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Steveholl'x Lawn Journal / NC / Fall 2021 - Summer 2022

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11K views 45 replies 5 participants last post by  stevehollx  
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#1 ·
With seed down, here comes another season!

TTTF (update: now with some KBG!) in the transition zone - Charlotte NC. Old neighborhood with a heavily shaded yard due to about 10 mature 50 year old trees. Also battle lawn wear from a 70lb 'Mini' Bernedoodle that rules the yard. Really, this is Charlie's yard, not mine.

Prior Journals
  • 2020 - 2021 Lawn Journal - Historical pics and intro journal year. Year #2 fully paying attention to lawn maintenance and doing it myself and trying to do it properly.
Here's some favorite photos from last season.











 
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#2 ·
Goals

  • KBG - First time overseeding with a KBG mix. 15%, so 1lb per M went down. Hoping it will establish and help with repairability, especially in the backyard from dog wear.
  • 2.5" HOC - My lawn is old and pretty bumpy with tree roots, but I like the 2.5" look, and going to try to keep it at this length next summer. Not sure how much more water I will need with a lower HOC and some KBG. We'll see if these end up being bad ideas.
  • Deeper summer color - Maintained green year round this year, but color quality in the summer is poor. Didn't spray iron this summer since the Triv reno spots were getting crispy and the Nimblewill treatment toasted some areas, so deep green didn't make sense this summer given adjacency with heavily treated areas that incurred some damage. Would like to try and keep iron apps up through summer next year and see if I can keep a deeper color into summer.
  • Shaded thin spots - Hoping to improve a couple problem corners that get almost no sun due to fence+tree shade. Last attempt at seeding them this year before considering alternative plans. They aren't too bad but I would prefer more sustainable grass there if I can achieve it. Last year the dog wore the area during seeding, and second attempt fenced off was too late to establish well.
  • Triv control - Nuked and seeded large spots this past spring (~1000 sqft of Triv). Will see what comes back! Oct app of Tenacity should find it, and I will kill and overseed mid-Oct for those areas. Will also use iron in spring to seek out any spots that need to be addressed in the spring. I do expect some to return, given the 1k sqft patch.I had in the front lawn.
  • Nimblewill control - Only have an issue on a 4' strip on the west side of the lawn. Last year was full infestation killing all fescue, and treated then. Hit this heavy for control this year again, but sooner. Hoping only a few sprigs return that I can spot spray or paint pylex on next year.
 
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#3 ·
First day of the new season was yesterday, scalping. Temps have dropped to daytime in the 70s, but it won't hold and will be back to in the mid 80s in a few days, threatening some 90F+ days. I'm about a week earlier than I'd like to seed at temp-wise, but want to take advantage of doing it over the 3 day week, and I'm also just impatient and want to get seed down and have a clean slate for the fall. I like to seed on the early side, as leaves start coming down like crazy in mid-Oct that are hard to fight (mowing and/or blowing every 2 or 3 days for 6 weeks) so better to get seed as mature as possible before then.

Sprayed fungicide (prop.) on Wednesday.

Brought the lawn down first to 2.5", and then did a double cut at 1.9". Tried to bring it down to 1.4" but that was scalping the lawn into dirt in spot, hard to push, and probably would have required 3 more passes, so…nope! Maybe should have sprayed PGR but didn't want to spend the money on it for this single use. Will try to keep it low as seed germinates. May manual reel mow at 2" or just below the first few times.

6 tall bags of clippings from the scalp.


Here are the results after the scalp, and some raking of the dead/thin areas. You can see the spots where I have been heavily treating some Nimblewill with pylex, triclopyr, and tenacity over the summer. And also the dog urine spots that need to get patched.





Image


Definitely a much thicker base of a lawn than last year! Heavy fertilization program last fall, plus proper watering and preventative fungicide has helped. I didn't really have any noteworthy fungus issues last year. Spotted rust once, and one day saw some lesions but grass grew out of it with a heavy rain.

Later today seed goes down.
 
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#4 ·
This season I am replacing dumb digital hose timers with Orbit B-Hyve. Got it integrated into home assistant, so I may setup irrigation logic based on ET. I have cumulative rainfall already trending in HA from an RF rain meter, so it will be a cool project to see if I can integrate. I am also excited to not be bound to 6h intervals for overseeding with the timers, and can also delay remotely from my phone (had 5 timers and moving to 7 this year)
 
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#5 ·
Got the Orbit B-Hyve timers setup the morning after I put seed down. Liking them. Integrated into home assistant, and using Node-Red in HA to run the schedule, instead of using Orbit's cloud/app for the schedule on/off. This will give me flexibility to query my local rainfall gauge or poll for local ET rates and make decisions when to suppress watering. Yeah, I know rachio does this! This is a nice mix of being able to have hose timers with smart flexibility, without having to wire valve bigs, etc. No more going out at night in the rain to suspend the hose timers.

Image


It has also been nice to program intervals tighter than every 6 hours and refrain from night watering for the overseed. Been running cycles every 2 hours from dusk to sunset, ranging 4-9 minutes depending on the sprinkler's coverage (I have one that does 270 degrees).

Patiently waiting for germination. Why is it so rewarding to see seeds poke they're green heads up every year? Last Sep I had germination in 6 days. This spring it was 10 days.

Very few spots not getting irrigation this year that need hand watering. Just 2 far corners that have peat moss to help mitigate the irrigation reach.
 
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#8 ·
g-man said:
You are doing ET in HA? Are you keeping the weather data in a MySQL database to then do the calculations?
Click to expand...
I have a sensor for ET using this add-on. It's a standalone sensor right now that gets ET and a watering decision. I am not triggering actions off it yet:
https://github-wiki-see.page/m/hhaim/hass/wiki/Weather-based-irrigation

It looks like this one is newer and may be simpler. I may look into it and switch:
https://github.com/jeroenterheerdt/HAsmartirrigation

HA isn't great with stats over a couple days. I am taking a daily snapshot of cumulative rainfall, to keep a 3 day history of the rainfall difference local in HA.

There were some improvements in HA with the last two releases for 'long term statistics' where it does some data normalization (avg/min/max/etc.), but I haven't gotten them to work for me yet. I've stashed values longer term in influx and graphed in grafana in the past for similar needs.The WBI plugin shouldn't need history to determine a decision, as ET is also cumulative and then reset (leaky bucket logic, essentially).

I'll be playing around with it some more and seeing what I can integrate.

Though it is perhaps the 'proper' way using ET, maybe it's unnecessary complication too, as I feel like irrigating 2x.5" most of the year and 3x.5" during June-Aug is sufficient, suppressing the cycle if we've gotten >.25" in the last 3 days. I feel I ca approximate the decision process just with the last 3 day rainfall metric, shutting the logic off in March/October-Nov.
 
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#9 ·
CorpRaider said:
Steve, have you noticed a material difference in effectiveness between the Pylex and the Tenacity? I read a few reviews (and other things) that seem to indicate that Pylex is a more "permanent" solution for controlling bermuda and nimblewill.
Click to expand...
Pylex seems to create the bleaching stronger and a bit quicker than Tenacity. It does seem to work better. I have determined that I like Pylex standalone, as Pylex+Triclopyr (as they recommend for Bermuda) was too harsh for surrounding Fescue. My preferred approach right now is 3x apps of Pylex starting 15-Jul every 2-3 weeks, and if anything is left, then follow up with some Tenacity.
 
#10 ·
I started reading both of those. I'm not interested in using it to trigger the irrigation, I just want a more accurate Et0 calculation. I like the approach of the second link. I know I can write it to a MySQL table each day and just graph from that. Maybe something to play around in the winter.
 
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#11 ·
g-man said:
I started reading both of those. I'm not interested in using it to trigger the irrigation, I just want a more accurate Et0 calculation. I like the approach of the second link. I know I can write it to a MySQL table each day and just graph from that. Maybe something to play around in the winter.
Click to expand...
Yeah I just loaded the second library (Smart Irrigation) into HA,

The value of the sensor is time to irrigate in seconds, which seems roughly accurate for me (~20m for 87F day today with no rain; about right since I irrigate about 60m every 2-3 days per sprinkler). Those are abstract metrics though. If you just want ET, it is in an attribute under the sensor. I am not sure how to graph attributes underneath sensor values, but you can see ET and netto ET (loss of ET accounting for perciptation).

Image


The hhaim integration exposes a direct ET variable from openweathermap, but the integration is a bit more of a pain. Smart Irrigation was 5 minutes up and running--HACS/git install, and then a 7 page questionnaire at install that was straightforward.
 
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#13 ·
Mowed at 2.5" yesterday with the rotary. Tried to reel mow the spots that are just bare seedlings, but the roller on the reel laid the grass down, so the rotary fared better on those spots too. Will probably take it down again to 2" tomorrow.





Have a couple spots that are drying out (sprinklers don't reach those two spots well) and seed isn't taking well. Wil monitor those spots and if they are still thin will put some more seed and peat moss down around 1-oct when it is hopefully staying cooler and wetter.

Probably will apply fert middle of next week. Undetermined when to start applying iron. May wait until after the second Tenacity app for iron-not sure it makes sense to take the lawn dark green right before it gets brightened back up by Tenacity.
 
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#14 ·
Mowed down to 2" yesterday. Lawn looks good in about 80% of the yard but still needs to green up after being this low. Reseeded thin spots that haven't germinated and put peat moss down again on those areas.

Probably will apply fert in a few days. Maybe on Sunday and then mow again at 2" Monday. Debating whether to stay at 2" or raise back to 2.5" to mow for the rest of the season.
 
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#15 ·
Mowed at 1.875" HOC today, dropping from 2.125" HOC, since not much has grown since the last mow a few days ago. Things look a bit rough but seeing the new grass covering well with it, so I think it is a good approach to keep it low right now to help out the young grass. I will probably go back to cutting at 2.125" for the next few mows. Undetermined if I stay there or move to 2.5" later in the season. I think around 2" can look good and low while still having green leaf so that's my desired goal if I can pull it off through the fall and into at least the start of next summer.

After the mow sprayed .2 lb of N and some humic. Also noticed some fungus in a spot that is shaded, so sprayed some azoxy + T&M on those spots and also backed down the watering in those spots. Turned off my 7pm cycle as it is getting dark now and the last cycle doesn't seem needed.

Not looking great here but expect things to pick up with the fert and rain this week as temps drop.
Image
 
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#16 ·
Things have cooled off the past few days. Shut off irrigation yesterday at noon and getting some light rain today and tomorrow, abut an inch both days

Hopefully will start to see the urea and iron take hold with this nice gentle rain and cooler temps. Looking forward to the outcome later in the week. Plan to mow at 2" this weekend and trim for the first time since seeding 3 weeks ago.

Probably will let the dog back in the backyard this weekend, too. He beats up the path behind the shed since it is a narrow loop, and also a shared/damp corner where he has to stop quickly when chasing squirrels before he hits the fence. I will probably fence off a couple of the delicate sections that only have new grass to keep him from tearing those areas up. Not sure if I will leave the fences up all winter or not, though.
 
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#18 ·
Oh and the Nimblewill seems to be melting away. I don't see it anywhere now. Other neighbors it is still green and growing. That was 3 apps of pylex (first 2 with triclopyr), 1 tenacity, 1 more pylex, and then tenacity with the overseed.

I expect some to be back next year, but hopefully smaller and thinner. Will go just pylex x 3, and then tenacity x 2-4 after that, if needed, starting 15-Jul. The triclopyr in mid summer was very harsh on my lawn this year.
 
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#19 ·
I am happy with getting seed down on 4-Sep. Everyone in the neighborhood id aerating and throwing seed down today. Nice to be 3 weeks ahead of that, already having germination everywhere I want it, and 2 mows behind me. Starting to see the KBG come in now, I think.

Got almost 1" of rain yesterday, mostly gentle across the day--no real runoff to move any of the remaining seed around from what I can tell.

Sun is out and it is a cool 70F midday. Lawn should darken and green up some more. Will cut a bit higher at 2.125" on Sat.
 
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#21 ·
Mowed to 2.1" today and edged for the first time since seeding.

I've got some thinning in the shaded spots that I saw some fungus in. Trying to let these spots dry out and will give them some more seed next week.

Let the dog in the yard today for the first time since seed is down. Put up a temporary fence to let the shaded loop behind the shed mature and take hold better before he beats it up.




 
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#22 ·
The fall flush is starting to take hold.

Grew to almost 3" in 6 days. Mowed to 2.1" again. Lightly raked some of the thin spots-going to seed and topdress them tomorrow and lay tenacity/urea/iron. Seeing some weeds in the undercover and +28d from overseeding.

Neighbor asked if he could bring his putter over. Must be due to cutting at 2".

 
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#23 ·
Second tenacity app went down on the overseed today. Put urea and iron down too. Added some more seed in thin spots.

Had to blow some leaves today. Looks like the fall leaf dropping is starting. Mango tree dropped half last couple days too. Busy time with leaves in our neighborhood. I'm usually out every other day cleaning them up and will last through Thanksgiving.
 
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#24 ·
Looks like fall growth spurt is here. Beginning 2x week mowing again, at 2.1." Color isn't deep green yet, still some impact from the shock down from from 4.5". Probably will get there in a couple weeks.

Seeing some bleaching from Tenacity and a bit of fungus. Hoping with cooler temps and growth will overcome the fungus. I don't plan on spraying another fungicide app this late. Going to 1x day watering after this rain spell finishes.
 
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#25 ·
Image


Mowed to 2.1" yesterday and brought out the stick edger. Cleaned up the pea gravel walkway edges too. Sprayed urea-will be applying weekly from here through mid-Dec.

Looks like we may start seeing 85F days and no rain next week. I'm probably going to keep irrigation on at 2x day through this week.

The part by the shed I always struggle with; I think because it doesn't get much light. A lot of the seedlings there didn't do well. I lose this area every summer, and struggle with it taking seed. It seems to do better taking seed later in the season, maybe since it gets more light when the trees lose their leaves.

Image


Going to give it another week to see what happens (not sure I feel like seeding if there is no rain and 85F since this spot doesn't get irrigated well.) I am probably going to drop more seed and peat moss on it next weekend. It will be a challenge as leaves start coming down. Worst case scenario, I'll dormant seed it in Feb and skip the pre-em there since it has never had poa or crabgrass issues there.

I may soil test this spot separately this year, too, to try and get a better understanding if the issue is anything other than poor light.
 
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