Poa Plantation Nightmare and Renovation

[LawnStriper]

super sexy andy, hope you don't really mean these are last pictures

[nothing0]

super sexy andy, hope you don't really mean these are last pictures

+1

Feed our need for pictures. Its an addiction ya know. Looks great.

[andy10917]

Stop it! You folks are feeding my wife with material for her argument. She fell in love with the new lawn and doesn't want me dragging the "outhouse on wheels" (ugly huge plywood box on the garden cart) around the lawn. That means I have to do it by hand. I will curse you folks when I'm making my 4,235th trip up and down the slope. She's telling me "see, they want pictures - keep it pretty".

[nothing0]

keep it pretty".

Maybe she could help you keep it pretty.

[MorpheusPA]

Yeah, she is Woman, she is Strong, let her help with the cleanup.

But I have to agree with not dragging the Outhouse on Wheels around on the new reno.

[andy10917]

I snuck in one more picture when the leaves weren't covering the lawn. Lawn is roughly 60 days old. As you can see, the color is really darkening. The blue color element is really showing up now. Also, there are still almost no weeds.

[simpson]

i hate you. it looks very very nice

[s1mpl3k1d]

Looks like you will never have a weed anymore at this point. You are so lucky!!!

Looking great!!!

[GaryCinChicago]

That is gorgeous!

[LawnStriper]

i thought the last pictures on page 8 were pretty hot, this one shot just brings it up a whole other level! appears to be a lush carpet you want to lay on. thank heavens Elite Emblem KBG was available this year!

[Ohio2112]

Only two months old?
Wow!

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[jglongisland]

I'm jealous, I've got 60 days on you and mine looks like this:

[nothing0]

Looks great Andy. How high are you cutting?

[tiemco]

Sweet lawn. How much sun does that area receive (the one in the last picture)? Almost makes me think I could go KBG with all the shade I see, but I imagine that is a late day pic.

[andy10917]

How high are you cutting?

I'm down to 2.5" - I'll stop at 2.25" for the winter.

How much sun does that area receive (the one in the last picture)? Almost makes me think I could go KBG with all the shade I see, but I imagine that is a late day pic.

Ah, Tiemco - you are the first one to hit on the real issues of that lawn. By the way, the picture was taken at 10am on a sunny day. And I'll be honest - I don't really know how much sun the whole thing gets, even though I've owned it for almost 25 years. It is quite variable with the season due to the angle of the sun and how much the trees are leaved-out. The section where I am standing to take the picture probably gets 4-5 hours of direct sun and dappled shade/open shade the rest of the time. And that is the PEAK of what the lawn gets. Some sections only get a couple of hours of direct sun. The lawn used to be a high-end PR lawn and it did well with that much light. Yeah, some overseeding was done to keep it thick, but nobody other than me was that much the wiser. Here's the crux of my "theory": an aggressive cultivar that has demonstrated shade tolerance "may" be able to spread faster than it can thin.

I have two main areas of that lawn - an Upper Lawn that gets adequate sunshine and a Lower Lawn with multiple challenges --- less sunshine, tree competition and Oak allelopathy. Separating how much of the challenges are coming from which challenge is daunting.

To answer your question, I'd say I'll know a lot more by midsummer next year, but while I'm hopeful with the successes so far, I can't vouch that it will definitely work.

OK - now the crew that says that KBG can never succeed in those sunlight conditions can beat me up - but I'm taking names in case I get to say "oh really" next year...

[Seven333]

How do you manage to water such a large area? Are you on a well or public water?

[andy10917]

Let's just leave it as "it's a self-enforcing practice that reinforces the Deep, Infrequent rule". I have no automatic irrigation, so when the water goes down via an oscillating sprinkler, it is going to be in that spot for a while. The picture is showing you roughly 8000 sq feet of the front lawn (total: 20,000 sq ft). The back yard is another 20,000 sq ft.

It's public water. The water company loves me - between my lawns and my other hobby (very large planted aquariums that use reverse osmosis water that throws away 3 gallons for every gallon produced to make 50 gallons of R/O replacement water daily), my water bills are like the national debt.

[Ohio2112]

How often are you feeding it and what have you used?

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[andy10917]

Lesco starter fertilizer at seeding, Vigoro stuff at 30 days, Milorganite whenever I'm bored or have a little time.

[kingofgreen]

Your not anticipating many disease issues in the heavy shade?