Renovations: What year is the payoff?

[edenl01]

My question is after a renovation, what year or when in your opinion is the payoff? First year, second year etc.? After a cut today I was pretty excited about the progress my last years renovation has made. I thought to myself, could the second year even better than this?

[andy10917]

Seriously for me, the first year. The one where you say "damn, this actually worked!".

We had guests over at 60 days, and they refused to believe the Blueberry backyard wasn't sod.

[MorpheusPA]

First year. Actually, first season; by late October, I was more impressed with the new lawn (sprout and pout and all) than I was with the old one. It was already showing slightly better color, if thinner coverage and weaker growth.

By May, it was a lawn. Young and needing some coddling, but a lawn.

YMMV. I fed like organics were going out of style.

[ken-n-nancy]

I think the answer to this depends upon the level of experience of the lawn owner at the time the renovation is started. It also depends upon how good the lawn was (or wasn't) before the renovation was commenced.

Andy and Morph had the lawn skills and experience before embarking on their renovations, that the renovations went smoothly and nearly immediately resulted in a lawn that was better than the pre-reno lawn.

I will say that my own experiences with lawn renovations haven't always resulted in a payoff at the end of the first season. These less-than-stellar successes have been partly because we've made some mistakes, done some tricky renovations (e.g. a Bewitched monostand with significant shade), and made more mistakes.

We've done a renovation each fall from 2013 through 2016. (No, we're not doing one this year -- taking a year off after four consecutive years of renos...)

I think our 2013 front lawn renovation showed the no-doubter payoff by the middle of the next spring. (Our seed-down date was too late in the fall for a payoff before winter.)

Our 2014 back lawn renovation similarly showed a no-doubter payoff by the end of next spring (mid-June). (Again, our seed-down date was too late for payoff before winter.)

Our 2015 side lawn renovation was the most challenging for us. We again didn't get seed down early enough (can you see a recurring theme here?) but, nonetheless, the slow-to-wake-up Bewitched was looking pretty awesome by the end of June the following year. However, my inexperience with managing a first-year KBG monostand (especially one that was seeded late and wakes up slowly in spring) led to us nearly losing the whole thing to disease about 1-year after seed-down. It's just now (nearly 2 years later) getting to the point that I'm thinking we've reached the payoff, although even that feels a bit tenuous.

Our 2016 mini renos were performed out of necessity from other lawn-destruction problems (spilled electrical transformer and septic take installation). The oil spill renovation, for which we finally had an early-enough seed-down date looked great for the Northern Mix before winter, but the KBG didn't get to "success" until late the following spring, due to a "washout" that happened a few days after seed-down but that we didn't reseed from, but instead waited for the bare spots to fill in the next spring. (We didn't have seed to re-seed after the washout). The good news is that the fill-in approach did work, but just took a few months. The septic tank renovation, though, was again way too late of a seed-down date, but the PRG did sprout enough to retain the soil through a New Hampshire winter, and looked awesome this spring. The PRG is suffering a lot right now from the summer heat, though, so this area isn't really a long-term "success" in my book, but I couldn't pull the trigger on doing a renovation a fifth year in a row.

Anyway, so even if you botch things up a fair bit, without making any catastrophic mistakes though, I think it's pretty likely that you'll be seeing "the payoff" by the end of the following spring. If you have the skills to do it all right the first time and get your seed down early enough, you can have the payoff before winter!

[Green]

Year 3 for me. The North side lawn reno was seeded late (early October 2013) and then overseeded the following Spring (2014). I didn't do aggressive Nitrogen.

By last Summer (2016), it was pretty durable and drought tolerant like they advertise for TTTF/KBG mixes. This year (2017) I've barely had to water that section due to almost sufficient rain.

[andy10917]

Andy and Morph had the lawn skills and experience before embarking on their renovations, that the renovations went smoothly and nearly immediately resulted in a lawn that was better than the pre-reno lawn.

First year. Actually, first season; by late October, I was more impressed with the new lawn (sprout and pout and all) than I was with the old one. It was already showing slightly better color, if thinner coverage and weaker growth.

I don't know. With experience, the odds improve of early success. I've had a renovation that I was sure would completely fail if a slight breeze hit it (my "Emblem" renovation), and the 2014 "Blueberry" renovation (below) made phenomenal grass in 60 days. It's more how it all plays out, and the decisions you make to react.

[turf_toes]

Yep. My blueberry renovation was basically a complete lawn in six weeks or do. It continued to thicken, of course, over the next few years.

My beef with blueberry though is the same thing that led to quick establishment (top growth) continues today.

If I were to do that particular renovation again, I'd have gone with bewitched. It exhibits much slower top growth and fewer mowings each week.

[MorpheusPA]

My major beef with my reno to date is the speed of invasion of every surrounding garden. However, it stays put in terms of invading the neighbors' yards as none of these cultivars flourish if not very well-fed.

So five times a season I have to reimpose the edge either with an ax or using Round Up followed by a weed whacker.

It's a minor complaint.

[HoosierLawnGnome]

When you achieve your goals How quickly you get there is some combination of time, knowledge, skills.

I'm not where I want with my renovation from last year yet - going to be a while yet. Not that it's not better than it was already, so in that sense it paid off.

[edenl01]

I think the payoff so far is right now, the first fall (1 year year old). It's thickening up and making the mower work. The color is getting better a little bit at a time but density is notable.

I just stand there looking at it. I get a look of crooked dog head looks but they just don't understand.