Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Discuss how to and whether you should renovate your lawn
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schreibdave
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Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by schreibdave » July 15th, 2019, 7:38 am

I have posted elsewhere that I am looking to kill off my PR and go with an all KBG lawn. Do people have a strong preference of a monostand (probably Bewitched) vs a blend like the one below that Preferred Seed is selling? They call it "Better Blue KBG Blend."

"Varieties in this mix will include 3 of the following Elite and Improved Bluegrasses: Prosperity , Rhapsody , Bewitched, Blueberry, Bedazzled, Award, Midnight & Everglade. (stock dependent)"

Preferred seed doesn't ship to consumers in my county so I would either have to go through a local retailer or pick it up. My wife is headed to Buffalo for a few days where Preferred Seed is located so I thought I would ask her to pick it up if I can make a decision (and if they have it in stock). Thanks

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turf_toes
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Location: Central NJ
Grass Type: 77% Blueberry/23% Midnight Star KBG in front. Bewitched KBG monostand in back.
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by turf_toes » July 15th, 2019, 8:22 am

The issue here isn’t my (or anyone else’s) preference. It’s about what level of care you decide you can handle.

A monostand, at least in theory, is more susceptible to disease taking out large sections of your lawn. A monoculture is less so because it contains multiple cultivars that might be more resistant to the pathogen.

Monostand definitely can look better with a uniform look. They tend to look better several days after mowing because the grass typically grows at the same rate.

So you need to make a choice. Does the increased chance of fungal disease trump the better look of a monostand.

This is a decision you need to make yourself. It shouldn’t be a forum popularity contest. Your answer should come down to your experience level and your commitment to monitor and quickly act at the first sign of a pathogen.

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andy10917
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by andy10917 » July 15th, 2019, 8:50 am

** TT beat me to the punch - but's here's my answer**

OK - you've got two distinct topics in your post - and they're not really related, so it's likely you'll get answers to one topic or the other.

I've got some experience with both topics, so I'll address them individually.
Do people have a strong preference of a monostand (probably Bewitched) vs a blend like the one below that Preferred Seed is selling?
You have to understand what you're taking on when you do a monostand. While they can be stunning due to the evenness of the growth and color, they are a bit more temperamental. Most cultivars were developed with resistances to certain diseases, and they do excellent in certain situations (what they were bred for). But there is no such thing as a cultivar that excels at everything - so when you have mixed conditions, a single cultivar may blow you away in one area (maybe a sunny area) and struggle in a nearby area (a shady area, perhaps).

Also, when a disease hits and it's not one that the single cultivar was bred to resist, it can race across the lawn - because every single blade has the same exact weakness. If you're not on it like a fly on post-digestive material, you can lose huge sections of the lawn to disease quickly. Monostands are therefore recommended for the owner with enough experience to hit the disease(s) hard and fast - there isn't time for "let's see what happens over the next week or so" thinking.

Blends of multiple cultivars are more tolerant of mixed conditions, where one cultivar that tolerates shade (perhaps) will begin to dominate where there is shade, and another may dominate where there is more sun. But, you'll have to sacrifice the oh-so-even growth and color for the tolerance of mixed conditions.
Preferred seed doesn't ship to consumers in my county so I would either have to go through a local retailer or pick it up.
Yeah, Preferred Seed has some contractual things where they can't sell directly against the existing dealers in many NY counties that have dealers that do retail. I don't see this as a negative - they will ship it to a local dealer and you pick it up and there isn't a shipping charge. I've done it numerous times and love it. I like Preferred Seed.

schreibdave
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Joined: April 14th, 2010, 7:01 pm
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by schreibdave » July 15th, 2019, 9:41 am

OK, so that settles it. I will go with the blend because I do have a certain amount of "good enough" that I am willing to accept in exchange for less chance of a wipe out or of having to put the rest of my life on hold in order to focus on treating the lawn.

I will call Preferred Seed and ask which cultivars are in the blend. Are there any that are listed in my post that I should try to avoid? They include three based on availability.

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HoosierLawnGnome
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » July 15th, 2019, 9:58 am

Preferred seed is great.

One other thought, you cant go to a monostand without renovating in the future. You can always overseed something else over time for more biodiversity.

Several of those listed, like blueberry and bewitched, are dwarf cultivars. If biodiversity is your chief goal you may want to pick from various categories.

Other than that compare those cultivars to NTEP ratings for your anticipated maintenance schedule, particularly disease rating if that's a main concern.

I've found blueberry at 1.5 inches is much more susceptible to dollar spot than 3 in blueberry.
Bewitched is a good monostand selection.


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ken-n-nancy
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by ken-n-nancy » July 15th, 2019, 10:00 am

Good advice by TT and Andy and HLG (not that we'd expect anything different.) I do have a couple things to add. I have a Bewitched monostand in my side yard (Fall 2015 renovation) and a Bewitched + Prosperity blend in my front yard (Fall 2018 renovation). Before the front lawn renovation, I also had previous experience with Prosperity as the only KBG in my back lawn's Fine Fescue / KBG mix.

I have had disease pressure issues in the Bewitched monostand in my side lawn. Many others here have reported great success with disease resistance from their Bewitched monostands. I had trouble starting the first fall after renovation. I think my problem was largely self-induced due to too much fertilization and not properly recognizing the disease problem I was having near the end of that first summer. I was seeing areas turning brown, which I mistook for heat stress and lack of water. I watered it more, which made the disease worse, and I didn't have the right fungicides on hand to address the issue. It wasn't until I noticed that one of the very worst areas was near the lowest sprinkler head and was in the pattern where the water would drain from the zone at the end of a watering cycle -- the problem was worst with the most water, so it couldn't be lack of water causing the issue! I nearly lost the monostand -- I was probably down to thin 25% coverage overall, with some sections only having a density of about one mostly healthy blade of grass within an area of about 2" x 2" - and that very thin density over areas about 10' x 20' in size. I'd love to be able to show you pictures, but I was so discouraged with it nearly all dying that I didn't take any pics. The good news is that after I applied the proper fungicide, the damage ceased, the very sparse lawn made it through winter, and due to the magic of KBG spreading, it recovered pretty well the following spring and looked like a lawn again going into summer. However, I still have leaf spot / melting out challenges there. I think that once a fungus becomes well established in a lawn, it is hard to ever exterminate it completely - I still have challenges this year, even with better cultural practices and more timely application of fungicides. I'd like to get to the point where I can be ahead of the disease with just regular Serenade applications, but I'm not there yet. Interestingly, my disease issues from the Bewitched side lawn never spread into the Prosperity of the back lawn, even though they abut one another.

As a result of my trouble on the side lawn, I chose to go with a Bewitched+Prosperity blend in the front lawn for last year's renovation. Having lived with each of Bewitched and Prosperity even in adjoining areas, I could see that they are an extremely close match to one another in terms of color, growth rate, and seasonal changes. The only area of difference that I've seen is that the Prosperity seems to green up about 7-10 days ahead of the Bewitched in the spring. (Bewitched is VERY late to green up in the spring. Prosperity is late compared to the fine fescue, but the Bewitched is even later.) Color and growth rates are an excellent match, at least in my partly sunny / partly shady lawn. With the exception of one week in the spring, I really can't tell them apart at all, even in places where they directly abut one another. I think these two cultivars are a great pairing - they are so very similar, and gain some disease resistance.

However, that close similarity doesn't exist for all of the cultivars listed in the "Better Blue KBG Blend" that you mention. Bewitched is maybe the slowest grower of all the popular elite KBG cultivars, and from what I've read here (no direct experience) Blueberry sounds like one of the fastest. I think a pairing of those two would have significant growth rate differences about 8 months of the year. (They probably grow at about the same rate from December through March. ;) ) I don't have knowledge of the others. I had considered including Award in my Bewitched+Prosperity blend, but without having had direct experience with it, I didn't take the chance. I also vaguely recall that it is genetically similar to one of Bewitched or Prosperity, but I don't recall which.

Personally, I'm pleased (so far) with my Bewitched+Prosperity blend. However, until one has had about two years with a KBG lawn, one really doesn't know all the seasons yet - I may still come to regret my choice in a year or two.

In sum, I wouldn't just take a "stock-dependent" choice of combining KBG cultivars from the list you posted -- for example, I think Bewitched+Blueberry would be too different. Others here may have more direct experience -- I think HoosierLawnGnome has had both Bewitched and Blueberry at the same time -- hopefully he can add his impression. However, I think that a well-informed match of 2 to 3 particularly chosen KBG cultivars could provide some genetic diversity while still providing the desired uniformity of a monostand.

Edit: in the time I was writing my wordy post, HLG posted also, although he doesn't seem to have mentioned the growth rate comparison of Bewitched+Blueberry...

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HoosierLawnGnome
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » July 15th, 2019, 10:27 am

Good points, KNN - greenup and growth habits. I've had blueberry and bewitched monostands.

Blueberry greens up a few weeks before Bewitched. When my blueberrry monostand greens up it is dramatic compared to the still dormant, adjacent lawns of mixed grasses with rye and fescues.

And then my blueberrry requires a lot more mowing than what I see others doing with other monocultures. (Maybe I'm obsessive about it???)

I literally had a guy stop by and ask me how I keep my lawn so smooth. It's mowed frequently, short, with a reel mower, and is all the exact same plant with same nutrition program. The soil isn't any more level than what you'd get with your typical graded subdivision lot.

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turf_toes
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Grass Type: 77% Blueberry/23% Midnight Star KBG in front. Bewitched KBG monostand in back.
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by turf_toes » July 15th, 2019, 2:44 pm

Just a clarification here. A monoculture is a fancy word for a KBG blend. It means you have two or more cultivars of a single grass type.

A monostand is a single cultivar of a single grass type.

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HoosierLawnGnome
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » July 15th, 2019, 3:08 pm

turf_toes wrote:
July 15th, 2019, 2:44 pm
Just a clarification here. A monoculture is a fancy word for a KBG blend. It means you have two or more cultivars of a single grass type.

A monostand is a single cultivar of a single grass type.
Ah. Thanks. I'd edit but I cant. I have a monostand.

schreibdave
Posts: 1123
Joined: April 14th, 2010, 7:01 pm
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Grass Type: Bewitched, Award and Rhapsody
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by schreibdave » July 15th, 2019, 3:12 pm

Thanks for all the great responses. I have a new piece of information. Their "Better Blue" blend is made up of Bewitched, Award and Rhapsody. Does anyone have an opinion as to whether those three would look good together? And do they complement each other in terms of shade tolerance, disease resistance, spring green up, etc?

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turf_toes
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Joined: December 17th, 2008, 8:46 pm
Location: Central NJ
Grass Type: 77% Blueberry/23% Midnight Star KBG in front. Bewitched KBG monostand in back.
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Level: Not Specified

Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by turf_toes » July 15th, 2019, 3:28 pm

Check NTEP.org for a testing site near you. You’ll likely have to look through some older results for some of those cultivars. Those grasses might be great in NJ. But they’ll likely have different results in different growing conditions.

Taking cultivar advice from someone 500 miles away from you would be a mistake.

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turf_toes
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Grass Type: 77% Blueberry/23% Midnight Star KBG in front. Bewitched KBG monostand in back.
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Re: Bewitched Monostand vs KBG Blend

Post by turf_toes » July 15th, 2019, 5:02 pm

HoosierLawnGnome wrote:
July 15th, 2019, 3:08 pm
turf_toes wrote:
July 15th, 2019, 2:44 pm
Just a clarification here. A monoculture is a fancy word for a KBG blend. It means you have two or more cultivars of a single grass type.

A monostand is a single cultivar of a single grass type.
Ah. Thanks. I'd edit but I cant. I have a monostand.
No worries. It’s my fault really. There’s no need to use a $5 word (monoculture) when a 50 cent one (blend) is just as good.

My use of “monoculture reminds me of grading papers in college (I was the TA). Every freshman seemed to try working the word “plethora” into their paper. The funny thing is they were using it as a substitute for “wide variety.” The word actually means something slightly different (an over abundance).

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