A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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IwantItgreen
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A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by IwantItgreen » September 14th, 2009, 9:10 pm

Here are pics of my lawn renovation at day 14. Not to shabby in my opinion.
Procedure that led up to this: RU applied August 13 & 14. Around the 24th & 25th of Aug. I scalped and then used a spring-tooth type dethatcher to bring up all the dead grass. I did this several times, using the lawn mower to bag it up. Then I reapplied RU to some areas that I had missed before. We also leveled a few areas that were either a little high or too low.
Seeded on Aug. 29. Spread starter fert. and also Milorganite thinking that when the starter fert. was about done the organics would kick in. Then we rolled it and put on 30 bags of $1 mushroom compost, then turned on the irrigation.

Here is my lawn on September 12 at DAY 14:
Side Yard: The green under the tree is fescue
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Boulevard
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Front Yard
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Another Front Yard, opposite direction take on 9-14 -- leaves are really starting to fall!
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Back Yard
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We've been having beautiful low 80 degree days lately, perfect for growing grass! Only small amounts of rain, so most of the water has come from irrigation. :) I'm not having any flooding problems!
Last edited by IwantItgreen on September 14th, 2009, 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Drinyth
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by Drinyth » September 14th, 2009, 9:20 pm

Very, very nice! Things look like they're coming along really great! I hope the good weather continues!

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IwantItgreen
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by IwantItgreen » September 14th, 2009, 9:29 pm

I have a confession to make. I see all the beautiful homes you all live in and it makes me feel like I live in a teepee! I shouldn't feel that way tho', we do have a nice home in our community.

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s1mpl3k1d
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by s1mpl3k1d » September 14th, 2009, 9:36 pm

Looking good! :)

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MorpheusPA
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by MorpheusPA » September 14th, 2009, 9:40 pm

IwantItgreen wrote:I have a confession to make. I see all the beautiful homes you all live in and it makes me feel like I live in a teepee! I shouldn't feel that way tho', we do have a nice home in our community.
If it's a teepee with a really great lawn, we don't care. :-)


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IwantItgreen
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by IwantItgreen » September 18th, 2009, 9:57 am

Yesterday I applied my first dose ever of "Bestlawn soil conditioner & Kelp Help with Humates" on top of my limestone quarry, as "Andy" calls it! I like using the Ortho sprayer but have the feeling I almost need to run with it, or I'm overapplying. I like to do things slow and steady and get it done right the first time, but when I use the ortho sprayer is seems like l'm going helter skelter. Oh well, I'll adjust.

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Drinyth
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by Drinyth » September 18th, 2009, 10:13 am

Maybe you could dial the setting back to 1/2 or 1/4 rate and that would buy you a little more time? Just a thought?

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IwantItgreen
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by IwantItgreen » September 18th, 2009, 10:16 am

DO you think that would be OK? Or would I be putting on too much water with the product then?

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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by bpgreen » September 18th, 2009, 12:02 pm

For those of you who are using one of these concoctions, are any of you planning on leaving a control section unsprayed?

The reason I ask is that I used some Revive (a surfactant/wetting agent etc aimed at soil conditions in the west) and it seemed to help. But I was making a lot of changes in my lawn care around the same time, so I was never sure how much of the improvement was due to the Revive.

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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by simpson » September 18th, 2009, 12:17 pm

IwantItgreen wrote:DO you think that would be OK? Or would I be putting on too much water with the product then?
i think you should be doing 2 to 4 ounces per 1000sq ft. That is like 2 ounces per gallon of water with a pump sprayer then you water it in after you are done.

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IwantItgreen
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by IwantItgreen » September 18th, 2009, 1:39 pm

bpgreen wrote:For those of you who are using one of these concoctions, are any of you planning on leaving a control section unsprayed?

The reason I ask is that I used some Revive (a surfactant/wetting agent etc aimed at soil conditions in the west) and it seemed to help. But I was making a lot of changes in my lawn care around the same time, so I was never sure how much of the improvement was due to the Revive.
Yes, I did leave about a 12x12 area unsprayed. Andy wants us to do some testing for the "limestone quarry club".
simpson wrote:
IwantItgreen wrote:DO you think that would be OK? Or would I be putting on too much water with the product then?
i think you should be doing 2 to 4 ounces per 1000sq ft. That is like 2 ounces per gallon of water with a pump sprayer then you water it in after you are done.
Thanks simpson. I was spraying a mix of the homemade aerify & nature's magic, so I had the sprayer set at 4 oz. Are you saying that if I set it at 2 oz, I can go slower, be putting on the same amount of product but it will just be mixed with more water, which is OK?

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simpson
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by simpson » September 18th, 2009, 3:19 pm

When i use regular mature's magic i put 4 oz in a two gallon pump sprayer and fill with water. Then i water the lawn with about a 1/4 inch. You can set it at 1 oz and go way slower if you want.

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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by turf_toes » September 19th, 2009, 11:56 am

IwantItgreen wrote:I have a confession to make. I see all the beautiful homes you all live in and it makes me feel like I live in a teepee! I shouldn't feel that way tho', we do have a nice home in our community.
Don't feel that way. What counts are the folks living inside the home. I know lots of people who live in "nice" homes who aren't so nice (as far as being nice people). I think I have an ok home. But when my wife and I started out after college, we lived in a rodent-infested apartment building. We're the same people now as then. I don't think anyone here judges other folks' homes. Like Morph wrote, the only thing that matters around here is your lawn!

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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by simpson » September 19th, 2009, 1:32 pm

Your house looks way better than mine so dont feel so bad.

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IwantItgreen
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by IwantItgreen » September 19th, 2009, 3:38 pm

Here are pics from DAY 21. Feel free to have a look-see!

We'll start with the back yard which actually looks the best.
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Front lawn & boulevard
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Front lawn from the opposite direction
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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by IwantItgreen » September 19th, 2009, 3:51 pm

I tried at least 5 times to include all the pictures on one post, but something was going wrong with who-knows what..kept getting error message. So I will just continue with a new post.

This is the side yard, not sure why it looks like this. I'm disappointed.
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Same side opposite direction
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My teepee!
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The outside paremeters are thin from not enough seed. I used a drop seeder not wanting to throw seed in the street and into the landscape. I used a scotts spreader and set in on 4, but not sure if the calibrations are off or what. I reseeded two days ago and am watering those areas by hand in addition to the irrigation.

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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by GaryCinChicago » September 19th, 2009, 4:09 pm

IwantItgreen wrote: This is the side yard, not sure why it looks like this. I'm disappointed.
Image

Looks a little dry. Have you maintained constant moisture?

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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by clay&crabgrass » September 19th, 2009, 5:00 pm

"Have you maintained constant moisture?"
ya mean like start getting it soaked up about 6am and keeping it moist/wet till sundown?

got to tell you, that's the way I read the watering instructions and it's paying off. the TTTF really popped at about a week into the watering. I started on the 8th, could maybe be mowing next weekend. hehehehehe, never will figure out how I hit a stretch of storm free weather, Zippy the god of fescue must have been watching out for me.

for the unretired, get the hose, sprinklers, timers, get a plan and a system. grass loves the water.

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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by GaryCinChicago » September 19th, 2009, 6:54 pm

clay&crabgrass wrote: could maybe be mowing next weekend.
with Grandpa's push reel mower - and we want YouTube video of it also!

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Re: A Lawn Renovation in SD - begins with day 14

Post by IwantItgreen » September 19th, 2009, 7:41 pm

GaryCinChicago wrote:
IwantItgreen wrote: This is the side yard, not sure why it looks like this. I'm disappointed.
Image

Looks a little dry. Have you maintained constant moisture?


that's what I thought to, but there is moisture there, not soggy, by any means. There is also alot of dead grass there, don't know if that makes a difference. I bumped up that zone 10 more minutes. I'm down to 1 watering a day, actually I should be going every-other day now as I'm heading into week 4. We have cooler temps headed this way for next week, so....I'm not sure if I should stay everyday or go every other.

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