Chris LI's Lawn Journal

[Chris LI]

1-12-19

Picked up a few sticks and dormant seeded. Pasted from "What did you do on your lawn today?", below.

My Mazama and Beyond 50/50 blend arrived yesterday and went right into the freezer. Today, ~22 hours later I blended it with the Bewitched I had on hand to arrive at equal proportions (33.333%), and dormant seeded my entire yard at approximately 1 lb./k. I made extra passes over damaged/thin areas.

I know overseeding of kbg is not extremely effective. However, I've had some success, and am always trying to repair/improve areas.

I'm always fighting some type of battle (traffic, shade, animals, time, etc.) and need all the ammo that I can get.

[Scagfreedom48z+]

I’ll be following, I’m eager to see your results!

[Chris LI]

Thanks!

[Chris LI]

Yesterday, I pulled several small chickweed clumps from the mulch circles next to the driveway. I got many of the roots, but the soil was partially frozen. This has been typically a bad area due to a large seed bed from an outbreak a few years ago. It seems to have lessened progressively over the last couple of years with all the hand pulling of weeds.

Today, I picked up sticks and noticed that my mini renos began to lose some color. However, they still have excellent color compared to the rest of the yard (which still has some color, unlike most yards in the neighborhood).

[Scagfreedom48z+]

Yesterday, I pulled several small chickweed clumps from the mulch circles next to the driveway. I got many of the roots, but the soil was partially frozen. This has been typically a bad area due to a large seed bed from an outbreak a few years ago. It seems to have lessened progressively over the last couple of years with all the hand pulling of weeds.

Today, I picked up sticks and noticed that my mini renos began to lose some color. However, they still have excellent color compared to the rest of the yard (which still has some color, unlike most yards in the neighborhood).

With this weather, it’s been brutal to get motivated or even having a half decent day to get and do a small clean up. The ground is solid like a rock and the last thing I want to do it crush the grass crowns. Mine is holding on to very minimal grew , but with the single digit nights we’ve had already, the grass color isn’t terrible.

[Chris LI]

With this weather, it’s been brutal to get motivated or even having a half decent day to get and do a small clean up. The ground is solid like a rock and the last thing I want to do it crush the grass crowns. Mine is holding on to very minimal grew , but with the single digit nights we’ve had already, the grass color isn’t terrible.

My location is typically a little warmer than yours, but the mercury is dropping like a rock, as I write this, it dropped 10 degrees in the last hour, and the wind picked up this afternoon. We won't be nearly as cold as the midwest has been, but we're predicted to be in low single digits by morning (probably set a record). It wasn't too bad this morning (23*), and the color came back after the rain and milder temps we had yesterday (42*). The cold snap should be for only a day or so.
We'll see what happens with the color. Hopefully, the temps will take out some non-beneficial insects (ticks, mosquitoes, grubs, ants, etc.). We stocked up the bird feeder for our feathered friends (...and furry, too. Lol).

[Chris LI]

Pulled out a couple of survey stakes, since the town closed out the permit and issued a CO for our sunroom.

Hand picked my cold weather arch nemesis, Chickweed, from some of my mini renos/overseeded areas.

Picked up some sticks and examined some of the "sparsely populated areas" of turf, to determine if the freeze/thaw had worked the dormant seed from three weeks ago into the soil. To my surprise, it looks like most of it has been incorporated.

[OnTheOxbow]

Come on now, lets see some pictures of that brand new sunroom. I'm also anxious to see how the kbg oversees turns out. I may try a kbg overseed in my future, so i'm rooting for you.

[Green]

Hand picked my cold weather arch nemesis, Chickweed, from some of my mini renos/overseeded areas.

Picked up some sticks and examined some of the "sparsely populated areas" of turf, to determine if the freeze/thaw had worked the dormant seed from three weeks ago into the soil. To my surprise, it looks like most of it has been incorporated.

I found some chickweed in the front as well the other day. My seed has pretty well disappeared, too.

[Chris LI]

Picked rock salt out of the first 10-20' of the lawn. The town hwy dept doesn't plow my side of the street too well, but they get a bit overzealous with the salt.

[Scagfreedom48z+]

Yikes! Good way to destroy a lawn! I thought that was ice cubes at first glance.

[Green]

That is a crazy amount of salt!

[Chris LI]

I just checked...we received .93" of rain today. It was definitely helpful to pick up the rock salt yesterday. I'm sure my turf would be seeing some ill effects from that amount of rain dissolving at least some of the salt.

[Chris LI]

Woke up to about 2" of snow this morning. I had a morning appointment little over a half hour away and they received 4"+. Some nice sun melted off everything on the driveway, sidewalk, and some of the grass alongside. I took a few minutes to scope out the turf in those areas and noticed some kbg starting to look a tiny bit greener. It looked like I spotted one newly sprouted dormant seeded kbg, but it might be wishful thinking. I had some very late germinating seed in the backyard during the fall, so that's more likely the case. I will be on the lookout more often now, since it's still daylight when I get home from work.
We're expecting some more snow tomorrow night, possibly changing over to rain. Temperatures are expected to be below average for the next week, but that little bit of green, with more daylight will help me get through it.

[Chris LI]

Picked up several decent sized branches, with the largest about 10' long and 1.5" diameter. I remembered that I had some real old TTTF/FF dense shade mix in the freezer, so I threw it down in the very thin, highly compacted area near the gate to the backyard, in case my kbg dormant seed doesn't pop.

[Green]

Picked up several decent sized branches, with the largest about 10' long and 1.5" diameter. I remembered that I had some real old TTTF/FF dense shade mix in the freezer, so I threw it down in the very thin, highly compacted area near the gate to the backyard, in case my kbg dormant seed doesn't pop.

How old was the seed?

[Chris LI]

Picked up several decent sized branches, with the largest about 10' long and 1.5" diameter. I remembered that I had some real old TTTF/FF dense shade mix in the freezer, so I threw it down in the very thin, highly compacted area near the gate to the backyard, in case my kbg dormant seed doesn't pop.

How old was the seed?

[Green]

Yeah, I guess that's getting old, and is probably 2013 crop...? Do you think the freezer prolongs the life?
Thankfully a lot of the dormant seeding both of us are doing is just for extra insurance.

I once had 5-year-old TTTF seed fail to germinate on me (though it might have been harvested the year before I bought it, so it could have been 6 years).

I'm always afraid to buy those "dense shade mixes", because I can't help but wonder if they're more likely to allow Poa Triv as "other crop" in such a mixture (versus a non-shade mix), because of its great shade performance. I already have more Poa Triv in the lawn than I know what to do with, unfortunately. Do you think that fear of shade mixes is justified? The only one I know of that intentionally includes Poa Triv is one by Jonathan Green, a mix which I stay far away from!

[Chris LI]

I think the freezer probably prolongs the life some, but haven't seen any definitive studies on the subject. I kept forgetting to throw that bag down somewhere over the last few years, as I had it on the bottom rack on the freezer door (I usually hog the whole bottom of the stand alone freezer with my seed ). I've been using straight Bewitched for my shady areas for a few years (until my recent purchase of Mazama/Beyond blend which I blend with my Bewitched), so it fell to the wayside. I figured "What do I have to lose?". I'm still undecided if I want to play with PRG, and figured I could drop some seed today before the next round of snow. I ordered my Pro Plugger today from Amazon, so that might be an option, if I find a good harvest area.

As far as concerns about Triv, I hadn't really thought about it, since I learned about Triv after shying away from the dense mixes, in favor of BW to hopefully get kbg spreading in the shade. However, you make a good point. If I find that the Mazama/Bewitched combo won't work for me in my shade conditions, I'll likely go for a highly rated shade mix, such as the offering from SSS (which has some Mazama with FF).

[Chris LI]

Early last week I continued picking up sticks and hand picked a few weeds.

Today I created a lot more sticks and tied them up in bunches for pickup. Greenup is underway!