Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Discuss how to and whether you should renovate your lawn
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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 7th, 2017, 11:29 am

Seed-down #2 is complete! I definitely realized that Mazama is a bigger seed than Bewitched and Award. I ran out of that quicker than the other two. I think that's pretty typical for an America-type.

Starting to get more even germination throughout the rest of the yard from Seed-down #1. Temps have been holding pretty cool so I suspect the soil temps (50s) are holding me back a bit but that's okay. Really nice to see the green hue against the soil. The excitement continues...

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Full Yard Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 8th, 2017, 9:19 am

Soil temps coming up into the 60s should boost germination. Looks like the still-seeded areas from seed-down #1 are starting to hatch. Today is day 12.

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 10th, 2017, 10:23 am

Day by day a little more germination. This is SO different than my last year's PRG reno. These little KBG buggers come up an inch and then start tillering like mad at that height. PRG just kept growing to the sky. I'm really going to enjoy this journey. So glad I chose to go 100% KBG.

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 13th, 2017, 7:59 pm

Day 17 update: starting to get more germination in areas that are at the far end of irrigation coverage. Weed pressure is decent/manageable. Mostly just crabgrass and small dicots. Found a couple rather large areas that seem to be hydrophobic so I'm trying to figure out what to do with those since there's no seemingly no germination there yet. Will try to get some pics soon but my camera's phone needs to be replaced by Apple (known hardware failure - go figure).

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 13th, 2017, 8:47 pm

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 14th, 2017, 8:50 am

Couple pics of the back. It's starting to have better coverage so I'm positive it will fill in at some point. Still quite a bit of germination left to happen. Back is filtered shade but gets morning sun. You can see the slopes I have to deal with. I did have some germination blankets in areas where I expected run off and those areas did very well. All in all I'm doing ok so far.
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ligrass
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by ligrass » June 14th, 2017, 9:45 am

What happened with your PRG backyard reno?

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 14th, 2017, 12:35 pm

Ended up being temp cover for erosion purposes. Plus we ended up having the back regraded and stumps removed etc etc so I wanted to KBG the the whole yard while I was at it. No more renos in my future after this. Set it, forget it and live with it.

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 14th, 2017, 6:33 pm

This morning I applied 0.2lbs/k fast release N on areas out of spout and pout (germination blanket areas). Maybe I'm fooling myself but it must've been very hungry because it seems to have perked up a bit already. Rain in the forecast the next few days but it's still been 24 days without any rain so we'll see if that actually happens.

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 19th, 2017, 10:14 am

Got 3.5" of rain on Saturday night! Grass is all matted down but I think it will pull through if we can dry it up with some sun. Better than last year where the soil eroded even though there was grass already. The areas with germination blankets are nearing 2" tall. Hoping there is still some germination left to happen in the thin/bare areas. Worried that the seed washed away from the start (slopes).

In other news, hand-picked crabgrass from the entire yard while the soil is moist/loose. Some of those suckers were 4-6" tall!

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 20th, 2017, 9:45 am

Bambinos in the 2nd-seed-down areas (kill/reno)! The 3.5" of rain the other day must've helped the seed break down.

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 22nd, 2017, 9:09 am

My iPhone only takes pictures at a certain focal length (hardware failure) so here's an update with a nice blue tint (guessing it's Award [midnight]). Definitely still have a lot of tiny bambinos popping up everywhere so germination is spread out quite a bit it seems. Still watering 3 times a day because of this observation.
Image

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 23rd, 2017, 8:36 am

Flash flooding :( I'm watching my soil all get carried away JUST like last fall. What a huge bummer after having 23 days of drought and good establishment.

Supposed to be 60s/70s with lows in the 40s/50s for the foreseeable future. Not sure how the soil will dry out. Irrigation is taped to the OFF position.

Green
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by Green » June 23rd, 2017, 9:14 pm

Is all of the grass still there?

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 23rd, 2017, 9:27 pm

It looks like the areas that were more established have made it through :)

Marinegrunt
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by Marinegrunt » June 24th, 2017, 10:04 am

Looking good. I hear you about the rain. I'm in Central IL and we had some downpours. Our yard is grass free right now. We have a walkout so have quite a slope on the side yard. Erosion hasn't been too bad until the heavy rains the other day. It's going to be a challenge seeding this fill. I'm contemplating slit seeding the slope but hate to disturb the soil. I'm thinking I'll have to slowly add topsoil after the grass comes in next spring to fix any erosion.

STL
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by STL » June 24th, 2017, 10:11 am

Oh man. Bummer for sure. Are you going to be able to salvage the other areas?

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 24th, 2017, 10:36 am

I got a new phone so I will get pictures later today or tomorrow. It looks like even though it's day 28, I have parts still germinating. Really interesting/exciting to see it continue to create ground cover. I hand-pulled most of the crabgrass so I think that probably helped. Impressed at how quickly the KBG develops a stable root system. I tried pulling some of it out and it doesn't want to budge. If I would've planted PRG like I did last fall, I could've been looking at another catastrophe since PRG seems to like to grow up first rather than down.

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 24th, 2017, 10:39 am

Jury is still out on the laggard areas. I definitely saw some pooling of seedlings that got swept away from the flooding. I hope that a majority of it stayed as it still has 14-21 more days of germination. Hoping the seed didn't float away. We'll see... the areas that I'm speaking of that were killed and seeded are starting to show the "green hue of progress" - but it has a long way to go still. Fingers crossed.

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fusebox7
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Re: Fusebox 2017 Front/Side Reno

Post by fusebox7 » June 25th, 2017, 11:14 am

Color is way off due to abundant sunshine but it's slowly starting to fill in where it's less dense. Trying to figure out if I should put some plugs in there or just give it some time to do its thing.

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