KBG Seedheads and Rhizomes...

[northeastlawn]

After a tough summer last year, my KBG is starting to recover really well.

Spots I thought were gonners from stretching the watering out, seem to be coming back and I have noticed a ton of Rhizomes popping up from neighboring plants. I have had to hand pull a lot of POA Anuua, but the KBG seems to be finding the bare spots and trying to fill them in.

So in a KBG lawn going in the 3rd year what are my best bets at encouraging rhizomes; should I be trying to fertilize a lot (with BSF) and keep cutting on the short side?

Also I notice a lot of seed stalks forming, is it worth cutting these when I see them to encourage spreading or leave them be?

The lawn still seems to be growing on the slow side, but June is only a few weeks away so Im trying to be patient, but read that fertilizing a an older lawn has a different effect than fertilizing a newly plated lawn.

[ken-n-nancy]

My personal experience is that spring fertilization of a KBG lawn is great for encouraging growth all-around, including rhizomes for spreading.

However, there are a couple downsides of which to be aware: (1) you better like mowing. A well-fertilized, established KBG lawn can easily grow a half-inch each day in the spring. In excellent conditions, 0.75 inches a day can happen. I've had to mow every third day (at 3.25 or 3.75 inches) to keep up with the "one third rule" when fertilizing KBG in the spring. (2) you need to taper off the fertilization as the summer heat approaches. Lush, fast growing, highly-fertilized KBG in spring is a setup for disease problems as the summer heat hits. Been there, done that, and still trying to learn better.

[northeastlawn]

Thanks for the reply, that post was a few weeks ago.

Seed head production is off the charts, I cut at 2 1/2 and barely saw any clippings in the bag. It’s almost like all the energy is being used to go to seed.

I am trying to keep it feed and have been dropping BSF at 1/2 bag rate every other week and more importantly keep it watered deep and infrequently,

I would happy to see some decent top growth, but just hanging in there and letting it do it’s thing. I usually stop the BSF last week of June depending on how hot it gets.

This year I have to get it through the summer better than last year. I won’t be stretching out the water like I did just year.