First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Discuss how to and whether you should renovate your lawn
OnlyWeedsNoGrass
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by OnlyWeedsNoGrass » August 26th, 2019, 7:55 pm

Alright guys... I'm at a bit of a loss here. :confused:

Today, I scheduled the delivery of the topsoil, borrowed a backpack sprayer and as a final sanity check, followed FlyingFish's advice to do a bit of homework on how Tenacity impacts fine fescue.

To quote the Tenacity label for new seeding/ new lawn establishment:
Apply Tenacity at 5-8 fl. oz. per acre prior to seeding or post seeding of tolerant turfgrass species listed on this label, except fine fescue. Tenacity may reduce density of fine fescue seedings. Tenacity can be used on grass seed blends that contain less than 20% by weight of hard or fine fescue.
Considering that the SS6000 mix is 4/5 by weight of fine fescue, looks like Tenacity is a no-go for me.

What can I do at seed down to battle germinating weeds besides spending 3hrs a day after work hand picking them? There's got to be another way... right? :banghead:

flyingfish88
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by flyingfish88 » August 27th, 2019, 8:04 am

How shaded is the area you are doing the Reno?

Depending on the amount of shade, you might not have to go the fine fescue route, many TTTF and KBG cultivars have good shade tolerance. In fact, most members here seem to avoid FF for a variety of reasons.

I know this is the last thing you want to have to consider at this point in the game, but depending on the amount of shade you might be able to get by without FF if you can select something different and then do a tenacity pre-em.

The fact that you are bringing in soil makes the pre-em even more important. There is no telling what seeds could be in that soil.

OnlyWeedsNoGrass
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by OnlyWeedsNoGrass » August 27th, 2019, 11:11 pm

Not too bad on shade, but at this point, I think I will plow on ahead with the fine fescue mix.
I'm taking Tenacity out of the plan - based on my novice-level research, I think I can replace spraying Tenacity with Scott's starter fertilizer with Mesotrione - which explicitly states that it is safe to use with fine fescues.

Hopefully that will suppress the weed growth enough. Worst case, I'll hand pick what I can, and I'll deal with the weeds using the triangle approach in the fall.

Open question to the gurus out there - My front/side yards (that I was keeping out of scope of this renovation are also in pretty bad shape but I decided against including them in the renovation because I know there is a likelihood of messing up due to inexperience and wanting to contain any potential disasters in the backyard) also have a fair bit of crabgrass and many other broadleaf weeds; should I overweed with the fine fescue mix in the fall anyway since the winter will kill off the weeds? {/b]

I guess if I have the spare energy, my thought process was to scalp the very weedy sections of the front/side yards, overseed, and then hit the areas in the spring with pre-emergent. Thoughts?

flyingfish88
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by flyingfish88 » August 28th, 2019, 10:23 am

just fyi - Scott's starter fertilizer with Mesotrione is 'tenacity', mesotrione is the active ingredient in the tenacity bottle.

I can only guess the application rate is low enough for FF at the Scott's bag rate to claim safety for FF, but I can't confirm.

Yes, the fall/winter will kill off certain weeds, but there are fall/winter weeds that germinate starting now and throughout fall that survive the winter and really show up in the spring. So the pre-em via tenacity now helps to stop them and then the pre-em in the spring stops the late spring/summer germinating weeds (the ones you see now like crabgrass). A pre-em in fall and spring is a solid plan every year.

I think you could certainly overseed the other areas, but the question will be the effectiveness. Can you provide adaquate irrigation, peat moss coverage and enough soil contact (ex, too many weeds not in way)? otherwise the effectiveness is reduced.

Many here would recommend focusing on what you can adequately handle and address the next area next year.

OnlyWeedsNoGrass
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by OnlyWeedsNoGrass » August 29th, 2019, 1:56 pm

I'm not quite sure why scotts with mesotrione is safe for fine fescue but tenacity isn't. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that it's granular, or maybe it's the dosage. Either way, I'm just hoping for more grass than weeds at this point, and I'll deal with the weeds in the spring with a better timed pre-emergent / post emergent application.

I've decided not to tackle the front/side yards at this time; like FlyingFish said - i'm not certain I can provide adequate irrigation to ensure germination where I overseed.

I originally planned to scalp the yard on the 28th; it's the 30th now (4 full days after spraying glyphosate) and I don't see any signs of death/browning. I'm going to give it another day or two.

The plan is still to put down topsoil on August 31st, and seed will go down the day after.


OnlyWeedsNoGrass
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by OnlyWeedsNoGrass » September 3rd, 2019, 7:40 pm

Quick update - my mower could not mow low enough to really get as much of the weeds out as I had hoped. I tried manually raking up the weeds in the hopes that it would get them to stand up so that I could mow over them but it was way too slow, and too strenuous, so I improvised a bit:

On Saturday, I rented a power rake, and pretty much ripped up all of the weeds/existing grass. I then manually raked and bagged all of the weeds, spent the better part of the day shoveling ~4 yards of topsoil into the yard to even out any bumps.

I got a bit overzealous and managed to get seed down a day earlier than I had planned:
1. Topsoil down
2. Rolled to make everything level
3. Seed down
4. Roll again
5. Scotts starter fert w/ mesotrione
6. Double pass of milorganite
7. peat moss
8. set up sprinklers to water 3x a day
9. manually water "hard to reach" places 3x a day

I had 1 yard of topsoil left, so I ended up filling in some big divots in other areas of my property, going through the same process as above. All in all, feeling exhausted but accomplished. Just can't wait to see some growth!

Image

OnlyWeedsNoGrass
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by OnlyWeedsNoGrass » September 10th, 2019, 5:41 pm

So it's been 10 full days since seed down and I'm seeing great progress!

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I'm seeing significantly more growth/germination day after day, though I'm definitely noticing areas where I went a bit light on the peat moss being more bare. I've put a bit more seed down in those areas and have resorted to hitting those spots manually with the hose when I can to keep it more moist. I'd say 95% of the reno area is kept moist via 2 way Orbit programmable faucet timer hooked up to two sprinklers, watering every 6hrs for 10 minute intervals.

There's almost no weed growth, except for a few spots of wild garlic. I tried to dig them up but it ends up surfacing a ton more mini-bulbs and I'd rather not give them more air/sunlight to sprout so I'm leaving them for now until I can come up with a better plan (any suggestions?).

In other news, I had some leftover soil so I ended up filling in a few big dips in the front yard, and following the same process (scalp > soil > seed > roll > Scotts Starter Fert w/ mesotrione > peat moss) and I'm actually getting great germination although I can only water twice a day by hand. I guess I must have gone a bit heavy on the Scott's because around 50% of the grass is coming up white w/ purple tips, but it seems to be okay.

OnlyWeedsNoGrass
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by OnlyWeedsNoGrass » September 20th, 2019, 1:55 pm

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20 days since seed down and I'm seeing great progress. I suspected some areas weren't retaining moisture as well leading to larger swaths of bare areas, so I put down more peat moss and seed which seemed to work well.

I'm noticing a fair amount of crabgrass germinating, but I'm hoping that the first frost knocks them out so that I don't have to step all over the new grass to hand pick them.

I still haven't had my first mow yet; I may wait another week or two and get it back to 2". Just want to give as much time as possible for roots to develop.

I still need to figure out how to prepare the new lawn for winter and spring. My current plan was to just apply milorganite at bag rate in the beginning of November, skip the fall application of pre-emergent, and apply pre-em in the Spring once I see the forsythia bloom.

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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by flyingfish88 » September 20th, 2019, 8:47 pm

Looks great!!

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andy10917
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by andy10917 » September 21st, 2019, 6:01 am

Milorganite isn't a top choice for a winterizing application in November - as the grass begins to slow its growth, so too do the members of the microherd that digest the Milorganite into useful Nitrogen.

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HoosierLawnGnome
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » September 21st, 2019, 5:59 pm

That's coming right along.

Alias-Dor
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by Alias-Dor » September 21st, 2019, 11:13 pm

For wild onions you have two options A) Use a plugger like Proplugger 5-IN-1 it’s on Amazon and pulls the hole plant with the bulbs smoothly and cleanly . B) Use any 2,4-D herbicide like weed b gon and brush the leafs from top to bottom and it’ll die in a few days . I’ve used both methods with success but prefer the herbicide because it’s much faster since you don’t have to fill holes with soil . You can knockout 20 plants in 5-10 minutes .

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HoosierLawnGnome
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by HoosierLawnGnome » September 23rd, 2019, 8:21 am

24d will kill the foliage but a better herbicide is something like triclopyr that takes it's time and kills the bulb. Use a surfactant to get it to stick using a fine spray. No need to paint it on then.

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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by OnlyWeedsNoGrass » September 28th, 2019, 8:09 pm

Update / Day 28 since seed down
Image
I mowed the lawn to 2" four days ago and it's already time to cut again. I've scaled back the watering to just twice a day (11am and 5pm) and the lawn seems to be fine. I'll mow again tomorrow (2nd mow since seed down). I also hand picked most of the germinating crabgrass since I'm not sure exactly what pre-emergents can go down now considering I already used Scotts starter fertilizer with mesotrione during seeding.. if you have any recommendations for any fall pre-emergent application for a recently seeded yard, I'm all ears!

@Hoosier - Good to know that triclopyr will kill the bulb; I've been seeing some mixed messages on how to deal with wild garlic online.


Wanted to take a quick poll on what you would do...

Situation:
- I'm planning to do a full renovation of my side-front yard (corner lot) next fall; ~2,700 sqft.
- Will be power raking most of the weeds off after killing with glyphosate, and leveling with ~1" of topsoil in the fall
- Planning to go with a tall fescue mix from SSS since it gets more sun than the backyard
- Currently it is 75% grassy weeds, some ground ivy, some wild violet, and 25% grass that has been there since the 30's

Would you:
A - Try to get the weeds under control via 'triangle approach' between now and next fall's renovation
B - Just mow/maintain until reno period since everything will be nuked with glyphosate anyway
C - Try to tackle a Spring renovation with caution

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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by DevilDawg81 » September 28th, 2019, 10:00 pm

My vote is B. Your current reno is looking good. You know you wanna nuke the side/front and make it look nice!! I feel like you’d be burning resources on controlling the weeds when you’re just gonna kill it off next year anyways.

OnlyWeedsNoGrass
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Re: First time home / lawn owner - first reno attempt

Post by OnlyWeedsNoGrass » October 5th, 2019, 3:23 pm

Ok - I think I got ahead of myself a bit. I’m concerned that there is some kind of disease or fungus, but not sure how to address it. Any thoughts on what I can do, especially now that the temperatures have been dropping to the mid 40s at night and low 70s during the day? I’d hate to see all of my work gone in less than 1 season.
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