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!:
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!: