# Mattb's Northern Massachusetts 2022 Journal



## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Long time lurker, occasional poster (question asker) here.

I had intended to post a journal last year but never got around to it - going to remedy that for 2022 and hopefully stick with it!

I have about 22k sq feet of (fully irrigated) lawn that I divide into 4 sections:

Front - 15k sqf of nomix that I over seeded with TTTF last fall:



Back - 1.5k sqf of 100% PRG that I fully renovated last fall:



Side - 5k sqf of 90%kbg and 10% PRG that I fully renovated last fall. Mid reno:



Random area - 1k sqf of nomix that I overseeded with TTTF. This area should really be included in my "side yard" zone but it has terrible soil - it's actually the rocky/sandy tailings from an excavation when our home was built in the 50's and I didn't think the ***/PRG mix would survive.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

*2022 Plan*

One thing I didn't mention above is that prior to my reno's and overseed I had a full irrigation system installed - so this will be the first year going through a full season with that!

I'll be doing soil test in the next few weeks when the ground is less wet - I've done these the previous 2 years and my main area of deficiency has been acidic soil. I've been steadily addressing this with lime (and I added a lot of loam last year as part of my reno's) so hoping for better results this year,

As for specific zones -

Front - maintenance mode. I'm going to put down granular prodiamine, nitrogen and mow regularly at 4". My landscaper mows this area and I plan to let him continue. Hoping a fall overseed is not required.



Side - keeping my fingers crossed the *** continues to fill in. This area made really great progress in very late fall after a rocky start (major washout in September a few days after seed down)but it never looked like a "finished" lawn - thin and patchy in most areas. I had a ton of weed pressure during the reno and I manually pulled many bucket full of weeds over lunch breaks - I'm hoping what's left is primarily *** not weeds! It's not particular flat or level, but is smooth. Hoping to reel mow at ~1". I'll be spraying prodiamine shortly and will continue to spoon feed nitrogen through the spring.



Back - plan is to reel mow at .75 but I have a pretty big worm problem and also brown areas that have not greened up yet that I need to monitor. These correspond to low spots where ice built up after a thaw/freeze so I'm concerned the grass died. At the very least I'm going to roll, spray some Cleary's and probably do a spring overseed but if the brown grass is dead I'm going to end up bringing in more dirt to do a better job of leveling and then fully reseed those areas. I'll be skipping the pre-emergent due to the anticipated overseed, but will spoonfeed nitrogen.



Random area - going to see how the TTTF does this year now the lawn is irrigated. If it does well I'm going to consider a full *** renovation to tie it into the side yard zone.


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## jskierko (Sep 5, 2020)

Very nice property! That's a lot of different areas to plan for and manage, so my hat's off to you on that. I think you are spot on about the feeding and KBG filling in. I was stressed after my first reno seeing how many bare spots I had along the edges of the property. They filled in almost entirely by mid-season. Now my reno last fall has the same, bare spots along fence line and around trees. I am not worried since the feeding will do its job and let the KBG go to work.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

jskierko said:


> Very nice property! That's a lot of different areas to plan for and manage, so my hat's off to you on that.


Thanks. The "random area" was a necessity which will hopefully go away, but creating the separate "back" area directly behind the house (which you can see more easily below) was a Covid project/idea that I probably wouldn't do again. This was going to be the only area I was planning on reel mowing (and renovating) and I wanted to separate it for that reason. The mulch beds and plantings were to try and make it a "garden room" (English country garden style) that was totally private from the rest of the yard, but it looks like it's going to take many years for these to mature to the point it creates privacy - by which point we'll have probably put in a pool and have to destroy it all!


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

I dropped granular prodiamine on the front yard over the weekend and sprayed the 3 month rate of prodiamine and .25lb per k nitrogen (urea) in the back yard areas to start spoon feeding my fall renovation.

The front nomix is starting to green up more, my 90% *** side area is also showing positive signs but I'm becoming more confident I have some winter kill on my PRG "back" area that will need seeding when it warms up. I did not spray pre emergent here.

Back area with the suspected winter kill patches and a very green dog pee area (I assume). Don't mind the reflection from the window: 


Front yard mid drop. Kinda liked that the forsythia is in this shot. (Side note - I hate this spreader, need to upgrade!):


Side yard. What's interesting in this shot is that you can clearly see lines from a poor application of fertilizer and/or seed from last years reno where I used the cheap Scott's spreader. I had very clear lines running left/right and top/bottom last fall.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

The lawn has been greening up nicely over the last few weeks although I have not needed to mow it yet.

The Cleary's 3336 that I sprayed also seemed to do the trick with my worm problem so that headache is gone for now.

Unfortunately those brown areas in my PRG did not "wake up" and it became more and more obvious these were dips in the lawn that we're collecting water/ice that led to the winter kill so I elected to level these areas with a 50/50 mix of sand and loam. I also sand top dressed the rest of this area and my KBG side yard.

I'm letting the low spots fallow a bit and will be dropping seed in the next few days. I'm going to add some KBG into the mix so hopefully prevent this next year.

Low areas leveled, sand top dressing in progress:


(Pre drag mat/brushing):


I picked up a new toy this week too. The super at my golf club was trading in all his old GM1000's and he let me have this for a good price. The course mechanic gave it a full going over before I picked it up. I gave it a quick run yesterday and I'm looking forward to laying some stripes!


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## jskierko (Sep 5, 2020)

Nice GM! I'd get those transport axles off (unless you are using the transport wheels) or else you will find yourself catching those fence posts. Looks like lots of manual labor went into the month of April for you!


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

jskierko said:


> Nice GM! I'd get those transport axles off (unless you are using the transport wheels) or else you will find yourself catching those fence posts. Looks like lots of manual labor went into the month of April for you!


I hadn't thought about this and also didn't even know it was possible! That being said, I will be using the transport wheels and I had already decided to leave a ~1 foot "edging" of 1.5" height rotary mower cut grass at the fence line so I think I should be OK. I'll see what this looks like and perhaps change my approach over time.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Despite a pretty cold and windy spring so far the lawn has started to really take off in the last week.

The front has been mowed a few times by my landscaper and is looking good from afar. I put down some granular "screaming green" fert a few weeks ago I now need to spot spray some broadleaf weeds in the coming days.



I've reel mowed the KBG side yard a few times with my GM1000 to get the hang of things. The KBG is staring to fill in (unevenly)but I've noticed quite of few areas of "clumping" grass that could be poa. I'm going to continue to spoon feed N and monitor these areas - hand pulling what I can. There's some other broadleaf weeds appearing as well so I'll be spot spraying these too when I do the front.





In the back (100% PRG) area, the seed I dropped a few weeks ago in the winter kill spots has been exceptionally slow to germinate due to the aforementioned weather, so I dropped some more today and also top dressed with some peat moss. With the warm weather over the next few days I'm hoping these will take off. In the areas that did not suffer from winter kill I'm very pleased with the color and density of the grass; it's improved massively since the fall.


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## Carlson (Apr 16, 2020)

Hello fellow MA resident! Your yard is looking great. That density is impressive. I've long been in the "all TTTF" camp but am really starting to warm up to KBG and PRG with all the great lawns on here.


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## San (Jun 21, 2021)

Maybe I misread your posts, but I think you said you sprayed a 3 month rate of Prodiamine in the back in April and now you dropped seed there yesterday? That sounds too close to each other.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

San said:


> Maybe I misread your posts, but I think you said you sprayed a 3 month rate of Prodiamine in the back in April and now you dropped seed there yesterday? That sounds too close to each other.


Luckily I didn't spray prodiamine in the area I dropped the seed - I was kinda expecting to have to do that so I intentionally didn't spray there.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Carlson said:


> Hello fellow MA resident! Your yard is looking great. That density is impressive. I've long been in the "all TTTF" camp but am really starting to warm up to KBG and PRG with all the great lawns on here.


Hello neighbor! I think I checked out your journal the other day as I noticed in another thread that you must be close to me!

Yes - the density of that PRG is amazing considering what it looked like in the fall and early spring. I'm actually getting more and more concerned about the KBG area after spending time out there last night spraying some triclopyr as I'm seeing more and more spots that I think are not actually KBG. If this proves to be true I'm already thinking I may just completely reno this area in the fall with PRG.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

*Side yard update*
Blanket sprayed tenacity last night to highlight any undesirable grasses/weeds that will need further treatment. Unfortunately we had a brief downpour a few hours later, so not sure how effective it will be.

The triclpoyr hasn't yet started to work on the broadleaf weeds, but they're not too bad.

Gave the lawn a quick rotary mow with the ride-on; it's definitely starting to come on nicely.


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## Carlson (Apr 16, 2020)

If you were doing tenacity as a post-emergent, rain a few hours later should be fine. I've spot-sprayed and watered after 3hrs and the weeds are still hurting.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

New grass babies sprouting nicely (at at last!) in the back yard "winter kill" areas! 


Broadleaf weeds starting to die off but going pretty slow. I bought some speedzone (was just using triclopy before) and will be spot spraying when it arrives. 


I've been mowing this area at 1.5" with the rotary mower but I'm hoping to revert back to the Greensmaster soon - only problem is I set the HOC to 3/4" so I'll either need to adjust that or risk breaking the 1/3 rule. I probably have a week before I get to that point though.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Had to raise the HOC back up to an inch on the GM - 3/4 was too much for it to get through.

Scalped the first 3 passes at 3/4 (far left) but the 1" passes look pretty good.

The 1" is still too low for the PRG that is really thick now (currently cut at 1.5") so need to raise it again or get out the manual reel.


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## Carlson (Apr 16, 2020)

Are you going to break out some PRG so getting the height down is easier?


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Carlson said:


> Are you going to break out some PRG so getting the height down is easier?


As it happens I have some T-Nex coming on Thursday! This was more so in preparation for a vacation in June, but I may just start using straight away.

I ended up manually reel mowing the PRG at 1.25" yesterday and then ran the GM1000 tonight at 1". It's not pretty, but at least I can now keep on top of it.



Also noticed some fungus appearing - what I assume to be red thread and something else. Sprayed Cleary's 3336F (which is what I had open/on hand) which will hopefully nip that in the bud.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Mowing every other day at 1" in my KBG side yard. Looks pretty decent from afar (and 1000% better than this time last year) but still has a ways to go. Up close I'm (still) seeing some stalky grass type plants that I'm struggling to ID but I'm pretty sure they are not POA.

Sprayed T-Nex last night help with the lateral spread and cut down on top growth. Excited to see what that does over the next 2 weeks.

As per my last post, have some disease going on in my PRG that seems to be more widespread than before - I guess the density of the grass combined with the heat and frequent watering (needed for the new grass area) caused this. Sprayed propi last night spiked with some Urea.

Always find the below photo of my KBG from my outdoor camera interesting as it shows the 3 to 4 fertilizer stripes from last fall that are not visible to the naked eye. I have not mowed up and down (using this photo's orientation) in a while, so it's not from that.


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## jskierko (Sep 5, 2020)

mattb said:


> Up close I'm (still) seeing some stalky grass type plants that I'm struggling to ID but I'm pretty sure they are not POA.


You sure it's not just your KBG that produced seedheads? My grass has lots of stemmy/stalky looking blades after going through seedhead production.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

jskierko said:


> mattb said:
> 
> 
> > Up close I'm (still) seeing some stalky grass type plants that I'm struggling to ID but I'm pretty sure they are not POA.
> ...


The optimist in me is hoping that's the case. This is what they look like.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Separately to the above I noticed a really poor quality of cut from the GM1000; lots of torn blades.

After a good clean i performed the paper test and it failed miserably - not even a tear. It look quite a few clicks on each slide to get paper to cut nicely so now I'm hopeful the next cut will be perfect.

Since this was fully tuned prior to my purchase my only guess is that the mowers "struggles" getting through the (too) thick grass on first few mows must have pushed the bed knife away from the reel.

While I was there I also bit the bullet and removed the transport axles - was planning on using the wheels but ended up not doing so.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Mowed side and back yard at 1" today. Sprayed .25lbs N/per k on the side yard and did my second application of prodiamine at 5.2g per K. 


Still something off with the Greensmaster -
not cleaning cutting the grass blades leading to the whole lawn looking a bit brown. 


Edit - after posting this I went out and took a look at it again. Ended up adjusting the reel to bed knife another 3 clicks. Will see if that has any effect when I mow on Wednesday.

While I blanket sprayed the side KBG with tenacity about three weeks to highlight any issues (not much showed up) I hit a few spots of poa in the PRG to see what would happen - the tenacity really did a number on the PRG and looks like it actually wiped it out. Wierd.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Lowered the HOC to 0.6" in preparation of a 10 day vacation.

KBG area looking decent albeit a little brown at this height. Used the proplugger in a thin spot; needed more plugs but ran out of time for now.







PRG hasn't looked good since I lowered the HOC from 1.5" to 0.75". Hoping that going down to 0.6"and letting it recover back to 0.75 - 1" while I'm away will do the trick. The new grass in the winter area is looking great (pretty obvious where that is from the photo), so it's definitely the lowering of the cut that shocked the majority of the grass.


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## uts (Jul 8, 2019)

Is the mower cutting paper all around (all blades) when you tighten the reel to bedknife? I know it might take 10-15 minutes but I would cut with each blade at 3 different location to see. I don't know if density should make that much of a difference (i could be totally wrong)


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

I returned from vacation and am really happy with how the lawn looks after the partial scalp at 6/10ths of a inch, tnex, fertilizer and then 10 days of nothing (other than water). After a few mows at 9/10ths of an inch (where I'll plan to keep it until the summer heat starts to drop off) this is where I'm at:

*Side ****


*Back PRG (with the side yard behind it)*


I've noticed some thatch build up in both areas that's creating a bit of a brown "tint" that I'm putting down to seed stalks; this is most evident in the KBG and can the seen in the foreground of the above picture. I manually raked the PRG with the greenskeeper rake (and got a lot out!) but I won't be doing that on the KBG so I'm hoping that will break down organically otherwise I'll be investing in a battery powered dethatcher which I am sure my wife will be happy about :?

Noticed some fungus pop up literally overnight in the PRG (I have one spot that's really susceptible it seems) so dropped some azoxy last night that was watered in with some light rain.



Side note - the below was a really interesting photo for me showing the difference between regulated grass (tnex) and some spot seeded areas (that were not regulated) over ~10 days of growth.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

uts said:


> Is the mower cutting paper all around (all blades) when you tighten the reel to bedknife? I know it might take 10-15 minutes but I would cut with each blade at 3 different location to see. I don't know if density should make that much of a difference (i could be totally wrong)


Thanks for suggesting this - I actually had not ever tested each blade, only 1 blade at each end/the middle. I tried this after my vacation and it did cut paper cleanly on each blade at each end and the middle. My last 2 cuts have looked good - not sure exactly what the issue was but perhaps a combination of seed stalks and cutting into the crown (as I lowered the HOC) was making the cut less than ideal.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Lowered the HOC down to .75" in the PRG area - will keep it there a week or so and perhaps lower to .6 after I see how this does. New target is 0.5" by the fall.



Does anyone know what's happening in my Kbg? I'm consistently seeing small clumps of dead grass scattered around in one of the weaker areas of the lawn. Is this POA A dying off in the heat or something else? Coincidentally when I went out to take these photo's there was a bird pecking in this exact spot.


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## Wiley (Dec 2, 2019)

@mattb maybe check for grubs/bugs?


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

*2022 Reno Area*
Decided on moving forward with the reno in this area. The soil is sandy and rocky and historically the grass hasn't performed well but this year it's done "ok" with very few inputs which give me confidence that I can keep this area alive! The plan will be to spray roundup this week, spread some loam in early August, fallow for a few weeks and then seed down in mid August. I have some SSS Sunny mix left over from a few years ago that I'll plan to use. I've never actually used this is in a dedicated section so I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes out. Also planning on putting a rock/mulch border next to the fence as I'm really getting annoyed with having to trim along it (and it looking terrible). 


*Back PRG *
Still looking good at 0.75" (mowing every 3 days). Some fungus pressure but think I nipped it in the bud with a curative application of disease-x last week. Cut looks a bit washboardy from this angle; not sure what's up with that. I'm really digging the PRG but the winter kill and fungus issues when compared to KBG make me torn.


*
Front*
This is what the front looks like with no manual inputs from me since a Spring Fertilzer. It's being mowed weekly and getting about 1" of irrigation.


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## simplesimon (Aug 25, 2021)

Good to see another lawn in MA. The heat and drought has been hard to keep up with even with irrigation. Where outside of Boston are you?


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

simplesimon said:


> Good to see another lawn in MA. The heat and drought has been hard to keep up with even with irrigation. Where outside of Boston are you?


Same! Yes, the lack of rain has been tough - hoping for the forecast to hold true for the next few days!

I'm in the Andover area.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Sprayed first pass of roundup on my 1k sqf reno area last Thursday - already turning crispy, especially noticeable from the drone shot.

Interesting that my PRG area is much darker than the KBG, but both a lot better than the front and neighbors! Need to spot spray some broadleaf weeds in both areas but have been waiting for temps to drop.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Sprayed propiconazole and chelated iron tonight on the PRG area.

Got a complement from an HVAC repair guy ("Is your grass real?!") which is probably more about it being green than anything else 😀 given the lack of rain for past few months and the state of the other lawns in the area.

Spot sprayed some more glyphosate on the reno area over the weekend; I got good coverage the first pass but there were still some green spots (looked like KY31 to me). Will do another pass this weekend before bringing in some topsoil and fallowing. Planning for seed down on 8/20 or 8/27 weather depending.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

A little too hot this weekend to spend a lot of time outside, but managed to get some work done on the reno area in short bursts.

The fence line has been bothering me in other areas of the yard so decided to put in a border. Need to tidy it up and edge from the other side of the fence and then I'm going to fill it with stone as I don't want to deal with mulching it every year.



Uncovered another huge boulder barely below the surface. I'm drilling 12" deep 1.25" holes and filling them with dexpan expansive grout which breaks up the rock. The drilling was a lot harder going than normal (I did 4 of these in last years reno) and I only managed one and a half holes - will continue to work on this week. 


Jumped on the $50 sunjoe Walmart deal last month and gave the scarifier its first outing today - seemed to work well. 


Next up is mowing up the debris (battery was
Dead on the lawn tractor today) and then spreading ~2 yards of loam I brought in. Looking forward to the lower temperatures this week for that!

Looking like seed down will now be the weekend of 8/27.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

*Reno Area Update*
Moved and raked out about 1.5 yards of loam in the reno area a few weeks ago and has been fallowing now for ~10 days. Really pissed with the quality of the loam since it was meant to be 1/2" screened - its full of stone, twigs and wood debris. Luckily the level lawn tool does a decent job of bringing it to the surface which I then shoveled off.

Seed down (SSS5000 Full sun mix) will be next Friday, weather depending, and will be pregerminating for ~2 days only since the mix has PRG and fescues.

Leveled and loam "Debris" raked/pushed to the bottom for removal


Loam close us before raking


*Kbg area update*
Stopped reel mowing for the month of August as it was too hot (to want to mow, and to try and keep the grass green at .6"). The higher HOC has let me appreciate the good and bad spots from my '21 fall reno and has allowed me to more easily locate and pull some undesirable grasses (bard yard grass) and sedge.

I've given it a few rotary mows and am pretty happy with most areas - I may drop some seed in a few bare spots at the same time as the reno area to take advantage of the irrigation zone that will be on. Plan is to revert to reel mowing in a week or so.





*PRG Area*
Struggling.

Heat, fungus, rabbits and lack of mowing in this area. Hoping the cooler temps and some fertilizer will be all that's needed but I have more seed if need be.

Heat stress or fungus?


Rabbit damage


Length as of today


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

Completed my reno last weekend - 2 weeks later than originally planned but still OK (I hope!). Due to the heavy rain over the holiday weekend my seed ended up soaking/pre germinating for 6 days rather than the 2 I was originally planning but since it's 60% KBG I think that will work out well.

I used humic granular to mix and spread the soaked seeds and it was a disaster- I ended up having to buy a bag of "ecoscraps" as an extra applicator medium but even then I had to manually break up clumps of seed.



While I had the seed out I also spot seeded some bare areas from my 2021 reno area that I think may have been from insect damage (and also dog pee spots) that you can see covered with peat moss in the drone shot. Good chance this may have filled in with nitrogen but I was impatient!

I applied .5lb N per K across the reno and entire KBG area.


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## mattb (Jun 21, 2020)

*Reno Update*
Looking pretty decent 12 days after seed down. Avoided any washouts from the heavy downpours which I'm happy about! Seems slightly thin, but I guess what I'm seeing is the PRG and fescue in the mix and the KBG needs more time.

I did an edge "pass" with the drop spreader using a self made PRG/TTTF mix because i wanted to avoid "over spray" and my pre germinated seed wouldn't "drop" due to mixing issues (too wet/clumpy). It's fun to see the edges so obvious because of how quickly those seeds germinate compared to the primarily KBG in the middle.



*KBG Side Yard*
Haven't started reel mowing again yet and I think it's going to be a bit tricky to lower the HOC enough to make my first pass with the reel "easy" as my rotary push mower and lawn tractor don't have a particular low setting.

Either way this area looks great at the higher HOC. 


*PRG Area*
Sprayed some tnex earlier in the week as I have not been able to keep on top of reel mowing as much as I would like.

The cut is quite washboardy which is definitely in part due to lack of cutting but perhaps also because I'm using a smooth front roller which seems to float. I have a grooved roller coming on Sunday that I'm excited to see what it does.


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