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

[LeftField11]

Do you have your watering all planned out, as to where you need to position the sprinklers in order to get sufficient coverage, and a plan to get everything watered about 4 times a day?

Are the impact sprinklers giving you the coverage you need without excessive runoff?

(The problem I've seen in the past is that the impact sprinklers often result in pretty heavy watering within about a 2' radius of the sprinkler, sometimes resulting in runoff from around the base of the sprinkler while the bulk of the area being watered by the sprinkler hasn't received enough water yet. However, as long as the sprinkler is in a level area with well-drained soil, impact sprinklers can work pretty well.)

Yes, the impact sprinklers are working well. I'm using different nozzles in them depending how much area they need to cover. I'm very happy that I can run 4 impact sprinklers off of one spigot in the back yard and get coverage over the entire area all at once.

I bought timers that I can program hourly. I'm not sure if you can tell from the pics, but both front and back yards are hills. I'm going to be using very short, frequent watering periods to try to avoid runoff.

[LoneRanger]

I'm going to be using very short, frequent watering periods to try to avoid runoff.

MP rotators work very well in this situation.

[LeftField11]

I'm going to be using very short, frequent watering periods to try to avoid runoff.

MP rotators work very well in this situation.

Yep, I learned about MP rotators after I bought 7 impact sprinklers. I could have (should have?) taken the impact sprinklers back and rigged the rotators on stakes, but I was impatient to start fallowing. Live and learn I guess.

[LeftField11]

Day 1 - seed went on the ground yesterday (8/17). Due to unforeseen circumstances that no one cares about so I'll spare you the details/excuses, I only got seed down, starter fertilizer spread, and everything rolled in. I didn't get to spray Tenacity or spread the peat moss. And of course it rained last night, not huge downpours, but enough to make me nervous that some of my bare spots washed out. I'm not too worried though, if those areas don't germinate I have enough seed to reseed them. One more benefit of getting seed down early.

Spraying Tenacity and spreading peat today.

[LeftField11]

It looked like most of the seed survived the rain Wednesday evening pretty well. There were a couple bare areas that looked washed out so I sprinkled a little seed on them by hand.

Sprayed Tenacity at 4 oz/acre over the entire lawn yesterday then spread peat moss with a large grain shovel. I used 14 2.2 cu ft bags and three 3 cu ft bags, ran out of 2.2 cu ft bags with 1/3 of the back yard to go. If you do the math I think that comes to about 43 cu ft of peat moss for 9600 sq ft of lawn, about 1 cu ft per 223 sq ft. I went a little heavier on the bare areas.

Spreading the peat moss by hand really wasn't that bad. It took about 3.5 hours, but it wasn't back breaking work. Maybe my perception of "back breaking" is skewed after jack-hammering limestone for 9 hours. There is definitely a technique to be learned for spreading a nice even layer with a flick of the shovel.

[LeftField11]

I almost forgot the most important pic. After spreading all that peat, I celebrated with a little more peat. An Islay that I got for my birthday a couple weeks ago.

[andy10917]

Ah-ha. The good stuff, right after seed-down. In four weeks, you'll be in Sprout and Pout, and sneaking gulps of rubbing alcohol.

[Paul]

Good luck LeftField11, looking good.

[edenl01]

Congrats on seed down! Let me know how those Rainbirds work out for you.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[LeftField11]

Congrats on seed down! Let me know how those Rainbirds work out for you.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

I'm going to be using very short, frequent watering periods to try to avoid runoff.

MP rotators work very well in this situation.

Yep, I learned about MP rotators after I bought 7 impact sprinklers. I could have (should have?) taken the impact sprinklers back and rigged the rotators on stakes, but I was impatient to start fallowing. Live and learn I guess.

So I changed my mind on the Rain Bird impact sprinklers. They were fine for fallowing (I thought), but I didn't like how there were covering the yard with seed down. They soaked an area right around the sprinkler (some of that was from hose/connection leaks), and they got the area at the end of the "throw", but they left an area in between that didn't get much water at all.

Yesterday I ran to Lowes and bought 7 of these Orbit rotators https://www.lowes.com/pd/Orbit-4-in-Pla ... er/1135399. I bought the 3/4"-1/2" connectors and mounted these sprinklers on spikes. I used Teflon tape and a bunch of hose washers to eliminate leaks at all of the connections. I'm much happier with the coverage these things give, I might need one more in the back yard.

One drawback to these sprinklers is that I can't run 4 at once off of one spigot. I'll probably end up getting 2 more hose timers and having 4 different watering zones (2 back, 2 front).

[edenl01]

Are you able to daisy chain those orbits or do they each need their own feeder hose from the timer.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[LeftField11]

Are you able to daisy chain those orbits or do they each need their own feeder hose from the timer.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

I have them mounted on these spikes so I can daisy chain them together.

[LeftField11]

Was walking around in my bare feet trying to judge how wet the ground was and whether I needed to water again when I spotted these. I guess these could be sprouts but I wasn't expecting to see any on Day 4.

[SyNtAxx]

Definately not KBG sproats. Blades look to wide for new TTTF also also. Prolly just a few new shoots from legacy grass type(s) there. I have a few of those here and there.

-Nick

[LeftField11]

Definately not KBG sproats. Blades look to wide for new TTTF also also. Prolly just a few new shoots from legacy grass type(s) there. I have a few of those here and there.

-Nick

Thanks for keeping it real Nick. How about these? I took this pic this morning, day 6. It's in the area where I have a mix of KBG and fine fescue, so I'm not sure which one this is.

[edenl01]

Who cares what it is sprouts is sprouts!
Looking good!

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[SyNtAxx]

Those very fine ones are KBG, a few possible Fine fescues there. KBG is very thin when it sprouts. Looking good, keep it moist and in thenext few days you should be visible green hue from a distance.

-Nick

[seiyafan]

Yep, those are KBG.

[LeftField11]

Day 8 - So I knew this process was going to take a while, and would require patience (of which I don't have an abundance), but I didn't realize that I'd be 2nd, 3rd, 4th guessing everything that I did. The longer this goes, the more I question what I'm doing.

Anyhow, I have sprouts in almost all shady areas, areas that I would have actually thought might be getting too wet, too much water. I have no sprouts in areas that receive significant amounts of sun during the day. From reading other threads I believe this to be pretty normal, but I'm fighting the urge to start watering more. Some of the sunny areas never seem to get really wet even though I'm watering 6 times per day for 15 min each.

I keep going back to the things that I "know" (have read): KBG typically germinates in 14-21 days, my shade areas are ahead of the curve; it's normal for shady areas to germinate first; some people water 3 times per day for 20 minutes and it's plenty.

So I guess I answered my own question - I'm watering plenty. Give it some time.

[edenl01]

You're on track man. Yep shady spots will pop first. Sunnier spots will lag by several days. 6x at 15 is plenty. It should dry out a little bit between waterings. You don't want the seed sitting in soup and rot.

I'm gauging my progress off of past renovations and it seems from 14-30 days is when you really start to say wow.

The one in particular I used as a sponsor Reno is by Pete1313 it was done in 2014. Take a look at his 15 day pic vs. the 30 day. Big changes.

You're not drinking enough!

[ Post made via iPhone ]