'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Discuss how to and whether you should renovate your lawn
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ken-n-nancy
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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by ken-n-nancy » July 14th, 2020, 11:12 pm

Masbustelo wrote:
July 14th, 2020, 9:41 pm
In my spare time I plan to keep on spraying roundup and Sethoxydim (Over The Top Grass Killer).
Personally, I'd be wary of applying sethoxydim before seeding new grass. I'm actually a little curious as to why you're applying it in addition to glyphosate, as I don't know that it will kill anything that the glyphosate doesn't. Maybe it would be better at killing some weedy grasses?

In any case, my concern is that sethoxydim may have some pre-emergent effects that would affect your newly seeded grass. It really isn't intended to be applied to areas where grass would be sowed, as it's a selective grass killer, intended to be safe for applying to ornamentals or crops. I had trouble finding specific recommendations of how long to wait after applying sethoxydim before sowing grass seed and couldn't find definitive information.

Some labels, however, recommend not sowing any grassy crops within two weeks of applying sethoxydim. You may want to do more research to find out more information in case it could have a residual effect which would affect your new grass seedlings.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » July 15th, 2020, 3:18 am

ken-n-nancy Thanks for writing the above. I'm using the sethoxydim close to my tomatoes and young fruit trees to try to shelter them from drift. Thanks for researching its residual relationship to sowing seed. I hadn't thought about that. Maybe I have a two week window? Then best to not reuse it.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » July 19th, 2020, 1:41 pm

My countdown to doing my fall overseed is a little less than 30 days. Earlier this week I took out my old Montgomery Wards riding mower (I think it's 16 HP). I pretty much can only use it for scalping, the highest length it will cut is two inches. I lowered it as far as possible and scalped my rear yard down to the dirt this week. In the front 8K I have started lowering the mower one notch per week and then the final week I'll use the rider. I'm trying to use 100% gramacide cover on the rear 19K. It seems these chemicals roundup etc are much more effective in June versus July. Easier kill earlier in the year. I'm primarily killing off the trivialis, which is everywhere.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » August 1st, 2020, 9:52 am

Can anyone advise me on power taking. Where I have killed trivialis with round up. Is it a good idea to power rake? Or can I seed over the top , tipo minimum till, and get good germination?

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andy10917
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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by andy10917 » August 1st, 2020, 10:35 am

If you had Poa Triv that you killed, it is highly likely that there is more that is present that you can't see yet. Power raking and dethatching are an excellent way to spread it -- I know it by painful experience documented on this site.


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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » August 1st, 2020, 1:03 pm

I had large stands of 100% trivialis.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » August 23rd, 2020, 8:57 pm

For better or worse, since June 12th I have been spraying roundup and other gramacides. For about a month I have been scalping the living parts of my lawn, which seem to also be infested with trivialis. What I don't get this year, guess I'll battle next year. This week I plan to mow/scalp once more and then spray with a .1 solution of roundup (3mls per gallon) as a growth supresser. I plan on over seeding my entire 27k with Mazama and spreading as much compost as i can before rain comes in next weekend. It is supposed to hit highs in the upper 90's (97) this week, and then go into a cool down. I don't have an irrigation system, but plan to use hoses as much as possible after some rain comes in. I plan on doing dormant seeding this winter and then some spring sowing as well. Now off to the races.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » August 25th, 2020, 9:19 pm

I sowed my Mazama seed yesterday. Somewhere around 67 million seeds. I'm thinking odds are some of it should surely sprout and take. Today I scattered 2 yards of compost. I'm hoping to cover the entire 27k with a little compost and then level it off with a drag. Supposedly rain coming Friday. Po Trivialis really bleached out in the sun after it is hit with glyphosphate. Most of the yard is a dry yellow straw.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » August 29th, 2020, 2:57 am

I spread 7 yards of compost this week with a scoop shovel and wheelbarrow. I'm glad that's over with. Then I used a drag with my riding mower to level it and work the grass seed down to the soil. It looks pretty good for the moment as far as filling in lots of holes. We've had 1/10 of an inch of rain this month and are on track for being the first August ever. I hope that changes soon.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by ken-n-nancy » August 29th, 2020, 9:02 am

Congrats on getting the seed down! Without irrigation, a KBG renovation is challenging. Time to pray for daily gentle showers and overcast the rest of the time -- for a week straight! Good luck!

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » August 29th, 2020, 7:15 pm

Ken and Nancy Doing all of this without irrigation brings to mind how vulnerable farmers must feel after having invested much time and money and nothing else they can do but wait. Can anyone critique my compost swing?https://vimeo.com/user122269790/review/ ... d630268e44

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » August 31st, 2020, 8:43 am

I'm still waiting for rain, with a slight possibility for tomorrow. My wife made the comment that spreading compost all over the yard makes it smell like a hog lot and draws flies. Hopefully the rain will wash it in.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by MorpheusPA » August 31st, 2020, 6:15 pm

"Hog lot"

...Er, what? Compost should smell of fresh earth, sweetness, and light. Literally.

OK, not literally on the light. :-) But compost should always smell good. If it smells nasty, then something is very, very wrong here and the compost wasn't fully finished. For the most part, when topdressing, that's not a huge problem, but it can be when seeding. If it's just a little off, as in it's mildly unpleasant and you're getting the whiff from the entire property, you're OK.

If this is intense, you're probably still going to be OK as long as it looks like compost and acts like compost.

Slimy stuff could be a major issue as it's still decaying and putting off compounds that are detrimental to seed germination and could potentially kill germinating seed (which is very delicate).

Fortunately, I strongly, strongly doubt this is an issue, and it can also depend on the compost source as well.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » August 31st, 2020, 7:11 pm

Morpheus The source is a multi million dollar city compost facility. I'm sure it is all processed quite scientifically. It never has any weed seeds, maybe it was a little green this batch. I think she might be exaggerating a little. It is quite a bit less expensive than peat moss. I'm sure it will settle down and do its thing. I'm very glad to have access to it at $12 a yard. The farmers say it smells like money.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » September 6th, 2020, 11:00 am

It started to rain about 4am and continued until 9am. We got 1.5 inches and it was a very gentle continuous precipitation. It is supposed to continue raining this week everyday including Friday. I'm pretty happy, no erosion and I saw the beginnings of seedlings for the first time yesterday. We got maybe 1/32 of an inch earlier in the week, but it was enough for some of the seed to get started.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » September 11th, 2020, 3:24 am

We've received about 5 inches of rain this week. For the most part very few hard down pours, mostly long all day light rains. Yesterday I saw early signs of a more general germination. I had a few wash outs, I re-seeded and put down some more erosion matting and also 'Slopemaster'. The Slopemaster pellets seem to be useful and working pretty well on the hillsides. Overall the yard still looks like a desert, very ugly. The application of Glyphosphate at 3 mls per gallon seems to have been effective at shocking what hadn't been killed off. It has a pale green color and has grown very little. I think I have large areas of trivialis to battle next year. Maybe I should have killed everything off this year, but 27k seemed daunting and I haven't really done a renovation before. Hopefully I'll get large areas of the Mazama established and then for the next few years have succeedingly smaller areas to renovate each year. I think I am very fortunate with this great rain and cool temps.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » September 13th, 2020, 10:33 pm

The rain stopped yesterday, and I have some areas of decent germination starting to show. My rear future lawn is 19k, the front is 8k. By far the rear looked much worse. Weird clumping fescue, Ky31, Poa Triv, and general broad leaf weeds. It looks like I successfully glyphosphated 95% of the rear and maybe 40% pf the front. I hand watered the rear part three times today, and think with work, I can hand water it twice a day. No more rain predicted for two weeks. The front will have to fend for itself. If I can get a good seeding completed on the 19k part, then next year I can focus on a complete reno of the 8k. It will be much easier to set up sprinklers for the smaller area. Then maybe in two or three years I can have a nice lawn. I'm on a community well, but the line into the house is only 1/2 an inch. I get good pressure but not a lot of volume. The only way to put in irrigation would be to drill a deep well. Not going to be happening unless I win the lottery.

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » September 15th, 2020, 8:18 pm

I have some places where the trivialis is coming back to life mixed in with my seedlings. Should I battle it now with Tenacity? Or leave everything be and begin the war next spring?

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ken-n-nancy
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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by ken-n-nancy » September 15th, 2020, 9:25 pm

My personal approach to Poa trivialis is that any day after it is observed but no action has been taken against it yet is a day of the problem just getting worse. I've never found letting it grow to have any benefits.

That said, it's tricky to deal with amongst new seedlings. If I was sure it was Poa trivialis, I'd get it out and deal with what to do about the collateral damage to the new seedlings after the Poa trivialis is gone...

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Re: 'New' House old lawn Restoration 2020

Post by Masbustelo » September 17th, 2020, 9:34 pm

Thanks Ken-n Nancy. As soon as I get a breather I plan to spray the triv with Tenacity. Essentially my entire yard (27 thousand sq. ft.) was infested with trivialis. Basically it was a Poa trivialis monostand with some tttf and k31 mixed in as weeds. Also thousands of dandelions, creeping charlie, violets, wild strawberry, and even lambs quarter. The rear 'lawn' is turning into a subtle green haze. I think I got pretty good germination with six straight days of rain. It is very encouraging to see the green, where it was a glyphosphate desert for weeks. I have been hand spraying the 19k rear lawn by hand twice a day. takes an hour in the am and then again in the pm. Hopefully I can post some before and after pictures this weekend. It isn't growing gangbusters because it gets dappled sun all day long. But looks like steady growth and still some germination going on. The best germination occurred where the potting soil and compost was the deepest. If I end up with large portions that didn't take, I think I'll cover them with potting soil in November, re-seed about December 1st, cover with the erosion blanket material and wait for spring to fill in. One thing leads to another. I seem to have good germination on the steepest areas. Between erosion blankets and Slopemaster I came out pretty good. Slopemaster, even though pricey seems to be a pretty good product.

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