2017: What did you do on your lawn today?

[andy10917]

The Bewitched bambinos are up, but it's likely that Irma will splatter my Key Largo winter home condo (top floor, corner) all over the southern half of Florida. And I was worried about washout from a thunderstorm. Oh well, so it's a half million dollar+ washout.

I can finally sleep for the first time in ten days! The first set of pictures from Key Largo came in today and show shockingly little damage to my place. It will take more time to get the results of the water-in-the-walls testing (for mold), but the structure is OK. Damage in the 240-unit condo site varied from nothing to OMG levels of damage.

[Marinegrunt]

Good to hear Andy. It always amazes me how storms can do that. The tornados are the same way around here. One house can be completely demolished but the one next to it looks completely fine except for that 4' diameter oak tree that was ripped out of the ground and thrown on the house across the street. I think it amazes me more how it's like that with hurricanes due to the massive size of the storm system. You would think those straight line winds would flatten or atleast destroy everything the same. I guess a lot depends on how buildings, trees, mountains, etc direct the wind away from certain parts of buildings. Kind of like wind hitting the corner of a building. That sharp corner doesn't give that wind much surface area to push against. I guess it would be similar to carrying a 8' x 1/4" steel rod versus a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood in a hurricane.

Hopefully luck continues to be on your side and the mold test comes back negative.

[HoosierLawnGnome]

Ordered a striper, trimmed roses, hand pulled weeds, tested out my sprinkler system winterizer adapter

[Green]

A lot of mowing...mowed lower back at 3.25 in for second time. Took upper back down to that height also. Still lots of rust there. Took side down. Mowed front hill and hell strips at 3.75 in. Mowed low-input area. Some watering. Put more Bullseye seed down on a portion of the main front that isn't germinating well, and covered with the remaining peat moss I had left. I also shut off the sprinkler head nearby in case it was causing washout from the stream.

[Powhatan]

Mowed tall growth down to 4" from 5". New growth still perking along at 2" to 3".

I noticed rust appearing in varied areas through out the yard on the tall fescue. Hopefully, the milorganite I applied recently and lowered grass cut will help subdue the rust infection rate.

[Green]

Cut main front overseed areas for first time. Some parts were a little too long; others not long enough. Cut just below 2 inches using Fiskars manual reel mower. Watered seed areas. Turned off side front irrigation last night. Also watered furthest portion of low-input to get pre-M/fertilizer watered in. Also mowed portion of side front behind overseed area, taking it down to 3.25 in. Withheld irrigation from most of lower side overseed area so I can cut it tomorrow.

Tomorrow: more cutting, more watering low-input area (and spraying Hydretain), possibly more fertilizer going down, and hopefully start that last seed tray.

[DevilDawg81]

Applied urea to my test area reno spot in the back yard. After that I walked the yard spraying some chickweed.

[seiyafan]

Fall is back, hot weather is back, rain is gone, no.....

[Green]

Yesterday: Also sprayed Tenacity with NIS at 4oz rate on last main front overseed area. Definitely some Bentgrass there.

Today: Cut side overseed areas for first time. Were starting to dry out from lack of water. Watered well afterward. Am going to have to add more seed, because coverage isn't as good as I need. Watered other overseed areas, and then resumed watering on more of low-input area. Couldn't start until after 5PM when the wind finally started decreasing somewhat.

[ken-n-nancy]

Took down some small trees (12-25' tall) with the hand bow saw to help let more light into a shady corner of a section of the lawn along the road. Also trimmed some of the low branches of the big trees in the same area to help more light in as well.

[soiled.myself]

Fall is back, hot weather is back, rain is gone, no.....

August was goldilocks in my neck of the woods. Im 4 weeks into aggressive and we are 3 days into 7 day forecast of 90 and sunny. Deep watering today and will let the lawn grow out a bit this week.

Overall, Lawn is responding very well. Taking on a deep velvet texture.

[Powhatan]

Mulched mowed tall fescue and hybrid bluegrass to 3" from 4". Fast growing turf, that's three mows within the week. Overseed day 28, old and new growth now at the same height.

We've had warm humid couple weeks. Yesterday noticed mycelium on the shady side of the house, ground damp. My first thought was to put down Serenade fungicide, but decided to lower the grass height to allow more air flow near soil surface to hopefully dry the dampness.

mycelium on shady side of house

[Green]

Yesterday, neighbor had once a month "Chemlawn" spray fertilizer application. I noticed the technician skipped some fairly large areas. Last month, they spray fertilized, and then the mowing guy came right after. Neighbor must've told them, because were back the next day re-spraying.

Today, watered. Noticed some Triv is back again (some of it was never killed). I'm not sure what I'm going to do...I guess I'll research use of Tenacity on newly established Northern mix so I can try to at least bleach it out. If I can get away with spraying Tenacity after the first couple of mows on newly established northern mix, great. I've never been brave enough to try that.

Mowed lower back at 3.25 in. Applied first synthetic fertilizer today. I mixed 3.5 lbs of Milorganite 6-2-0 containing 30/70 percent fast/slow release with 1.5 lb of 29-0-3 Jonathan Green urea-based lawn fertilizer containing 60/40 percent fast/slow ratio. The end result is a 50/50 fast/slow mixture. I applied it at 0.5 lb/K of Nitrogen rate. Only to upper back so far. You're not supposed to do synthetic when it's hot (at least 85F today and probably higher tomorrow). But it's a low rate, so I felt ok. I hope it helps the rust go away. Very disconcerting to have brown colored grass in that area for several weeks now.

It was late afternoon by that time. I watered in the fertilizer with about 1/2-inch of water after doing some more nozzle swaps on that zone, and then sprayed Serenade at the 4oz rate on that area.

I also continued watering the low-input area at 0.25 to 0.5 inch per area. Not even half done yet...almost.

[Marinegrunt]

Yesterday, neighbor had once a month "Chemlawn" spray fertilizer application. I noticed the technician skipped some fairly large areas. Last month, they spray fertilized, and then the mowing guy came right after. Neighbor must've told them, because were back the next day re-spraying.

That reminds me a lot of what one of my neighbors is always saying. He usually requests granular when he can. Once finished you can sometimes see the tire marks from the broadcast spreader. In some areas you can see where the rows are spaced 3' apart and then areas that are 20' apart.

I too have noticed how they'll just walk around spraying liquid fertilizer willy nilly. It always seems to be a different "technician" or it's a rotation of about ten different guys. Out of those ten I bet I have watched one that made it look like he actually cared.

[Green]

I too have noticed how they'll just walk around spraying liquid fertilizer willy nilly.

Yeah, the guy or girl literally skipped a square area that was like 20x15 feet. It was also a windy day due to Jose. Every application they've had has been spray, and it's once per month. I bet that keeps the price down. They use very little water. And they seemed to spray some areas heavier...maybe those were the bad areas that needed more fertilizer. Someone here posted the likely fertilizer product they're using in a thread I started. It's a slower-release than standard urea...but still only lasts a few weeks at most. It's definitely a foliar-absorbed (or adsorbed?) product. I wonder what their rough N application rate is. That said, it's adequate. Their lawn looks much better than it ever has with less crabgrass than in years past, due to that and the mowing every two weeks instead of once per month like in the past. And that means less crabgrass pressure for us.

[Green]

Today, mowed a very small section of the main front at 3.75 in. Watered seed areas, non-seeded part of main front from tree to curb, and upper part of front hill, as well as more of low-input area, and lower back (total of 1.5 hours; still tweaking that zone).

[Green]

Just remembered...also sprayed Serenade at or near 4oz rate on non-seeded parts of the front as the final thing I did tonight. (The watering was late afternoon/early evening, unfortunately.)

[PW405]

I creepily stalked around my lawn from the street, carefully removing leaves and squirrel digging spots while taking pictures of (what appears to be, from a distance) dirt. On the inside, I was thinking "OMG BABY GRASS":

[RockinMyLawn]

Got a small ziplock of my Dad's Scott's landscaper tall fescue from Lowe's.

Threw handfuls in areas that look lite on germination 3 weeks post see down.

[ken-n-nancy]

... On the inside, I was thinking "OMG BABY GRASS":

Congrats!