# Natron's Front Lawn Journal - USDA Zone 9B



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

I am attempting to renovate and take back my front lawn from Bermuda. The goal is to have a nice stand of dwarf-fescue and bluegrass AND irrigate efficiently given California's prolonged drought and potential water restrictions.

Fortunately, I do not have to start from scratch as a previous owner had installed irrigation. I have swapped all of the existing spray nozzles to MP Rotators (1000's, 2000's, and a single 800). I've since worked to add additional laterals and spray-heads to increase my irrigation coverage.

What's been done so far:



My plan:

Continue watering daily to force weed growth for two weeks

Swap out a few more 4" pop-ups to 6" pop-ups (coverage is not bad at the moment from what I can tell so I'm not in a hurry + it's not cheap)

Dethatch

4th glyphosate app + 1st tenacity app

Apply starter fert (6-20-20)

Apply gypsum (10 lbs/1000 sf)

Seed down mid to late September?

Please let me know if I am doing something incorrectly or need to lower my expectations. I do have a lot of questions with regard to my soil tests which I will post.

I look forward to sharing and learning . Also, doing my best to use the search feature for similar situations so I appreciate your patience.


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)




----------



## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

Welcome to TLF! You're on the right track. I'm not familiar with your growing season, for recommendations, but it sounds like you're in the ballpark, for a seed down date. I wouldn't wait longer than the time window you mentioned to drop seed. The angle of the sun is decreasing noticeably (and obviously hours of daylight). Maybe a member from your area can comment. Look to see if there are local member groups for your area on TLF. Good luck!


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

@Chris LI Thank you for the warm welcome!

Soooo I neglected to dethatch before adding topsoil and amendments  . I did dethatch heavily last year before a fall overseed :roll: . Not sure how this will affect things. Could this spell trouble later on?

Anyway, seed went down on 9/12 in the late afternoon. I topdressed with a bale of peat and mixed in some CarbonizPN because I was curious. Rolled immediately after topdressing. Germination began this past weekend.

Questions I have for the more experienced:

-Should I be concerned about nematode damage given my soil test results? I'm a little hesitant to go down the rabbit hole because of how $$ nematicide is.

-Going forward should I be trying to avoid adding more iron to my soil given the high levels?

-Am I safe to be waiting the full 30 days (per the soil report rec.) before applying any additonal fert or will a spoon feeding before then benefit?


----------



## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

I wouldn't sweat skipping dethatching. You added topsoil and topcoated the seed with peat moss, and got good seed to soil contact.

You may not need to wait a full 30 days, but wait at least long enough to walk on the seedlings without damaging them. Coverage already looks really good.

I would look to use fertilizers with low or no iron, for quite awhile. Your pH is in a decent range to not have iron locked up, so it should be accessible to the plant. It could be a little lower in the 6's to be optimum, but 6.8 should be fine. I would avoid Milo at this time due to it having a good amount of iron and no K, which you really need. Spraying a little foliar iron when turf is mature, couldn't hurt. . Once P and K levels are up, you could spoonfeed with AS, which has low pH. It won't change the pH drastically, but move it slightly in the right direction.

I would monitor nematode damage, unless you have the extra $ for nematicide. I haven't dealt with nematode damage, so you can take my opinion FWIW.


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

11 DAG. Some bare spots throughout. Watering now 2x daily in the early AM and afternoon. Some weeds popping up including bermuda. I plan to paint it with gly when it's safe to walk on. Maybe next week as temps creep up to the high 80's again?



Bermuda.. :evil:





Also noticed some algea/moss atop the soil. You can see it under this weed here...anything to be concerned about? It's more prevalent in the bare spots.


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

16 DAG. *First cut!*

The grass was mostly 3" and in some areas much higher (aside from bare spots) so I decided to take the reel mower to it after reading other forum posts advising to "mow early and often" and being a little impatient :roll:. +/- 2" HOC.

Poked holes through the algae/moss areas and seeded bare spots seen above.

Applied 2 lbs/k Bioadvanced fungus control (preventative rate) and watered in. I'm paranoid about how hot it has been (90's) and how consistently moist the soil layer has been + the moss/algae I've observed.

Picked up some AS per Chris LI's suggestion and am looking to spoon-feed in the coming weeks.


----------



## Wiley (Dec 2, 2019)

@Natron nice work and good progress to date! Temps should be favorable to start feeding moving forward.


----------



## M32075 (May 9, 2019)

When you're ready to cut remember to cut often and push some nitrogen to get it to tiller and thicken it's going to look fantastic in no time. You have great germination congrats.


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

Thank you @Wiley and @M32075!

29 DAG. *3rd *cut today and cut two ways. The bare spots are starting to fill in except for one near the fence. That spot tends to dry out quickly even with me supplementing w/hand watering.

I dropped .21 lbs N (AMS) and .25 lbs K (K2[/sub]SO[sub]4) using a hand spreader. Watered in right away.

My questions at this point:

-Am I mowing frequently enough (once a week so far)? 
-I applied a very small amount of K using a hand spreader on the lowest setting which seemed like nothing at all. Would it be okay to apply more next application? I still have 1.75 lbs of total K that needs to be added to soil that I was planning on spreading out over the remainder of the year and into Spring.
-I'm noticing some spots aren't growing as fast as others and aren't as dark green. Any cause for concern?
-Would it be okay to sod bare spots that are refusing to fill in or might there be another underlying issue?


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

*45 DAG:
*

0.31 lbs AMS/k
0.50 lbs SOP/k
hand-pulled poa (triv I think)

I also patched bare spots with sod during the last rainstorm we had. I know it's been recommended not to patch with sod, but the sod was from the same local supplier as the seed.

Big thank you to @CaffeinatedLawnCare for his walkthrough on how he modified his Fiskars. After a lot of struggle with coring the wheel hubs and fighting with the adjustment spring...



I also decided to reno my backyard (+/- 1,000 SF) at 1/2 effort. Nuked it twice with Glypho, spread my remaining topsoil from the front yard, and dropped a custom 50/50 TTTF mix and Barvette HGT w/yellow jacket. Currently at *14 DAG*.


----------



## CaffeinatedLawnCare (Apr 2, 2021)

The adjustment spring sucks for sure :lol:. Looks like you managed to get your wheels on a little straighter than I did mine. Looks nice!

I'm glad I could help you out, that's what this site is all about .


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

*51 DAG:
*
Spent most of my time this weekend pulling Poa. Not sure if it was Poa a or t? Images below.





Post weed pulling I double-cut with the newly modified Fiskars. I plan to clean up the turf edges adjacent to the driveway, mow curb, pavers, and fence soon, but want to give the sod patches time to establish. I also plan to refresh the mulch in the planter beds next week. PGR is on the way, and I now have a small amount of Prodiamine on hand. Upgraded my sprayer to a Ryobi 4 gal and purchased a couple of TeeJet nozzles.


----------



## Green (Dec 24, 2017)

Not sure on the Poa, but more likely Poa A given the odd seedhead timeframe. It does that sometimes.


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

November - 1st prodiamine app (.184 oz) and 2nd tenacity app (.55 TSP/.09 oz) at 70 DAG.
December - fungus (pictured below) and DiseaseEx curative app
January - sharpened Fiskars blades with the sharpening kit sold on Amazon



I think the fungus created a few small bald spots (<5" dia.) here and there that I think will fill in. Otherwise, the weather is slowly warming up. It hasn't rained in a while.

I spoon-fed AMS (.3ish lbs N) last week and mowed with the Fiskars last Friday. Other than a lot of Poa a, I'm pretty happy with how things are looking. I can't say the same for my backyard which I've neglected and is now like 50% Poa a, I'm quite sure... 

Wonky stripes:


----------



## ABC123 (Jul 14, 2017)

with the lawn size that you have a sub surface irrigation would be so much better. you could also irrigate with much less water and not seem noticeable that your watering your turf.


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

@ABC123 That is a great suggestion. That project may have to wait until 2023 . Are you planning on running sub-surface at your new place? Congrats btw.


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

Ryobi sprayer is in for warranty repair. Prodiamine+Tenacity+Etho went down last month. 1st PGR app down last week. Tank mixed with FEature + AMS. Some fungus pressure.

It's really heating up. Increasing cycle and soak times to reduce runoff as much as possible until I get a drip system in.

Calamagrostis at 2.5' tall after cutting down to 3" a few weeks ago. Yay!


----------



## Wiley (Dec 2, 2019)

Looking good! Are you being impacted by any watering restrictions this season?


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

Thanks, @Wiley ! That means a lot coming from you.

Our purveyor is under "adequate" water conditions which means the only restriction is no watering from midday to 6 PM. My irrigation cycle is done in the early AM so no big deal.


----------



## Wiley (Dec 2, 2019)

You're welcome. It does look really good. Healthy and lush! Glad to hear you're not significantly impacted. Good luck moving forward this season.


----------



## Natron (Aug 23, 2021)

Here's how things are looking after +/- 19 days of 100º heat (going back to May).



What's happened since my last post:

-Free application of Acelepryn by the County (yay!)
-1 x Infuse app (don't be like me and use a handheld spreader for this)
-1 x application of Gro-Power plus
-2 x applications of Tournament Ready
-Swapped out more 4" pop-ups with 6" pop-ups (Hunter PRS-40-CV) to fix coverage issues and dry spots
-Cleaned out some of the MP Rotators that had stopped rotating
-Raised some of the spray bodies that had settled
-Fixed a leak that was creating most of my run-off
-Watering restricted to 3 days/week max


----------

