Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Discuss how to and whether you should renovate your lawn
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andy10917
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Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by andy10917 » August 19th, 2018, 9:06 am

OK, Renovators - now you've probably killed the old lawn and used the opportunity of last week or this week to get the seed down, and you've self-medicated with adult beverages. You're just seeing the first little bambinos of the new lawn (or will soon!).

Now we tell you about one of the most frustrating steps in a Renovation, and what you need to do to deal with it...

Sprout-and-Pout. Ugh!

The new grass will go from a few seedlings to a green haze and start to grow for a while, and then just stop. You'll wonder if you did something wrong, and what action you should take. Many will bet the fertilizer that was applied has been used up, and the Renovation is stalling.

That's NOT what is happening. The seed uses the stored food in the seed to get the sprout going, and then begins to build the root system. Top-growth often appears to stop at this stage.

The worst thing you can do is hit it with a lot of Nitrogen at this stage - top growth will be forced, and the plants will have more blade growth than it can support with the existing roots. Any (even short) hot spell in the ensuing couple of weeks can cause browning or even loss of some grass in sunny areas. Not good.

The best thing you can do when Sprout-and-Pout occurs is nothing - just keep up the watering and wait it out. Yes, it can take 10-20 days to work through it, but it's the first sign that the grass is moving from a helpless infant to something that won't require constant care. My experience says that the more you leave Sprout-and-Pout alone, the sooner the 3X - 5X watering can begin to slide toward longer periods between watering.

There are always the Adult Beverages to retreat to if you feel you should be doing something and know you should resist it... :D

kbgfarmer
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by kbgfarmer » August 19th, 2018, 9:15 am

This is so nerve racking! Saw the first few sprouts but have irrational worrythat the rest won't take. I haven't been having trouble falling asleep like this since my son was born in February. My 16 year old bottle of lagavulin scotch is half empty already!

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andy10917
Posts: 29739
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 10:48 pm
Location: NY (Lower Hudson Valley)
Grass Type: Emblem KBG (Front); Blueberry KBG Monostand (Back)
Lawn Size: 1 acre-2 acre
Level: Advanced

Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by andy10917 » August 19th, 2018, 9:49 am

Oh, yeah!! Every little pop-up thunderstorm looks like this to you as a Renovator:

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and this is what a proper Renovation cellar for a small Renovation looks like:

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northeastlawn
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by northeastlawn » August 19th, 2018, 10:01 am

Can totally relate from last year. Good advice here.

Truth to the matter, I just told someone considering a KBG reno that you won't have a lawn as you know it, until around Farther's Day weekend in June the year after you do it. You might be happy with it in October when you can get some fertilizer down on it, but it will still be patchy and stunted.

I didn't say wow about the new lawn; until farther Day weekend, when it was warm and the tenacity treatments wore off. Thats when it was spreading and I was cutting twice a week. Of course after this summer, things are stunted again, and Sept. 1st cant come fast enough.

But it did survive the summer so far :-)

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andy10917
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by andy10917 » August 19th, 2018, 10:18 am

Agree, but sometimes it works out better than expected. This is my 2013 Backyard renovation ("Blueberry" monostand) at 60 days. I had a friend that refused to believe that it wasn't sod by October 20th:

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turf_toes
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by turf_toes » August 19th, 2018, 11:22 am

Yeah. Blueberry seemed to be ridiculously quick. My lawn looked established in under 60 days.

It wasn’t close to what it would become later. But I had many compliments before day 60.

I’d still redo it all with bewitched though, if i had to do it again.

kbgfarmer
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by kbgfarmer » August 19th, 2018, 11:42 am

Wow Andy. That looks ridiculously good. What is the quoted germination time for blueberry?

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andy10917
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by andy10917 » August 19th, 2018, 12:00 pm

Typical 14 days. I got a few sprouts at 5 days personally, but that's not it. It is very robust once it gets going for real (post Sprout-and-Pout). My "Emblem" front yard took up to 35 days to complete germinating, and was so fragile that I looked at it every morning to make sure it hadn't croaked overnight, but once it got to 60 days or so it roared forward (it was in the "Aggressive" family of KBG). "Blueberry" was just an every-day-is-better cultivar. I agree with Turf Toes that I'd do "Bewitched" instead now (we used it on my son's lawn and I love it). I tried to establish "Bewitched" into my "Emblem" front yard last year, but just like the "Moonlight SLT" that I tried to get a foothold for in that yard, the aggressive "Emblem" said "no thank you" and I cannot find any significant "Bewitched" in the lawn. I tried to establish other cultivars into the front yard because "Emblem" isn't sold any more and if I ever had damage/disease that required reseeding, I couldn't get "Emblem" to repair it, and coloration differences would be an issue ("Emblem" has a lot of blue tones).

DevilDawg81
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by DevilDawg81 » August 19th, 2018, 12:05 pm

I shared the “pop-up thunderstorm” pic with my wife and we had a great laugh. I swear I’ve watched more weather forecasts the past two weeks than I ever have. I’ll watch all 3 local stations and record it if we’re not here to catch it later. :no:

Kharps
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by Kharps » August 19th, 2018, 12:26 pm

Thank god for alcohol. This happened on day 4 of my reno (currently on day 6). Hopefully it didn’t do too much damage. I have a few sprouts popping up but not many. I used 67% bewitched, 16.5% award, and 16.5% midnight.

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KBGkicksazz
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by KBGkicksazz » August 19th, 2018, 1:22 pm

That’s why I used seed blankets.

You will definitely have wash ours from that.

You should get some seeding mats from Lowe’s and place them along the side walk with more seed.

Been right where you are at bro it sucks.
Kharps wrote:
August 19th, 2018, 12:26 pm
Thank god for alcohol. This happened on day 4 of my reno (currently on day 6). Hopefully it didn’t do too much damage. I have a few sprouts popping up but not many. I used 67% bewitched, 16.5% award, and 16.5% midnight.

Image

Image

Image

northeastlawn
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by northeastlawn » August 19th, 2018, 2:00 pm

Kharps. that sucks, been there last year. The 1st week in I got a ton of rain and all kind of gullies and wash outs.

Its good that it happened early on and you can decide if you want to spread more seed, I did and never seemed to have a problem with areas coming in too thick. Even with seeding some areas twice I still had thin areas where the KBG had too spread into.

Watching the KBG spread into thin spots is amazing, but its a lot of work to get it to that point. Andy and a lot of others make it look easy, you forget everything they put into it.

Im hoping this fall is when it all falls into place. I am going to have the biggest smile when I put down that first Urea app in September :-)

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andy10917
Posts: 29739
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Location: NY (Lower Hudson Valley)
Grass Type: Emblem KBG (Front); Blueberry KBG Monostand (Back)
Lawn Size: 1 acre-2 acre
Level: Advanced

Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by andy10917 » August 19th, 2018, 2:13 pm

Andy and a lot of others make it look easy, you forget everything they put into it.
Pretty true. I'd guess that 75-100 hours of effort went into the 16K renovation between late June and the end of September. To help others considering larger-scale renovations, it's fully documented in a 21-page thread taking it through almost a full year.

2013 Backyard Blueberry Renovation Thread

Fullheadofturf1234
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by Fullheadofturf1234 » August 24th, 2018, 10:56 pm

I’m about like 12days into patching some spots.
And in the sprout an pout. While some seeds are still germinating the rest are just hanging out.

My plan was to drop some Milo at bag rate to support this as around 14days the starter should be either used up or broken down or leeched throughout the soil.

Is milo ok or don’t even mess with it?

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andy10917
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by andy10917 » August 25th, 2018, 7:05 am

the starter should be either used up or broken down or leeched throughout the soil.
No way it's gone. You sound like you're trying to convince us. I wouldn't do it.

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llO0DQLE
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by llO0DQLE » August 25th, 2018, 7:11 pm

andy10917 wrote:
August 19th, 2018, 12:00 pm
I tried to establish "Bewitched" into my "Emblem" front yard last year, but just like the "Moonlight SLT" that I tried to get a foothold for in that yard, the aggressive "Emblem" said "no thank you" and I cannot find any significant "Bewitched" in the lawn. I tried to establish other cultivars into the front yard because "Emblem" isn't sold any more and if I ever had damage/disease that required reseeding, I couldn't get "Emblem" to repair it, and coloration differences would be an issue ("Emblem" has a lot of blue tones).
So you don't have a "no more monostand" then? Looks like it's still an Emblem mono. I'm confused, if you couldn't get the Moonlight SLT to take, why did you try to overseed with Bewitched instead of just letting Emblem spread? Did you have big enough bare/damage areas that overseeding was a higher chance of success?

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andy10917
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Location: NY (Lower Hudson Valley)
Grass Type: Emblem KBG (Front); Blueberry KBG Monostand (Back)
Lawn Size: 1 acre-2 acre
Level: Advanced

Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by andy10917 » August 25th, 2018, 7:23 pm

I had an experiment (I always have experiments) that went bad and killed 3%-5% of the lawn - I didn't want to lose a whole season waiting for the "Emblem" to fill in the largest damaged areas. In the deeper shade, even aggressive cultivars take a while to fill in a 2' area. The lawn did fill in over time.

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llO0DQLE
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by llO0DQLE » August 25th, 2018, 7:25 pm

I see. You didn't want to do plugs?

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andy10917
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Location: NY (Lower Hudson Valley)
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by andy10917 » August 25th, 2018, 7:29 pm

I did do plugs and Emblem fragments that had invaded the flowerbeds. Still, it takes time in the shade. Many areas of my property get 1-2 hrs a day of full direct sun. I'm having success well below the 6-hr standard for KBG, so I'm not complaining.

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llO0DQLE
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Re: Renovators: Now You Hear The Truth

Post by llO0DQLE » August 25th, 2018, 7:30 pm

Gotcha.

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