Long answer, the Toro doesn't get as good traction and it's not as easy to maneuver. I don't like the all or nothing clutch. The Trimmer model I had had a hand clutch that you could feather to slow down or speed up without having to lower the throttle, made mowing the ditch a lot easier. On the flat part of the lawn the Toro is awesome but around 1/3rd of my front lawn is ditch.

Also If I reel mow my backyard it needs to be mowed taller than the front because it's common Bermuda, adjusting hight every time I mow is not as easy as the Trimmer was so I only mowed it twice with the Toro. I don't like how much further away it as to mow from obstacles vs the Trimmer. I have a lot of fence line to trim so the closer the mow the better. Also, because of how much further away it has to mow it leaves an uncut strip of grass in the bottom of the ditch because it can't go all the way to the bottom, looks like mow-hawk in the bottom of the ditch :lol:

I'm not saying it's a bad mower, it's just a bad mower for my front yard.


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## Oceanus (Sep 17, 2018)

I love the topic. I often like to ask experts, "So how do intelligent, well meaning people, screw up?"

*KNOW THY SOIL* and what the specific grass needs/wants to thrive
- Not getting a good soil test and just following a generic program = waste or worse

*RELAX, BE PATIENT, ASK AN EXPERT (OR TWO)*; Impatience/Jumping to conclusions
- killed a beautiful St Augustine lawn by treating the wrong problem
- wasted resources, time and money, with the wrong treatments

*KNOW HOW MUCH IRRIGATION TO SUPPLEMENT AND WHEN*
water in the morning when the grass is 'awake' and active = good; watering at night = fungus
properly calibrated sprinkler system = easy & good; 'Smart' sprinkler system is better
- lost seeds in heavy down-pore
- over/under watered = stress and weed/fungus problems

*AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION (PRE-EMERGENT)...*
- Giving weeds a head start will require more resources to fix (if even possible)


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Well, for me, the "smart" sprinkler system was the same as no sprinkler system. I am just far enough from the closest weather station that it thought I was getting rain when I wasn't, or that I got more rain than I did, etc. So i turned that off pretty quickly. But still managed to recently accidentally turn the whole irrigation program off. couldn't figure out why the grass looked so dry when it had just been watered. Um, because it hadn't been. Oops. But I'm learning! At least I recognized that it looked dry and investigated the problem instead of freaking out it had some rare disease this time.


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## legalbabble26 (Sep 12, 2019)

Darth_V8r said:


> Biggest mistake I made was trying to force the land to accept a type of grass that I wanted rather than selecting a grass that worked with the land I had. So much of lawn care got so much better for me once I accepted the land was what it was and just found a grass to suit the soil.
> 
> Next biggest mistake was cutting the grass too short, because I read it on the internet. Damn near killed my yard. Use your own observations as to what works for your yard. if the internet says 1-1.5" HOC, but your grass flourishes at 2", go with what works.
> 
> Third mistake I made was getting impatient. Yard maintenance is an exercise in long-term planning and vision. I want to see results in three days, and get tempted to over-treat the yard.


I've got a good one. The spring of 2018 after killing off the old ugly lawn shortly after we moved in, I planted common Bermuda grass seed. About 3 weeks later, this pretty green grass came up and spread like wildfire. I had a full lawn in about 2 months. I cut it and babied it until August when I started seeing weeds. I sprayed a weed killer with crab grass control, and it murdered the whole yard. My wife was pretty pissed and I felt bad. The spring of 2019, I noticed a different grass type coming in, then my lightbulb went off. I learned that in 2018, I had a nice manicured, babied lawn full of CRABGRASS!
I was obviously Bermuda stupid. It took all year 2019 for the Bermuda to fill in the yard while keeping the crabgrass away with a prodiamine application i put down in the spring of 2019. Now here in sept, there are a few thin spots but it is a beautiful Bermuda that I am proud of. Still have a lot to learn of course.


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## Redtwin (Feb 9, 2019)

@legalbabble26

I often wonder how some of my neighbors keep the Bermuda from invading their crabgrass lawns. :lol:


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Redtwin said:


> @legalbabble26
> 
> I often wonder how some of my neighbors keep the Bermuda from invading their crabgrass lawns. :lol:


I've seen a few local posts on facebook asking how to care for their grass, with a nice picture of their lovely dove weed.


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## legalbabble26 (Sep 12, 2019)

Dang. Lol


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## legalbabble26 (Sep 12, 2019)

I was very young to the science of lawn care and for some reason I didn't think that it looked like Bermuda however what did I know at the time? the crabgrass just sprouted and grew much faster than the Bermuda because the Bermuda was newly seeded and young.


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

I'm picturing other people on your block just watching in amazement as you babied that crab grass, lol.


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## legalbabble26 (Sep 12, 2019)

Believe me, I doubt they knew. They don't even like to cut theirs. That is a funny thought though.


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## Chocolate Lab (Jun 8, 2019)

This is for seeding...

1. I didn't have my irrigation in good enough order in one section. Ended up doing it sort of halfway, and now I'm going to have to do it over next year.

2. Like ktgrok said, didn't buy top quality (IMO) seed for my much bigger back yard like I did the front. Was trying to save some money. But I saw a far bigger difference in the two varieties than the NTEP numbers would indicate, and next year will use the top stuff in the back.

3. As ENC said, I was so paranoid about my new seed getting dry for one minute out of the day, I actually overwatered. This just gave me a nice crop of nutsedge and wasted water. Sure, it's still better to err on the side of too much water rather than too little, but now I know I don't have to be so paranoid about it. Those seed coatings designed to hold moisture really work.

4. The "seeing straw" that tackifies didn't do anything for me. I guess it would work to keep seed from washing away in a big rain, but I didn't have that situation. Waste of money.

5. I probably need to heavily amend my terrible solid clay back yard with compost. I know all about no-tilling, but when you're starting from zero, adding in organic matter can only help. At the least, I'm going to rent an aerator and drag compost into the holes.


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## ladycage (Aug 12, 2019)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> I made the mistake of waiting to spray my crabgrass. Now it's too big for Celsius (from what I understand) and it's not responding to it. I'll have to wait until winter and deal with it next year. Next year, as soon as I see crabgrass, it's getting sprayed. Procrastination has real consequences.


Put down a pre-emergent like Prodiamine so that the crabgrass won't even come up next year, once your temperature gets to about 55-60 degrees I think you should put down an application of pre-emergent so the crabgrass seeds don't grow up. I made that same mistake of not applying the pre-em at the right time and had to deal with a crabgrass infestation.


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Chocolate Lab said:


> This is for seeding...
> 
> 2. Like ktgrok said, didn't buy top quality (IMO) seed for my much bigger back yard like I did the front. Was trying to save some money. But I saw a far bigger difference in the two varieties than the NTEP numbers would indicate, and next year will use the top stuff in the back.


Pretty sure we are both talking about Maya bermuda? And yeah..doesn't live up to the expectation given the NTEP numbers. Not sure what that is about. Should have put up the money for Arden 15.

The good news is that even with all my mistakes my yard is still probably the second nicest on the block, maybe the nicest. (part of that is I don't obey the watering restrictions....I was assured by the utility company that they don't give a rip and to water whenever the grass needs it, as a healthy yard helps prevent runoff which is a bigger issue than the extra water usage in our area).

But I also mow more than once every two weeks, and have more grass than weeds, which puts me ahead of everyone but two people all on it's own. (and they have Tru-Green).


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## david_ (Aug 22, 2019)

Don't overfill spreader. Hit a root and dumped a couple lbs of 29-0-5 in a tiny area. Fun to try to clean up.


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## jimbeckel (May 27, 2018)

Biggest mistake I've made is pouring out the contents of my sprayer which I thought was rinsed well of quinclorac onto an area of Bermuda. The Bermuda quickly died and I had to resod the area, live and learn.


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## Chocolate Lab (Jun 8, 2019)

ktgrok said:


> Pretty sure we are both talking about Maya bermuda? And yeah..doesn't live up to the expectation given the NTEP numbers. Not sure what that is about. Should have put up the money for Arden 15.


Yep, and I hate to malign it too much for people reading this. Mine didn't have good conditions, and the one poster (don't remember their name) had pics of their year-old Maya that looked really nice. I'm just so happy with the stuff in the front, I want to use it again.


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## JRS 9572 (May 28, 2018)

Wasting money on a McLane reel mower, and not going all in for something that's not built with Chinese Communist cheap parts. But I'm not bitter.


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Chocolate Lab said:


> ktgrok said:
> 
> 
> > Pretty sure we are both talking about Maya bermuda? And yeah..doesn't live up to the expectation given the NTEP numbers. Not sure what that is about. Should have put up the money for Arden 15.
> ...


I certainly made plenty of mistakes, but yeah.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

Chocolate Lab said:


> This is for seeding...
> 
> 1. I didn't have my irrigation in good enough order in one section. Ended up doing it sort of halfway, and now I'm going to have to do it over next year.
> 
> ...


Tilling compost or topdressing compost is a quick fix that later goes bad on you. It is difficult to get high organic matter soils to grade and level. Such soils also shrink when the OM is gone. Putting anything but sand on a lawn may be added to the list of mistakes. In most cases, what works is sand capping bad soil. Do not till sand into soil unless you are applying enough such that the sand is over 75% of the composition. Small amounts of sand tilled in can make things way worse.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

ladycage said:


> Bermuda_Newbie said:
> 
> 
> > I made the mistake of waiting to spray my crabgrass. Now it's too big for Celsius (from what I understand) and it's not responding to it. I'll have to wait until winter and deal with it next year. Next year, as soon as I see crabgrass, it's getting sprayed. Procrastination has real consequences.
> ...


I actually did that this year but I think it takes a few years to keep it all away. Hopefully better results next year.


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## Wfrobinette (Feb 3, 2019)

1. Not scalping low before sand level. 
2. Getting lazy in august. Had to raise HOC twice.
3. Not pushing more N after level
4. Mowing too soon after level - dulled the blade.
5. Not using celsius until august


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

- put the drip bucket back under the grill before using
- make sure the mower is set at the correct HOC
- if you normally use granular and want to try liquid...ask for help on amount to apply
- trim pass/boarder is there for a reason
- respect the obstacles in/around your lawn
- pre emergent is your friend
- leveling is not just for those who cut reel low

Thanks to all of you for sharing as I'm still learning!!


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## Chocolate Lab (Jun 8, 2019)

Greendoc said:


> Putting anything but sand on a lawn may be added to the list of mistakes. In most cases, what works is sand capping bad soil.


Ok, then how do I ever get more OM into the soil? Just grow grass in it long enough?

Also, I'm ignorant to the term sand capping. Can you explain?


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## ktgrok (May 25, 2019)

Chocolate Lab said:


> Greendoc said:
> 
> 
> > Putting anything but sand on a lawn may be added to the list of mistakes. In most cases, what works is sand capping bad soil.
> ...


Grass clippings add organic matter every time you mow. And root cycling also adds organic matter.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

Chocolate Lab said:


> Greendoc said:
> 
> 
> > Putting anything but sand on a lawn may be added to the list of mistakes. In most cases, what works is sand capping bad soil.
> ...


Grow grass in it. That absolutely works. Only time it does not work is when the grass is kept under starvation conditions and every single clipping is picked up.

Sand capping is the process of topdressing an area with sand to the point of adding more than an inch over existing soil.


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## Chocolate Lab (Jun 8, 2019)

I'm with you guys. I've studied cover cropping for years and have experimented with it some myself. Even thought about growing a fall cover crop to get some root penetration and biomass going. (In fact, I think I'll do that over a portion of especially bad clay.)

Only thing I'll say is, are you guys sure you can comprehend how terrible this stuff is?  It's not just poor or bad, it's abysmal. I think just leaving the clippings down (which I've always done) would take many years to make a real difference in OM. At least, that's what the cover crop farmers say.

There wouldn't be anything wrong with my aeration/rake compost over the holes, would there? The area no doubt needs to be aerated anyway, and that would be far easier than tilling.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

My biggest mistake was hiring a landscaping company for my front yard project instead of doing it myself. I wasted more money than I care to think about. I could have finished the job much faster myself (they took 8 months!), I could have done a much better job myself, and I would have installed decent sod. I won't make that mistake again for my back yard renovation.

The thousand little mistakes I made are harder to remember....

* I learned that hand painting nutsedge with glysophate isn't effective.

* I learned to pay attention when using the Swardman "verticutter" cartridge or I can fill my mulch beds with grass and dirt.

* I installed my Marayama Landscape blade on my Ego trimmer shaft without double-checking the orientation to the power head. And....of course it came out sideways. Doh! And of course I fouled the original shims by cranking the set-screw down really hard. So I had to order new 25mm and 26mm shims from Seago and re-do the install.


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## jimbeckel (May 27, 2018)

hsvtoolfool said:


> My biggest mistake was hiring a landscaping company for my front yard project instead of doing it myself. I wasted more money than I care to think about. I could have finished the job much faster myself (they took 8 months!), I could have done a much better job myself, and I would have installed decent sod. I won't make that mistake again for my back yard renovation.
> 
> The thousand little mistakes I made are harder to remember....
> 
> ...


Who did you use for your landscaping project? I used SouthernScapes to Reno my backyard Bermuda to Meyer zoysia and the sod had grubs galore and they chose not to come back to discuss the dead sod. Contractors in this town are terrible.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

jimbeckel said:


> Contractors in this town are terrible.


Mega dittos on that. The only landscape contractor I know about who's professional and a Belgard certified installer is Greg Ledford...

http://ledfordslandscaping.com/

The first problem is that they are almost always booked about 18 months in advance. So you have to really plan ahead. The second problem is they ain't cheap. Still, I probably would use Greg if I could afford them.

I believe the company who did my front yard renovation "went out of business" right after my job was done. The barely survived my job. By the end, he had lost all his employees and his wife and some clueless high school kids were the only people working for him. I suspect that's his business model. I won't go into all the crap they pulled because it would just make me angry all over again. Even so, I won't dog a local business on a public forum.


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## MatthewinGA (May 21, 2018)

Sprayed weed-b-gon in high heat.

(Last summer)


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## BermudaBoy (Jun 27, 2019)

MatthewinGA said:


> Sprayed weed-b-gon in high heat.
> 
> (Last summer)


I did that my first summer in my house. Burned the entire back yard.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

I planted fescue sod in a desert climate in full sun. I didn't know much about grass at the time and was just doing what I saw other homeowners around me doing. That was an expensive mistake.


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## avionics12 (Jul 2, 2018)

I disregarded the effects of early morning dew and am now "growing" through it. I had several dollar spot patches that are slowly filling in.


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## cnet24 (Jul 14, 2017)

Bermuda_Newbie said:


> I planted fescue sod in a desert climate in full sun. I didn't know much about grass at the time and was just doing what I saw other homeowners around me doing. That was an expensive mistake.


...who even sells fescue sod in that type of climate? It just sounds like the exact opposite climate fescue would thrive in. I just think it's crazy someone is growing/selling that in a desert.


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## Bermuda_Newbie (Jun 15, 2018)

cnet24 said:


> Bermuda_Newbie said:
> 
> 
> > I planted fescue sod in a desert climate in full sun. I didn't know much about grass at the time and was just doing what I saw other homeowners around me doing. That was an expensive mistake.
> ...


It works if you happen to have a very shady yard but other than that, it dies and weeds take its place and you end up with a yard that looks like most of my neighbor's or a water bill of a couple hundred dollars a month.


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