# Footbeat - Total Noob in Long Island NY



## footbeat (Aug 9, 2021)

First of all, my dear wife is on board with this obsession...

I live in New York, Long Island. My lawn (mostly weeds) was looking green, but on closer inspection it was mostly crabgrass, ground ivy, white clover, Japanese clover, nut grass, and the occasional plantain weed and dandelion.

I did some research and came up with Tenacity as a good choice for my weeds. I sprayed it and then went on vacation for a week and a half. When I got back, I found that the irrigation controller forgot to water the lawn because the power went out and the controller's battery was dead. But, I could see that the Tenacity REALLY worked!! In the back yard, there are now swaths of brown where the ground ivy and crabgrass once were. The white clover has been coming up bleached white and is in the process of dying.

Pictures... <sigh>



This is my back yard. In the left foreground is a circle where the collapsible pool was last year. Further back on the left is the circle left after removing a dying oak tree. There was a lot of ground ivy.

But in the front yard, the Japanese clover was unaffected. So after a few weeks, I unleashed the dicamba/2,4-D mix on it. The Japanese clover started dying almost immediately.



Here is a closeup of the Japanese clover turning brown...



So what's next? I guess that's why I'm here. In a nutshell, I'm going to plant more grass so that I have a lawn of primarily grass and not weeds.


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## M32075 (May 9, 2019)

Long island here also welcome aboard. Start reading about how to do a over seed it's not to difficult with a electric de thatcher and a lawnmower. Keep it simple with a good tall fescue grass seed .


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Honestly, i think you have less than 50% grass in here. You can just go ahead and kill the rest and start over with new seeds. Since you have irrigation, it should not be too difficult.


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

Here on LI, we have a longer window of a growing season in the fall (cooler/later spring), so there is plenty of time to plan for a reno. I would read up on renos and think about it. Since you have less than 50% turf cover, it's not as risky as you might think (most is already dead, anyway).

Seed down should be around 9/1, for our area. You can start a week before that, if you want. If going for a slightly lower maintenance lawn with a higher HOC, try a 90/10 TTTF/KBG mix, or for a nicer lawn try an 80/20 KBG/PRG mix, or 100% kbg. Mixes are by percentage of weight. Kbg is a smaller seed, so the actual seed count/percentage is higher. It is slow to develop, so the prg (ryegrass) will germinate sooner to reduce washouts.


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