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gurue6

While aerating, add compost, fertilizer, seed???

guruE6
11 years ago

Quick background: I bought my house a year ago. Grew up with a yard full of god knows what for grass that took minimal care to look decent. Now I moved into a house that has pure bermuda, and I stopped the spray treatment because I am cheap. I was cutting it too high for bermuda, because we used to cut ours high at the house, and now my bermuda was thin at the end of last summer. This thinness combined with a lack of drainage (thanks, Woodland Homes and Mike Friday) has given me a lot of bare spots and rather thin grass. I, quite literally, only applied fertilizer ONCE last summer. Once. The only other thing I did was cut the grass, and I did it with the cheapest side discharge push mower you can buy at Lowes.

After the atrocity that was this winter, where 2 huskies creating enough traffic to make even larger spots that look crappy by pushing my grass under the mud produced from the lack of drainage (thanks Woodland Homes and Mike Friday), I have decided that I am going to save my lawn.

The beginning of this spring gave me weeds. Quite a few of them. Most prominently Poa Annua. I found the "Bermuda Bible" on this site. In accordance with that and other reading, I put down pre-emergent in 3/02. I intend to reapply this weekend, which would put the applications 8 weeks apart. What about a post-emergent? I have heard that MSMA would do well on the Poa Annua, others have said just wait it out and be diligent with the pre-emergent.

QUESTION 1- Is applying the pre-emergent a good idea if I plan on planting bermuda seed? What if i avoid the areas I plan to seed?
QUESTION 2 - Should I put a post-emergent on the weedy areas? If so, when? "Bermuda Bible" says in may.

I then put down a 3-1-2 fertilizer on 4/14. Most of my grass is green at this point. I believe this overall has been a pretty decent plan to this point.

Now it is decision time, and I cannot find a definitive answer as to what the best COA is.

My yard has areas that are INCREDIBLY compact. Also, I doubt my "organic matter" is very high, even thought I didnt get a soil sample. The yard is basically all clay, everywhere. I also have a little thatch buildup in some places since I wasnt technically "mulching", I was only side discharging, and not everything decomposed efficiently. With this being said, I was thinking of the following plan:

4/27 - re-apply pre-emergent
5/12 - core aerate, seed bare areas, apply sand/compose mixture, fertilize with 1-0-0 in accordance with the "Bermuda bible"
6/16 apply more sand/compost for leveling low/bumpy areas and fertilize with 1-0-0

I plan to do more, obviously, but this is the questionable part. Does the 5/12 plan look like a good idea? The 1-0-0 is the ratio given from the "Bermuda Bible", but if I am planting seeds, should I change that? Should I only change it for that area? Will the aeration help with the thatch? Should I try to purchase some earch worms for the time after the aeration so that I dont have to do this again?

Will the pre-emergent hurt the seeds? What if I just avoid the areas I want to seed? Should I put post-emergent on the weeds I currently have?

Great site with a lot of smart people to help out. I look forward to discussing my issues!

Thanks in advance for all advice and help!

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