bluegrass care

[pristinegreen75]

newbie here. Found this site a few weeks ago. I had bluegrass sod mix installed last June. guy did a crap job. I had to baby it all last summer. I got it to look good last fall. I have been a scotts regimen guy for years. My lawn has always looked good. Had Rutgers do a soil test. It came back fairly good. PH 5.7. Phos and Potassium good. Added lime per recommendations. 150lbsk. 50 last fall, 25 this spring. I understand fertilizer numbers and how to calculate lbs of N per thousand etc. My front yard is a Northern mix. Really popped this week. Dark green. My question is for the backyard bluegrass. It is fairly dormant still. I know through this forum that is ok as it greens up later than fescues. I'm getting a little nervous though. (If it dies my wife will kill me):):):):) Cost me $$$. I did a synthetic winterizer in November per landscaper friend. (Scotts of course) According to you guys, it sounds like I should not fertilize until May. I believe this is because of the late fall app it should carry over until then??? As you can tell I have followed everybody else and dropped the Scotts as soon as I saw green in early Spring. That's why I'm nervous about waiting until May to fertilize. (ingrained habits are tough to break). Soooo..... my plan will be to drop synthetic in May, buy a bunch of Oceangro for the summer(half bag rate every 2 weeks until Sept) Then hit it with synthetic in Sept and Nov. Is it alright to use both synthetic and BSF as a plan? Not enough confidence to use straight urea in the fall yet. we can't get urea in NJ anyway. Should I be giving the bluegrass more nitrogen than that? I will be mixing up BLSC and KH this week also. Sorry for being long winded. I will be getting more intricately involved in the finer details but for this year I just want it to survive. any tweeking of the above plan will be greatly appreciated!!

[bernstem]

Mixing different fertilizer types is fine. Just keep the total water soluble nitrogen per application below 1 lb/M. As for the back lawn, it will definitely take longer to wake up than the TTTF. My bluegrass is always behind the fescues in my area. My back lawn also gets more AM sun than the front and wakes up quicker as well even though both are KBG.

[pristinegreen75]

thanks bernstem!!!! picked up a bag of Andersons 19 0 7 w/dimension 50lb at estate sale last week for $5. I will use that for May app in front. Is it ok to drop it on the bluegrass even though it is not quite a year old yet? I had no weeds or crab in it last year but will the dimension hurt it?

[bernstem]

Starting the spring after a fall seeding, the lawn is considered established and you can treat it like an adult lawn even though it will still be more fragile than a more than one year old lawn.

[pristinegreen75]

regarding previous post about new bluegrass sod in backyard.....installer did a crap job. I had an old pool area he just put 3 inches of topsoil over the sand. no rototilling at all. I had it looking really good last summer and fall but noticed today that the grass is starting to green up except where the old pool was. I'm thinking maybe because of the sand the winterizing app leached out???? I don't think it is dead because I see green in spots. would you recommend I put a light app of oceangro bsf in that spot because I don't plan on fertilizing until May. Or from reading here I see bluegrass greens up later than fescue maybe I should wait until May? Would appreciate any thoughts from you guys. Thanks!!