LeftField11's Lawn Reno - 9,600 sq ft - Quack Battle

[LeftField11]

Spring update:
I'm thrilled with my lawn. It's far from perfect, but it's more than I had even hoped for. Just continuing to try to nudge it along, be proactive, and not do anything stupid (already did one really stupid thing this spring.)

I'm not sure the grass ever went completely dormant this winter, it stayed green throughout. And it might just be in my head, but it looked like it actually spread a little in the thin areas.

Anyhow, here are some pics from yesterday.


The hill on the right side of this pic is filling in nicely.


Backyard looks amazing.

[LeftField11]

A couple more pics.





I mentioned I did something stupid. Well here it is. I apparently got way over aggressive trying to paint quack with glypho, and also went completely brain dead for a day or more. What I think happened:
1.) Painted too much. I had blue marker in my glypho mix and painted till I could see the blue on the quack.
2.) I didn't pay attention to where I was walking. Just dumb.
3.) Mowed while the glypho was still wet. I mowed a day later, but I think I had so much glypho down, and it had rained making everything slightly wet still. It looks like the mower spread the glypho in spots. These areas didn't die completely, but did look highly stressed for several weeks. It looks like they're starting to bounce back now, I put some extra milo in that area to try to help it recover.


I'm going to put my remaining pots in the worst spots and pray that the KBG spreads to fill in the holes. If not, I'll seed those spots this fall and chalk this up to a learning experience.

[edenl01]

Awesome work! The color is unreal!

[g-man]

^ the color and stripes looks really nice. It looks like a mature lawn.

[Marinegrunt]

Your lawn looks great and especially the back.

You'll have those little spots filled in in no time. Don't sweat it. We all have moments like that in one way or another. Mistakes are just one of the many ways we learn.

Keep up the great work!

[ken-n-nancy]

Looks great!

Thanks for having the courage to admit and take pictures of your "mistake area" -- that takes guts!

[ezael]

Making mistakes is a great way to learn and thanks for sharing, looks great!

[LeftField11]

Thanks all. My hope is that someone else learns from my mistake and doesn't repeat it.

[HoosierLawnGnome]

Hey - been there with the patchy looking areas during a quack battle. Totally worth it long term. Looks normal to me!

[LeftField11]

Spring Routine - so far

While the summer/fall renovation steps are fairly standard and well documented, figuring out what to do this spring was almost more challenging (although way less stressful than waiting for KBG to grow). My guess is that due to differing results from the fall renos, the spring timing and procedures can vary greatly. Therefore there's no "standard operating procedure" for the spring. So given the state of my reno this spring, here is what I came up with.

Reno self-assessment: I was happy with where it ended up last fall. I followed the fall nitrogen regimen and my last mowing was sometime in mid November. I did not put down a winter pre-m, probably a mistake. This spring I had a decent amount of broadleaf weeds, and maybe 5-6 "spots" of poa annua. There were still some spots that needed to spread to get full grass coverage. I started mowing at 2.5", then moved it up to 3".

Spring goals: kill weeds, encourage KBG to spread, begin biofungicide program

Here's what I've done and when I did it:

27 Mar - Applied Prodiamine @ .75 oz / 1000 sf - Forsythia were in bloom
28 Mar - Blanket sprayed 2,4-D, MCPP, Dicamba mix (EndRun brand) - did a very good job on the broadleafs
17 Apr - Blanket sprayed Tenacity @ 4 oz / acre mixed with Trilopyr @ .7 ox / 1000 sf - this finished off all the weeds and poa in one app
27 Apr - Spread starter fert (18-24-6) @ bag rate (.6 lb N / 1000 sf), soil tests last year indicated low P
29 Apr - Spread alfalfa pellets @ 20 lbs / 1000 sf
01 May - Blanket sprayed BLSC/KH @ 2 oz / 1000 sf
02 May - Painted quackgrass with glypho / ammonium sulfate mix
04 May - Spread Milorganite @ bag rate (.7 lbs N / 1000 sf)
13 May - Spread cracked corn @ 15 lbs / 1000 sf
16 May - Blanket sprayed Serenade @ 2 oz. / 1000 sf
21 May - Spread Scotts GrubEx (Chlorantraniliprole), spread Milo on areas damaged by quack painting

I haven't irrigated at all yet, we've had pretty good rain this spring, including over an inch this week. I'm a little gun shy about painting quack now, so I'm ignoring the quack for a while. I'm curious about the results people will have with Certainty on KBG.

Will probably do another Milo app in June, and will keep up the biofungicide program (corn, Serenade, maybe actinovate).