Rule breaking renovation - log - Day 1 - 121 (w/photos)

[MorpheusPA]

That may look "so-so" now, but you can see the potential is there. Erio's right, that's going to look stellar come October, if not sooner.

[jglongisland]

I'm pretty excited about it.

My front lawn is looking pretty good to, I put some (actually too much, had problem with the sprayer) Liquid Iron down. The Bionide label said 2-6 ounces per thousand, I think I ended up at around 8. Remember the problems I had in June with the rain, etc. Its recovered well, the poa holes should be gone by September.

[jglongisland]

Here are pictures at a few days before 10 weeks.

I was away and it had grown long; on Monday I cut to 3.5 inches, today I went down to 2.5 These were my first cuts with the Honda, prior to this I've used the reel mower at around 2 to 2.5 inches.

The color was outstanding at 3.5 but it was getting floppy.

It looks like the Certainty took out the Triv, but there are some patches of stuff left. I'm not sure if they are stunted KBG or Triv that didn't die. I used Weed B Gone on Tuesday and its doing on a number on all the broadleafs and clover. I'd love to hear opinions on the what to do on the areas that might be Triv; I may spray with Certainty again in about a week. I'm quite sure it took out some good KBG as well (and I'm at the lower dose).

I've filled about one five gallon bucket worth of Poa A; right now the plants are tiny and just putting up their seedheads. Its very hard to trace back to the plant itself. Based on how many seedheads I see I figure I've bot 10-20% Poa in there. On Tuesday I also put down a pretty heavy dose of Dimension.

Here is the first shot, bottom right is where I spilled some TufBuilder (i'm back to organics now).














Dying Clover (I wish there was a spray like WBG for Poa A and T that worked that fast).






Area where I seeded to heavily:







Finally the bad areas where I'm pretty sure I had Triv. Not sure what I should do about the patches that are left; could they be real KBG? I don't think so:

[GaryCinChicago]

Finally the bad areas where I'm pretty sure I had Triv. Not sure what I should do about the patches that are left; could they be real KBG? I don't think so:

Jon:

I'd be VERY tempted to hit it with Certainty if I had some.

1. First and foremost, you don't want the poa trivalis spreading.
2. Slight chance the young surrounding KBG survives, thriving next spring.
3. If the KBG dies, it will fill in regardless.

Contain the Certainty's drift and broad spray pattern. Try using the cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels to pin point and direct the Certainty.

[andy10917]

I don't see anything that I can say "oh yeah, that's definitely Triv".

I like Certainty, but its a relative-tolerance herbicide and it does stunt (temporarily) KBG. Be careful with test spots or give the new grass a couple of more weeks. One man's opinion.

[jglongisland]

So just to break another rule (walk/trample the grass until its mature), my daughter begged me to setup her inflatable water slide today (around 11 weeks).

I had it up for about 2 hours, a few hundred gallons of water, two kids romping around, etc. I think my blood pressure was over 200.

Before:



With the slide:


Directly afterwards:




After blowing:

[MorpheusPA]

Tell the kids to sit in the bathtub and wait for an earthquake.

It looks like it came through beautifully and with no damage, so that should make you happy!

[jglongisland]

Simpson wanted more grass pix and less snow:

Here are pictures from Day 76 (9/4/09). Poa A and Poa T are both dying out so lawn doesn't look as thick as it did a few weeks ago. OK by me. I put down SBM and cracked corn on this day. Probably going to hit it with Milorganite in a few weeks. Gave up on synthetics after a spill gave me a big brown spot; I've got to believe steady organics will provide adequate N for the KBG.

As an aside, both my 11 and 8 year old got a kick out of mowing the backyard with the reel mower. We may stick with that plan until the leaves start coming down (although I could let them cut and come back later with the Honda).

[nothing0]

I hope my reno looks like that before winter. Congrats.

Who needs ?

[simpson]

nice I have read many time Mallory telling people to stick with synthetics for the first couple of months before winter.

[jglongisland]

Here are some pix from Day 121. You can see the Poa A and Poa T (as well as some areas where I have had complete kill of them). The color looks great in the other areas.

This was taken about 45 minutes after sunrise today.




Here is a ground level, you can see the Poa T in the foreground, its growing faster than than KBG, and is lighter, and happens to be where I used Jonathan Green's Shady Nook 3 years ago. I had RU'd this stuff 2x. I sprayed with with the lower dose of Certainty a few days ago. There is real KBG mixed in there, so I'm not going to go for the RU approach. I may hit it one more time with Certainty in 3-4 weeks and see what happens next year. It does die out faster than Poa A in a heat wave (in my experience, anyway).



The squirrels are really pissing me off; I'm hopeful that when the lawn is thicker they'll do less digging. Its just too easy for them right now.

Here are my pots, I did the first cut with a scissors yesterday at Day 29. I'll plant them in 2-3 weeks in the biggest dead/empty areas and might start another crop indoors in February.

[jglongisland]

I planted the pots today (47 days old).

I decided to peel off the hemp pot and found that the roots went down all the way to the bottom. Granted, it did water from the bottom, but I was keeping these pots cut around 1.5 inches. Common wisdom says that the roots should be about as long as the blade, but here I had 7-8 week old grass with roots down 5-6 inches. Go figure.

In retrospect I should have planted at least 30 pots, the fifteen disappeared quite fast. Depending on space I may plant another 30-40 in February to move outside in April.

My soil is a challenge back here - 2-3 inches of nice black organicy stuff on top of coarse sand/rocks. While digging the holes I did notice a lot more worms up top, but there were still quite a few down in the sand. Over time I hope that sandy base gets more organic.

Here are some shots of the soil and the pots. It was already pretty dark in the shade when I took these around 4 PM, so I have shots with and without the flash. Post image is slow so I'm only posting the flash shots.

I did break the no RU pledge and hit a lot of it with the black cap stuff which has pre-M. Boy did I get a lot of Poa...

Hole (with flash):



Pot (you can see the roots all the way down to the bottom):

[jglongisland]

I planted the pots today (47 days old).

I decided to peel off the hemp pot and found that the roots went down all the way to the bottom. Granted, I did water from the bottom, but I was keeping these pots cut around 1.5 inches. Common wisdom says that the roots should be about as long as the blade, but here I had 7-8 week old grass with roots down 5-6 inches. Go figure.

In retrospect I should have planted at least 30 pots, the fifteen disappeared quite fast. Depending on space I may plant another 30-40 in February to move outside in April.

My soil is a challenge back here - 2-3 inches of nice black organicy stuff on top of coarse sand/rocks. While digging the holes I did notice a lot more worms up top, but there were still quite a few down in the sand. Over time I hope that sandy base gets more organic.

Here are some shots of the soil and the pots. It was already pretty dark in the shade when I took these around 4 PM, so I have shots with and without the flash. Post image is slow so I'm only posting the flash shots.

I did break the no RU pledge and hit a lot of it with the black cap stuff which has pre-M. Boy did I get a lot of Poa...

Hole (with flash):



Pot (you can see the roots all the way down to the bottom):

[LawnStriper]

that pot idea is supremely awesome! WOW 5 inches down...

[bpgreen]

"I decided to peel off the hemp pot"

"that pot idea is supremely awesome!"

Does anybody else read things like these and twist them into the same meaning as I do? I don't remember peeling any hemp pot, but we certainly thought it was awesome. If I remember correctly, we rolled the stuff, but some of those memories are a little fuzzy for some reason.

[GaryCinChicago]

"I decided to peel off the hemp pot"

"that pot idea is supremely awesome!"

Does anybody else read things like these and twist them into the same meaning as I do? I don't remember peeling any hemp pot, but we certainly thought it was awesome. If I remember correctly, we rolled the stuff, but some of those memories are a little fuzzy for some reason.

"All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine. "

[jglongisland]

You can pick up what happened in 2010 by going to this thread (Real Lawn Challenge):

http://aroundtheyard.com/northern/real-lawn ... t1646.html