# Crzipilot's Lawn Journal



## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

I"m a little late starting this, but still in the first year of working on this. We finished the house in April of this year and finally got landscaping / sod down by end of June. Sod greened up and established itself fairly well. We probably waited to long to cut it the first time, so it hurt it's appearance some.

To play catch up I'll post some pics from the beginning and try to catch up to present day.

So the lawn got graded and top soil put down. We moved A LOT of dirt, and hopefully got some swales put in to deal with the ground water that this lot gets. We are at the bottom of a small hill end of culdesac, and we get ALL the rain runoff. Luckily it pretty much runs down the property lines into the creek behind us.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

7:30 on a Saturday morning this shows up: 20 pallets of Tif tuf.



And the guys proceed to do this:

























We were 1500sq ft short in the back, so a few days later we got 3 more pallets and finished the back.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

Instructed to water it in...daily 1 hour in the morning one at night.....it came along nicely. Greened up and then it was off the to races to figure out what I was going to do with this lawn. Haven't had a lawn in 18 years, and having to buy all new equipment, and everything. Not to mention the lawn was in Florida, so dealing with different species up here in SC/NC.

First bought a mascot reel, wife stated she'd rather mow the grass than clean the house. So that kinda worked out. A few weeks mowing with it though, we figured a greens mower would be in the future, and actually found a Toro GM1000 for 300.00. In the process of that met the head equipment manager at he best golf course in Charlotte, and he is going through the toro for us as we speak.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

First month or so, everything is going good, 5-6 weeks into it, and we get another piece of equipment.



and we put down our first fert, screaming green?


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

A week or so, and it greens up even more so, but then some areas just didn't look right. Start reading more and researching (had already found this site, and got the bible, and the triangle downloaded and read through)


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

So read on here the water dish soap test. Low and behold who comes popping out?

Should have known with the amount of birds we had feeding and such


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

Luckily neighbor had some spare supplies, and I was able to pickup the Crosscheck from him and lay it down, Also put down some more fungicide as the amount of water that seems to not drain to well in certain parts of the lawn.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

So a few days and I would check here and there, and was still finding worms. the Bifenthrin didn't seem to completely work. So more reading on here. Dylox gets suggested. Off the fert store, discuss the issue, and guy suggests trying sevin xl as opposed to dylox as he says dylox is good for just one thing. So as sitting there talking and in the back of ones head I have the triangle and bible sitting there, and tired of running to the fert store. I start to create the stockpile I'm guessing I'll need. he gave me a deal on the sedgehammer, so reason that showed up.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

So things settled down some or so I thought. I think we lowered the reel mower 1 notch, (another newbie mistake) and the result was the random scalping / brown areas showing up in the yard. This was about time we got the GM1000, and reading more on here, I figured we were still cutting too high, so the only way before end of season was to scalp and reset the HOC. So we proceeded to scalp it down, I want to say we took it down to about 1" so we were probably at 2-3" before it was cut. In addition due to the other characteristics we were looking at, we put down a fast release N, and also a treatment of Heritage and followed with a spraying of Eagle 20EW. This last spraying was the straw that broke my back, so I broke down and ordered the spreadermate this weekend. Supposed to be here Wednesday.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

Walk out this morning and figure maybe I had been doing soap test to far into the day, it was early enough though I'd catch the little buggers doing their thing. Lo and behold, a gallon of soap water down and a little skinny worm pops out. So thinking I'll just bite the bullet and try the dylox after the spreadermate gets here. Or could it just be the second cycle of worms coming through and the Sevin should still be plenty useful.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

So spreader mate got here. Have it calibrated and such. Mowed yard yesterday, and saw some spider webs in lawn. thinking it was still left over dollar spot. Further inspection shows it was actual spider webs. Little buggers were sitting in the middle of them. But then I saw something moving, and boom it was a baby worm. The lawn has come back pretty good after I killed them off previously, so I'm thinking it's the larva. Setup to spray today and get rid of them. 
Set mower to 1 1/2" and it just took maybe 1/4" off the top since the scalp. I let it grow too much after the scalp due to the amount of rain and job issues. Plus the greens mower hasn't been returned yet so figure doing the 12k sq ft with a mascot reel, I'd just smooth out the tops and let the grass go into dormacy at 1 1/2" For the most part it looks pretty green and lush at that height.


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## N LA Hacker (Aug 17, 2018)

Good work.


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

You did things right and it looks awesome!


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

Unfortunately sons car broke down 2 hours away while he was hauling a trailer so had to go rescue him and didn't get a chance to spray. Hopefully In the morning.


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## driver_7 (Jun 28, 2018)

Your lawn looks great!!


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## tcorbitt20 (Aug 31, 2018)

Looks great with quite the recovery! When did you lay the sod? Surely this wasn't all in the last two weeks.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

Sod was installed the end of June. So no, all of this wasn't in two weeks. I had to play catch up with documenting what I had been doing.


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

So Sept 5th my sons car had broken down. So I think it was either the 6th or 7th I was able to get the spray down in the yard. I did a quick cut and got the sevin down and wow did that really help. It was like it Greene's up in 3 days. I'm guessing there was just
Enough pressure from the worms to stress it a little. Getting he kast knes let it run Thought I had recent pics in phone. But will have to get them tomorrow. Hoping it's not raining from the hurricane.

After spraying started seeing these guys pop up dead. Look different from armyworms. So not sure?


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## crzipilot (Jul 4, 2018)

I've been about as dormant as the bermuda around here. At least I've been dryer than the grass. My lawn is still drying out in places it's stupid. I sink down in 1 or 2 spots there is so much rain.

Finally was able to get out and find that majority of my yard has finally almost dried out. Still have a few swamp parts but, it was nice to get out and get this lawn in shape for the season.

Got out the new (to me) GM 1000 with a new bed knife and sharp as a knife reel (courtesy of the equip. manager at probably the highest end golf course here) He had it setup for a .75" cut / scalp. Had told him I was looking at maintaining 1" Blew the clippings out, edged around the yard, blew out the last of the dead leaves in the flower beds etc. Now I'm looking at it going. Hmmmm....I think maybe .75 is the highest I want this grass to be this year. He was nice enough to make or give me a HOC caliper so I can adjust the HOC fairly easily. I'm thinking I'll give the grass a few days, and take it down to 1/2". At .75 I didn't hit any dirt, the lawn is not leveled, It's 1 year old and has humps and bumps in it from the soil settling and such. but the mower worked through everything pretty good. One spot in the front is so wet underground it's almost quicksand. Need some hot days to dry it out.

So should I take it down shorter? last year I want to say I was at 1.5-2" as it was a new lawn in May or June I think, so just wanted it to get established.

Is keeping it shorter even more work.....or is it the same work, just different heights of grass? Plan on doing PGR treatments this year too.


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## Cavan806 (May 2, 2017)

After that first cut how's it looking today? I am cutting pretty much every 3 days now. I am going to be putting out some
24-0-11 tonight after work since I believe it is supposed to rain on us tomorrow.

-Cheers


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