Lawn rehab - seeding & watering - who else is doing it this fall?


 
MikeB said:
Last year was my first full season in this house. With a bit of work I managed to turn the yard cover into what I would call a lawn instead of just grass. This year started out ok but suddenly mid-summer it just went away. Everything turned brown. The entire neighborhood looks sad. Some of the weeds like the creeping charlie and thistle still look green. It's too late to really put any effort into it now, we've have frost three nights already. I guess I get to start from scratch next year. I'm going to give it a blast of my own concoction of weed killer before Halloween though.
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It's funny how certain weeds require a cocktail to get rid of them and others will go away with regular weed-out or weed-b-gone. Wild violet and creeping charlie are both big offenders in my yard that seem to need the cocktail of doom. I will say that Ortho Nut Sedge killer seemed to put a hurting on these types of weeds as well as the nut sedge. I'm still learning how to "spray right". I have quite a few herbicides that require mixing and spraying so I need to get good at it.
 
I hope everyone's off to a great start for their weekends! We had take out last night so no fresh bbq pics to share, but here are some pics/updates on my yard (certainly not perfect, but work in process, as are my opinions on lawn care)

First, my front yard; I've been in this house for about 10 years and just now figured out the front yard is half zoysia and half cool season blend! This fall I've overseeded the cool season side with creeping red fine fescue. It's supposed to be shade and drought tolerant and supposed to spread on it's own a bit. Due to the slope, there's no foot traffic, so I think this was a good choice. Time will tell for sure. Can you see the line were the cool season ends and the zoysia starts?
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Another view of the front yard where I have a that big ole hickory tree. LOL, there's a spot that I can't hit with my impact sprinkler. Maybe I'll plant a cactus there?

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Here are some fresh pics of my backyard, right at 2 weeks since we planted the turf type tall fescue. It's about 1.5 to 2" tall now and I can't wait to get the first mow in there. The weather in STL has been incredibly dry (no rain in my zip code since Sept. 2, and lots of sunshine) which is good for controlling water on a smaller yard like mine.

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Here's a "normal" photo angle. Overall it's filling in pretty well. I do have a couple of thin spots I'll throw some more seed and peat moss on after the first mow.

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Dustin Dorsey said:
I've tried to watch some youtube videos on it. It's its own hobby for sure. I pay a service to come out and spray. I need to plant something in my shaded areas.
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Many of the lawn care you tubers are doing "infomercials" and trying to sell products thru links to Amazon to their fan base, which is OK, but some of the infomercials are better than others. My two favorites are the lawn care nut (LCN) and ryan knorr. There are a few that I find pretty annoying and I'm not really watching any more. The LCN talks about a wider variety of topics and different types of grass and talks a lot about the 10+ years he spent at Tru Green before starting his own lawn care product company which I can certainly respect. Ryan Knorr's channel is pretty much focused on cool season grass only.

For less commercialized info you can look for lawn care maintenance calendars published by local universities like this one https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/tall-fescue-lawn-maintenance-calendar I'm planning to follow this one for my newly planted back yard.
 
John -- I'm a big fan of Al the Lawn Care Nut -- good info and pretty funny/entertaining delivery as well. Even though he is a warm weather turf guy, he's been my guide to lawn domination!

I had one of those tree brown stripes on my yard as well. As part of my lawn sprinkler system rehab this year, I added a new sprinkler head that shoots from the other side. The original set up was fine 20 years ago. But not today when the sapling is a big fat tree.

But you could saw down the hickory tree to get better sprinkler coverage. That would give you a lifetime supply of smoke wood.
 
Jim - yes, I have to say Al makes me laugh. I need to get a "Throw R' Down" t-shirt! I have a love-hate relationship with that hickory tree - I like the shade it provides and bright yellow leaves in the fall, but aside from messing up my sprinkler coverage it drops a ton of nuts every fall, and debris, and the squirrels love that tree and they dig around in my yard all the time to bury and recover them. I'm trying to be cool and look at the squirrel holes as free aeration but that requires a fair amount of beer to make sense ;)
 
I have a large bare spot at the end of my driveway where a pile of bark mulch was sitting there for a couple of months thereby killing the grass. I finally used up the bark mulch and was surprised at how roots from a tree 50ft away was growing up through the mulch.

Anyway, I got a small bag of Jonathan Green Ultra grass seed and will try it out. Supposedl’y it’s very drought tolerant as it has a lot of tall fescue. If it works, I’ll use it for my front lawn which browns easily during the summer due to the septic leach field because the soil is very sandy.
 
I have heard of JG products but have never seen them "in the wild" around here. They must be more regional now
 
Jeff MA said:
Bill,
I can vouch for Jonathan Green Black Beauty.

I only use their JGBB Ultra Seed on my lawn with nice results.
This was taken today.

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Jeff - that is some stellar looking turf! Is that a result of a total rehab or tender lovin' care over the course of time? Either way, it looks awesome! My backyard is starting to look pretty good, it's had two rounds of quick release granular nitrogen this fall and it's really starting to take off in terms of growth. I've had to reseed the bare spots a bit more than I'd like to admit, but I think that's a fairly common issue for newbie DIY turf guys. I'll share some more pics this weekend.
 
John,
I did the total rehab a couple years ago and after this past Summer it was looking a little rough.

So about a three weeks ago I Dethatched with a Green works electric Dethatcher (highly recommended), Core Aerated with a Classen machine, and used Johnathan Green Black Beauty Ultra with Lesco Starter Fertilizer.

The pic I took yesterday was the first mow.

Jeff
 
Jeff MA said:
Before pics:

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Jeff
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It's funny how controversial the whole power raking/dethatching topic is among the youtubers that I'm watching. The LCN guy seems to think it's not necessary at all, and other guys swear by it. It looks like it's definitely working for your lawn! Now that you've got your own power rake you'll just have to decide how often and when to do it. I would maybe lean toward every fall?? Those core aerators are a workout! Entry to my BY is pretty restricted or I'd be doing that too... but I even found one guy on youtube who is against core aerating. I think it's because he's trying to sell "liquid aeration". ;)

I bought a similar power rake/scarifier and used the scarifier to tear up my BY before I thru down my fescue seed and that worked like a charm. I did a little bit if power raking in my front yard and that seems to be helping my cool-season side. I'll have to hold of on doing the zoysia side until May or June next year. Having two different kinds of grass in my FY is frustrating and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it (if anything).
 
I am very pro dethatch/power rake. Just don't overdo it.

If you have a thin layer, you can go with the less invasive dethatcher like Jeff used. Those are lightweight and pretty cheap -- so worth buying and maybe using once a year. And some folks argue (I think convincingly) that you really need to disturb the dirt more than just plugs to get good sprouting on your overseed.

For my rehab, I had to go big and rent a Clausen power rake from HD. I started with a 100% KBG lawn, and KBG is the biggest of thatch makers. I took over a decade of thatch out of my lawn -- probably the equivalent of 10 hay bales!! It was crazy -- it took days to rake it all out and dispose. Wife saw the hay pile and and concluded that I'd just killed the lawn. But it was necessary as a prelude to the over seed.

For the next couple of seasons, I plan to plug both spring and fall (CO has high clay soil). The argument there (per LCN) is that frequent and aggressive plugging will break down the thatch layer and disturb the dirt enough for over-seeding. So no additional dethatch should be needed. It looks like LCN is a VERY aggressive plugger - 2, 3, even 4 passes. If I don't do the plugging myself, I tip the plug guy very generously to make sure he doesn't give my the once over lightly job.

Since I still have PTSD from the power rake episode, I'm trying to just rely on plugs (no raking required). I'm also adding fescue/rye seed to move away from 100% KBG -- mostly for less water but also for less thatch. So it looks like I'm working towards what the JG Ultra is -- KBG + fescue + rye.
 
Well its been about a month since I posted this thread.... Here's where I am with the backyard now. This is after about the 4th mow and watering a lot since we've had one heckuva dry spell in my zip code. I used a different camera but tried to stay with roughly the same camera angle so you can compare to my first post.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the back yard. I still have some thin spots that I can't figure out. We still have a little more time to grow this fall before the fescue goes dormant, then we'll see how the things look after the first couple of mows in spring 2021. It seems like I may need to do a bit more soil amendment given how well the grass took in other parts vs the thin spots. The lawn actually looks near perfect from certain angles, but that's for instagramers! We're keepin' it real here on the TVWBB ;)

Cheers all & happy Friday-Eve.

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Weather has been so unpredictable here and all over the map I have not been able to get out there and do anything.
 
Pro tip for any of you that have an Ego electric mower.

I just installed their "high lift" bagging blade for leaf season. A huge difference over the standard mulching blade for hoovering, shredding and bagging leaves. Highly recommended.
 
I have a Honda quadra cut walk behind mower. It turns the leaves to nearly powder. Though with all the trees here and the large property we typically burn them
 
LMichaels said:
I have a Honda quadra cut walk behind mower. It turns the leaves to nearly powder. Though with all the trees here and the large property we typically burn them
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I just bought a Honda self propelled more and really really like it so far. There's a little trick to getting it to mulch leaves a little finer but I haven't tried it yet.
 
Never noticed any trick. Other than if mulching leaves you have to keep the "cut" a little lower than I normally would if simply mowing, and you have to have slightly lower walking speed. Otherwise those quadra blades chop it up like hamburger. I have an older model. It has a polycarbonate deck, and even a hydrostatic transmission
 
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