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I just want something that's green and doesn't die.

18K views 39 replies 8 participants last post by  libertysod 
#1 ·
Hi all,

I just moved from NJ to MA two years ago. Back in NJ, the soil was predominately clay under a layer of top soil. It seemed like growing a lawn there was like shooting fish in a barrel. It was green, it grew and I had to mow it. If I wanted to grow a bare area, I would scratch the soil, seed with a tall fescue blend and some Dutch white clover, water and voila, thriving lawn!

I now live in an area where the soil is predominately sand under a layer of topsoil. Yard was neglected for many years when I bought the house. There were many bare areas and lots of crabgrass and foxtail.

April 2019 (Sunny areas): I bought a turf type tall fescue blend and some Dutch white clover, scratched bare areas, seeded and watered. Grass came up nicely, but perished as June and warmer temps came around and crabgrass and foxtail took over.

September 2019 (Sunny areas): So I decided I needed some soil amendments. I bought some bulk compost as well as some 50/50 compost/topsoil mix for an area which has really coarse sand used to fill in an old swimming pool. I spread the 50/50 mix about 3 inches thick over the defunct pool area and used the 100% compost 1 inch thick on other areas. I then seeded with a mix I made of 80% Kentucky 31 tall fescue, 10% PF30 hybrid bluegrass and 10% Dutch white clover. It all came up beautiful and thick and was green all winter and well into the spring. All seemed like it was going well until late May 2020 brought daytime temps into the 70's, grass started turning brown and dying back. By mid-June 2020, I had a mostly dead lawn (even the clover died!!!) with a few errant grass clumps. By July 2020, well, as you can probably guess, crabgrass and foxtail started taking over. I kept an eye on the rain we were receiving and watered once a week when we didn't get at least an inch of rain a week. It has been pretty dry here this summer, but grass was pretty dead before drought.

In the meantime.......

April 2020 (Mixed sun and shade areas near and around trees): I got more compost, topdressed and seeded with 40% KY-31, 40% fine fescue mix (40% creeping red, 40 Chewings, 20 hard), 10% PF30 hybrid bluegrass, 10% Dutch white clover. Interestingly, here we are in Sept. 2020 and the shady areas are doing quite nicely while the areas exposed to more sun have died out giving way to crabgrass and foxtail.

What went wrong: I am thinking a few things. I probably seeded the Sept. 2019 grass thicker than I should have. It came in thick, but the blades were always quite thin (KY-31 is a thick bladed fescue grass) which leads me to believe there were too many grass plants fighting for more moisture and nutrients than could be provided once temps became warmer. The grass that came up next to my compost rich raised beds is deep green, thick bladed and doing quite well.

Soil drains quickly around here due to a mostly sandy subsoil. 3 or so days after a heavy rain, soil surface is bone dry around here.

I was reading about issues with soil compaction and while soil is definitely compacted, I can definitely get a garden fork or a large screwdriver to go all the way down with some effort. And the most compacted areas are.........where the grass is doing well!

Grass species: The ones I chose were after doing research on what are the most heat and drought tolerant cool-season grasses. I have thought about trying zoysia which some lawns have around here. Though the trouble with zoysia in Massachusetts is that it is brown at least 8 months of the year, not to mention it can become very invasive. Granted it looks beautiful the other 4 months. In more detail why I chose each species/cultivar:

KY-31 - It is used on roadsides, so I figured it would be hardy and thrive. Yes, I know most people don't like the way it looks for lawns. Personally I don't mind the thick blades and lighter green color.

PF30 hybrid bluegrass - A bluegrass cultivar with claims it tolerates heat and drought better than Kentucky bluegrass. It is also a rhizomous grass which presumably will help make the lawn not look like a group of misfit strangers keeping their distance at a party.

Fine fescue blend - For more shade areas. Creeping red also has rhizomes. Chewings and hard are bunch grasses. Creeping is the most shade tolerant, hard is the hardiest.

Sept. 2020: I am going down this rabbit hole again. Scalping grabgrass, spreading compost (I think I will spread it thicker this time - the compost, not the grass seed!!!). I am going to try mixing RTF fescue with some of the K31 I have left and add some of the fine fescue mix to it. I'm going to try 10% strawberry clover this time as I have read it is more heat and drought tolerant than Dutch white clover.

My take on "weeds": I don't mind a few weeds here and there as long as they aren't bullies like crabgrass. Quite frankly, I wouldn't even mind crabgrass if it didn't die after the first frost and leave large ugly bare areas. I tried spreading corn gluten in the spring and while it didn't totally keep crabgrass from sprouting, the areas where I spread this have more sparse crabgrass than areas where I didn't. I like the way clover looks in a lawn as well as its ability to be a nitrogen fixer. I don't mind other broad leaf weeds as long as they don't totally take over, which they haven't. I spot treated some areas where plantain was predominate with concentrated 30% vinegar and it killed it off quite well. However, the 30% vinegar did NOTHING to crabgrass.

As you can probably guess, the reason I am posting in the organic forum is because I don't want to use harsh chemicals. We have sensitive wetland areas nearby and there are toads and garter snakes around here which are very sensitive to pesticides and herbicides.

This year I did have an infestation of Japanese beetles and I have noticed some grubs in the soil when preparing garden beds. I have just treated my yard with milky spore which worked well for Japanese beetles back in NJ. Not sure if the grubs factored into the demise of my grasses, it was the adult beetles that were a real problem eating foliage on my raspberry plants and fruit trees. I never noticed the grubs in NJ and they sure didn't affect the lawn there!

So if you have read this far, thank you. Attached are some recent pics. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance!

Backyard sunny area (defunct pool area) last Nov. 2019 - 6 weeks after fall planting:


Backyard sunny area (defunct pool area) Sept. 2020:


Frontyard sunny area Sept 2020:


Frontyard sun/shade mixed area Sept. 2020 - thriving!:
 
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#30 ·
dwaugh said:
Is it all in planted in "Reno" areas? Next year I want overseen some TTTF in my ersatz cool season lawn (or by dormant seeding this winter). I'm not ready to commit to a full renovation at this time. Looks good!
I guess you can say yes, these are all "reno areas". I initially mowed areas down to 1 3/4 inches, covered with 2-3 inches of compost and seeded a mix of tall fescue, fine fescue and clover. What little "good grass" there was grew up through the compost while the crabgrass was smothered.
 
#32 ·
@Deadlawn,

Two things:

Hart Seed in Wethersfield (they do ship) sometimes has 0/0 KY-31 seed.

I know a lot of seed you find normally tends to have tons of weed and other crop, including Poa Trivialis. Like this one:

It's actually even worse than marked; you have to multiply the percentages by about 1.4 due to the 25% coating.

For grub control, you might want to try GrubGone. It's a preventative and gets put down in early August. I plan to try it. Milky Spore may not overwinter consistently in MA (or anywhere in the Northeast).
 
#33 ·
Green said:
@Deadlawn,

Two things:

Hart Seed in Wethersfield (they do ship) sometimes has 0/0 KY-31 seed.

I know a lot of seed you find normally tends to have tons of weed and other crop, including Poa Trivialis. Like this one:

It's actually even worse than marked; you have to multiply the percentages by about 1.4 due to the 25% coating.

For grub control, you might want to try GrubGone. It's a preventative and gets put down in early August. I plan to try it. Milky Spore may not overwinter consistently in MA (or anywhere in the Northeast).
Until reading a few posts on this forum, I never thought about how many seeds 0.1% is! More concerning are the noxious weeds listed. The bag of KY-31 I bought was from Hancock Seed and had this label even though it was advertised as Pennington Kentucky 31:

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/dlf-kentucky-31-tall-fescue-50-lb-6859229?store=604&cm_mmc=feed-_-GoogleShopping-_-Product-_-6859229&gclid=Cj0KCQjwoJX8BRCZARIsAEWBFMJl1oQtgSOH_dTfeDJvJzdTfhu_5N9sAn5fAS8A54_kX7HDH8hNDMgaApWCEALw_wcB

I just checked the bag and apparently I lost the label which states exact percentages. It's not the coated seed.
 
#34 ·
Yesterday, I did my first mow on my Sept. 14 seed which starting germinating on Sept. 24 (21 DAG). I started at 2 1/4 inches HOC, but then saw immediately this looked too low, so I raised the HOC up to 2 3/4 inches. Even though I rolled the seed, the compost layer is still soft, so apparently mower wheels were sinking into it a bit. That is apparent on some areas where I had to go around trees which caused some gouging. I measured the cut grass afterwards and it was 2 inches!! I purposely chose yesterday for a mow because today is a washout, so the grass should recover well.

There are thin areas for sure, but I'm just going to let them try to fill in on their own. Leaves are starting to come down hard in some areas. Pics below:










 
#35 ·
Deadlawn said:
...
September 2019 (Sunny areas): So I decided I needed some soil amendments. I bought some bulk compost as well as some 50/50 compost/topsoil mix ... It all came up beautiful and thick and was green all winter and well into the spring. All seemed like it was going well until late May 2020 brought daytime temps into the 70's, grass started turning brown and dying back. By mid-June 2020, I had a mostly dead lawn (even the clover died!!!) with a few errant grass clumps. ... grass was pretty dead before drought.

In the meantime.......

April 2020 (Mixed sun and shade areas near and around trees): I got more compost, ...

...
Sept. 2020: I am going down this rabbit hole again. ...
As you can probably guess, the reason I am posting in the organic forum is because I don't want to use harsh chemicals. We have sensitive wetland areas nearby and there are toads and garter snakes around here which are very sensitive to pesticides and herbicides.

This year I did have an infestation of Japanese beetles and I have noticed some grubs in the soil when preparing garden beds. I have just treated my yard with milky spore which worked well for Japanese beetles back in NJ. Not sure if the grubs factored into the demise of my grasses, it was the adult beetles that were a real problem eating foliage on my raspberry plants and fruit trees. ...
So if you have read this far, thank you. Attached are some recent pics. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance!

...
OP, I've read your post and skimmed and scanned the entire thread as key elements of your OP "ring a loud bell" with me. I too was baffled by large areas of turf inexplicably dying and it was sometime before I discovered my soil had been infested with not just grub but something much, much more pernicious: WIREWORMS!!!! :( :eek: :shock: :?

And come to find out, I was introducing them into my yard via the loads of LOCAL bulk top soil (from nearby crop farms!) and LOCAL compost (Multi-year old municipal leaf collections!) I was having brought in!

Ironic thing about it all is that top soil looked like textbook "loam," - you'd see it coming off the dump truck and hear Tarzan's voice: "Top soil good, Tarzan Like! "Mmmmmm!" And that compost! Just as black as the richest amendments you can imagine - I'd be spreading it and be hearing Homer Simpson's donut voice in the back of my skull: "Rich compost, mmmmmm!"

Bad news: no chemical that kills grubs will even touch wireworms

Good news: Beneficial Nematodes gets em ALL! And they are otherwise harmless to the environment, and harmless to earthworms, amphibians and reptiles!

And, certain suppliers have "blends" of strains of beneficial nematodes that specifically target turf munchers!

https://hydro-gardens.com/product/guardian-lawn-patrol-mix-1-million-5p385a/

https://www.arbico-organics.com/product/omri-NemAttack-Pro-Sc-Beneficial-Nematodes/beneficial-nematodes

That whole experience is still painful to think about and the only thing that ameliorates the knowledge I was bringing those lawn destroyers by the sheer DUMP TRUCK load is having my horizons expanded via use of those beneficial nematodes!

I still have fights on my hands (weed outbreaks, preventing fungal outbreaks, etc.) same as everyone but, I no longer have my entire yard overshadowed by that recurring bizarro "lawn murder mystery!"
 
#36 ·
440mag said:
Deadlawn said:
...
September 2019 (Sunny areas): So I decided I needed some soil amendments. I bought some bulk compost as well as some 50/50 compost/topsoil mix ... It all came up beautiful and thick and was green all winter and well into the spring. All seemed like it was going well until late May 2020 brought daytime temps into the 70's, grass started turning brown and dying back. By mid-June 2020, I had a mostly dead lawn (even the clover died!!!) with a few errant grass clumps. ... grass was pretty dead before drought.

In the meantime.......

April 2020 (Mixed sun and shade areas near and around trees): I got more compost, ...

...
Sept. 2020: I am going down this rabbit hole again. ...
As you can probably guess, the reason I am posting in the organic forum is because I don't want to use harsh chemicals. We have sensitive wetland areas nearby and there are toads and garter snakes around here which are very sensitive to pesticides and herbicides.

This year I did have an infestation of Japanese beetles and I have noticed some grubs in the soil when preparing garden beds. I have just treated my yard with milky spore which worked well for Japanese beetles back in NJ. Not sure if the grubs factored into the demise of my grasses, it was the adult beetles that were a real problem eating foliage on my raspberry plants and fruit trees. ...
So if you have read this far, thank you. Attached are some recent pics. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance!

...
OP, I've read your post and skimmed and scanned the entire thread as key elements of your OP "ring a loud bell" with me. I too was baffled by large areas of turf inexplicably dying and it was sometime before I discovered my soil had been infested with not just grub but something much, much more pernicious: WIREWORMS!!!! :( :eek: :shock: :?

And come to find out, I was introducing them into my yard via the loads of LOCAL bulk top soil (from nearby crop farms!) and LOCAL compost (Multi-year old municipal leaf collections!) I was having brought in!

Ironic thing about it all is that top soil looked like textbook "loam," - you'd see it coming off the dump truck and hear Tarzan's voice: "Top soil good, Tarzan Like! "Mmmmmm!" And that compost! Just as black as the richest amendments you can imagine - I'd be spreading it and be hearing Homer Simpson's donut voice in the back of my skull: "Rich compost, mmmmmm!"

Bad news: no chemical that kills grubs will even touch wireworms

Good news: Beneficial Nematodes gets em ALL! And they are otherwise harmless to the environment, and harmless to earthworms, amphibians and reptiles!

And, certain suppliers have "blends" of strains of beneficial nematodes that specifically target turf munchers!

https://hydro-gardens.com/product/guardian-lawn-patrol-mix-1-million-5p385a/

https://www.arbico-organics.com/product/omri-NemAttack-Pro-Sc-Beneficial-Nematodes/beneficial-nematodes

That whole experience is still painful to think about and the only thing that ameliorates the knowledge I was bringing those lawn destroyers by the sheer DUMP TRUCK load is having my horizons expanded via use of those beneficial nematodes!

I still have fights on my hands (weed outbreaks, preventing fungal outbreaks, etc.) same as everyone but, I no longer have my entire yard overshadowed by that recurring bizarro "lawn murder mystery!"
Thanks for the reply! Wireworms a.k.a. click beetles? Can't say I've seen any of those and these areas were problematic before I introduced the compost. I find a grub or two every so often while digging and I did see quite a few Japanese beetles. I put down milky spore for the Japanese beetles as it worked for me when I lived in NJ.
 
#37 ·
Deadlawn said:
... these areas were problematic before I introduced the compost. ...
Well Holmes, THERE GOES my hypothesis (pause to puff pipe) :lol:

Click beetle larvae, that's them (nasty little grass root terrorizing buggers they be, matey)!

https://www.planetnatural.com/pest-problem-solver/garden-pests/wireworm-control/

PS - the article left one other item out, one VERY important to use lawn enthusiasts: WILD TURKEYS, skunks, opossum, raccoons and ALL MANNER OF NOCTURNAL "turf rip and flippers" LOVE Wireworms - and will raze turf to get to them! :shock: I didn't mention it earlier but, before we discovered Wireworms were being brought in by the dump truck load, we'd wake up some morning and our yard looked as if a gang of adult men had spent the night going over our yard's newly germinated lawn with roto-tillers!

 
#38 ·
Update. We had about 1 inch of snow Friday followed by a deep freeze Haloween morning - 19 degrees! New grass looks pretty healthy. We should be back into the 60's by next week!




 
#39 ·
OK, I am 3 months since my Sept. seeding and so far, all is looking pretty good. A little yellowing, but I think that's pretty normal for December in western Massachusetts. 5-day soil temperature average is 33.6F, so I think it's pretty safe to say all root growth has stopped. Top growth stopped around late Oct:






 
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