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Timotej's Lawn Journal (Europe/Slovenia)

32K views 195 replies 24 participants last post by  Johnl445 
#1 ·
Hi everybody!

Everything started in Winter18/19 when I found Connor YT channel, than Ben Sims, Ryan...
After I watched all videos, I made plan for SPRING2019. I wanted lawn as Connor's (low cut, thick, flat,...)
BTW Connor Ward's stickers from reel mower brought me there. :mrgreen: :thumbup: TLF!!! :thumbup: Connor!!!

My goal is:
BEST LOOKING LAWN IN SLOVENIA :bandit:

I live in suburbs of Ljubljana (capital town) in Slovenia
It's a 3 apartment house that was recently renovated. I'm in charge for lawn care.

Plan for lawn renovation : 2019front+side 2020back

This is Garden plan:
Lawn is divided on BACK and FRONT+SIDE
Blue dots are connections to rainwater well.


Our climate:
We have a lot of rainy days, hot summers and sometimes snow in winter. NO wind at all.



This is how it looked after house renovation:








I needed to add 10m3 of soil for front and side. (march 2019)










Here is my help!


Irrigation + electricity instalation


Seeded on 1. April 2019 with PRG/KBG mix
It was the best what I could get at that time.


10. April 2019


16. April 2019


5. May 2019




25. May 2019




12. June 2019
Brown Patch

This is when I realized that pesticides are available only to licensed users here in Slovenia.
It took me 14 days to somehow get fungicide. (1L Azoxystrobin+Chlorothalonil)

24. June 2019 Fungus gone


8. July 2019 There lawn looks already very nice. HOC 4cm






25. July 2019 Pink flamingos delivered form Amazon :D


8. August 2019 Leveled lawn with sand.
Also dead spots from worms castings are seen here.




12. September 2019 Worms invasion (nightcrawler)
There were casting all over my lawn.
I collected few kilos of worms from September till November and reduced population quite a lot.


15. November 2019 Last mow, Applied winter fertilizer



End of season 1.
 
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#109 ·
Front: first seedlings are emerging. Had some wash away of peat moss few days ago.
Raked it back, roled again and covered all area with white garden cover material.
Now I can only hope for the best.


Back:16mm
Tenacity bleacing is showing up. Not a lot, but there are some spots. I will spray again at half rate by the end of week.


Very happy with a Swardman and reel mowing overall. Those reel mowed clipings from basket :lol:
I enjoed mowing, but reel mowing, this is next level. :D
 
#114 ·
HI fellow european, your lawn looks great!

So according to your profile you have a *** Yvette monostand. Is that still true?

I found this from DLF: https://www.dlf.com/professional-turf/species-varieties/turf/smooth-stalked-meadow-grass/yvette-25110801

However I am not sure if I can trust their assignments, as they are the ones that distribute Yvette. Also they list tolerance to red threat disease which is very odd since red threat can be easily fixed with nitrogen.

Can you give me some details on how it performs? Is it somewhat shade tolerant? How is the density? Is the color comparable to standard *** or is it darker? What about disease tolerance? Is it true that it's growing slowly?

I am aware that our climates are very different. It seems you live a rainy area, whereas I live in a sunny and dry alpine valley, so probably it would perform differently. Still appreciate your view.

Thanks :)
 
#115 ·
Hi @hammerhead,

Yes, I have mono stand Yvette at the backside.
It's is good shade tolerant KBG. My backside area is actually facing N/E and some spots receive just hour or two of direct sunlight. Regrowth in those areas is way slower compered to area with lots of direct sunlight. But it is still dense.
Density at HOC 16-18mm

I can tell you, that I never saw or had grass this thick. Very impressed about that.
I can also say that this variety spreads good.(medium-agressive)

Color is very hard to compare or explain.
I think it is, as DLF says: Darker medium green.
Same is with regrow speed. I can't compare with any other KBG.
I can report how much I cut, but first I need some nice weather, so I will be able to cut frequently and than I can write a report.

If you have drier climate I wouldn't bother about disease.
Most disease I get are due to long periods of wet and cloudy weather.
My current weather forecast


After all it's my first year with Yvette and it's too early to make some conclusions.

I chose Yvette because this was my only option back than. Anyway I'm still happy with what I got. That's why I smoked front and also seeded Yvette.
I would pick different variety, because than I would have something different to compare with. But it's so hard to get straight KBG seeds in EU.

This one should be even better than Yvette, but probably impossible to buy in small quantities :/
https://icl-sf.com/global-en/products/turf_amenity/poa-pratensis-legend/
 
#118 ·
Thanks @TheSwede.
If my memory is correct, I'm directly 1 year behind your front renovation.
I'm following your progress from last spring and I really love to read your jurnal!

Yes true, very fine leaved, and definitely upright growing in places where it's dense as carpet.
I like that blue-green tone in Yvette. Especialy can be seen on young seedlings with morning dew on them. Not so dark green, but anyway it's beautiful color.

Pure KBG is definitely grass to have:)
And yes, this legend is probably KBG 2.0 :bandit:
 
#119 ·
For potential future needs you guys could try speaking to these two Italian companies, both import US KBG seeds. They won't sell to me as I live on a different planet now (UK) but as you are within the EU they might. Or find one of their products sold by a smaller company if you search online.

https://tempoverde.it
They are friendly people and good selection of seeds.

https://www.bottos1848.com
Sometimes don't respond and seem to only sell Ryegrass+KBG mixes. I'm using their Royal Sport which has Award and Everest KBG in the mix, had to buy through Amazon.

Mountain View sells to ICL and are trying to bring more varieties to Europe but will take time. Like Slugger (PRG).
 
#122 ·
It's time to update this journal a little bit.

Last time I posted was just after mesotrione really started to kick in. Poa a bleached and also some bluegrass did, that's why I didn't re-apply, I managed to hand pull all poa a instead.

Grass got really thick till May 15 and we had lots of rain in forecast for second half of May(This was most rainy May in last 57years).

I was somehow scared I will get some fungus outbreak, if I leave it like that. That's why I grabbed first chance to core aerate and top dress with sand. I'm happy I did it. Now water disappear quicker after heavy downpour
and I didn't get any disaese :)

May 18.





May 25.
First cut with a rotary.

May 26.


May 27.
Grass is going crazy and I decided to apply PGR(4ml/100m2 Primmo max)

May 28.
Second cut with a Swardman after sand.

I never really liked stripes. But now as I'm able to cut frequent sub 1 inch with a reel mower, this is different story:) Stripes sub 1inch are different much nicer. At least for me:)

Front is growing in slow.
Now with warmer days things started to move a little bit.
 
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