For me it has been temperature and lack of rain. I would say my renovation has been a success so far. We haven't had a rain shower since the middle of April and temps are just now starting to get into the 60's and 70's. In late May we had 4 days of frost and the avg. temp was like 50 degrees. I live about a mile off of Lake Michigan so my June 1st is like everybody else's May 1st. The main problem I have is poa trivialis on the north side of my house. There are a few patches that I will take care of with Certainty. I'm just waiting for the bluegrass to get a little more established

I'll respond with comments about my neighbor's lawn, as I only overseeded my own but helped him renovate his......Although I recommended an elite cultivar, he went with the Scotts KBG, which I am sure will be fine.

There were definitely some problems early on:
1) His slit seeder dropped much heavier near one wheel, which promoted growth of thick, heavy lines. In other words, wherever more was dropped, it came in really thick. The good news was that it was evenly distributed, so people actually though he did it on purpose.
2) The spots that didn't get the double dose of seed were either thin early on, or they got nailed with some nasty broadleaf weeds.

So, as of a few weeks ago, I really think that the lawn was a mess. If you looked from the road, you didn't notice it as much since the green broadleafs actually filled some of the bare/thinning spots. However, up close, it looked pretty bad.

Now, though, the KBG is starting to spread. There are still some bare/thin spots, but it is much less noticeable. He applied some Weed B Gone, which killed some of the broadleafs, stressed others (still waiting to see what happens with those).

At this point, I think that it will most likely look "good" in the summer and look great next year after he has a chance to do another fall overseeding.

The thing I take away from all of this is that renovation is much more difficult than it looks.

Great timing on that post Philes, I've been looking forward to seeing how others are doing myself.

Does anyone know of a simple way to post an excel spreadsheet to this forum? That's how I've been keeping track of my efforts this year, and it would make my update much easier to understand if I could just post it. I tried cutting and pasting, but that was a bust.

If not I'll just write it all up as soon as I can, hopefully tonight sometime.

One thing that is easy to say, given all of my Poa, is that I am actually starting to re-consider the wisdom of seeding in fall, at least for folks who pay extreme attention to their lawns. Yes, of course there are very good reasons to seed in fall, most of them are in the category of "weeds," and the rest seem to be related to establishment, and maintenance through the summer. But it seems to me that *all* of the common spring-germinating weeds are much easier to eradicate than Poa, and establishment and continued life through summer can be encouraged with diligent watering and careful fertilizing. My thought is that most people are not inclined to do what is necessary for a successful spring seeding, so many of them fail, and therefore fall seedings are recommended. But I wonder if we lawn lunatics could expect better than average spring seeding results, and then be in a position to apply the pre-m and decrease the watering and fertilizing in early fall to hamper Poa germination, and then re-seed any bare areas either dormant or early in the following spring.

I won't know for sure how I feel about this until next spring, when I can see how my pre-emergent application(s) later this year work, just wanted to put the thought out there. I mean, given all that I have read about Poa I am afraid that my dimension will not stop all of it, and that I have created a long-term problem for myself by seeding in fall (though I certainly hope I'm wrong!).

Paul

Boy, we're not as detailed about our lawn, but are just trying to get grass to grow in several spots. Hopefully by the 4th of July!

I see a major proplem that people encounter with a renovation is they are trying to start a new lawn on an existing "weed-field" of a lawn. All the seeds left from the weed infestation come back to haunt them.

I didn't do a full renovation, but I'm slowly replacing my KBG/fescue lawn with natives. It has been slow going so far, because I've been trying to keep the lawn green during the summer, but last year a sprinkler head died in July, and most of the grass died in that area. So that's now dominated by native grasses.

I finally got some pictures to turn out.

Here is a picture of the area that is mostly native. The darker green clumps in it are fescue. The darker green around the edges is KBG. The native grass is western and streambank wheatgrass.

{{gwi:80659}}

Here is a closeup of the natives. The blue colored grass is western wheatgrass:

{{gwi:80657}}

Here is a picture of KBG with a couple of western wheatgrass plants. The western wheatgrass is the coarser blue colored grass near the bottom of the picture:

{{gwi:80658}}

I think you might be right about seeding in the spring; it definitely requires a lot more patience but with siduron you can block most of the broadleaf weeds (so long as you have enough for 2 or 3 applications) and you have the whole summer for it to get established. Caveat being having a good irrigation system.

Mine is not as green as I would like but is filling in, on one side there are two small patches about 16" in diameter that don't have that carpet look because the grass hasn't spread. I put down Milorganite the day after Memorial Day and am hoping that helps green things up a bit. I have over 50% Midnight II, which I understand takes a full season to show its real color.

Right now my lawn looks a tad better than my neighbors who mostly have PR mixes with some KBG (builder's sod). That does very well this time of year but starts to have issues as we move into the warmer weather.

I've been cutting at 3.5 inches for the past 3 weeks or so (before I was cutting at 3). I'm probably going to bag for at least another 2 weeks until I stop seeing the POA seed heads. I'm going to put Dimension down in late August for sure.

Neat photos BP. Do you think the natives benefit from mowing, or do you think they would do best if left to grow to their natural height? I don't know what your neighborhood situation is like or how you use your lawn, so I don't know if you could even consider not mowing, but I wonder if letting those grasses behave as they naturally would would help speed up the crowding out of the other grasses you'd like to get rid of. Again, I don't know, just wondering.

They'll spread better with mowing, but I can't mow them short. So far, I've mowed 3 or 4 times (highest setting) but the natives haven't gotten tall enough yet to mow. But mowing encourages rhizome activity.

I'll update with pictures when I get home tonight. My (April 5th, 2008) KBG renovation is coming along nicely. Some of the pre-renovation bermuda grass, crabgrass and various other weeds survived the initial siduron treatment but I have another one planned for this weekend and I'm starting to pull the weeds out by hand now that I'm back from my holiday.

And, to be honest, that holiday was my real test to see how things would be... two weeks without any maintenance and it continued to thrive in my absence. Now I just have to get those competitive grasses and weeds out of my lawn and I'll be good to go.

---
Oh, and irony... After spending all this time and money on renovating away from a warm-season grass it turns out that the wifey and I may be moving to South Florida in the next couple years to be closer to her mother. Suppose I should start learning how to grow St. Augustine now, lol...

Overall I am pleased, I was a little concerned early in the year with all of the weeds. Now the KBG is filling in nice.

Here is what I have done so far this year:

March 13th  Pre-Emergent Scotts Halts)
April 11th - 1 LB per 1000 sq ft of Nit. (Ringer Lawn Restore)
April 18th  ¼ LB per 1000 sq ft of Nit (Scotts Liquid Turf Builder)
May 5th - Spectracide Weed Killer
May 24th - 1 LB per 1000 sq ft of Nit (Scotts Organic Choice)
June 3rd - Bayer All in one Weed Killer

I am also mowing the lawn at 4 inches.

Here is a picture from yesterday

{{gwi:97938}}

Eastpenna, how's your density? Is it filling in nicely? Is it crowding out other grasses and weeds?

I'm a child of the sixties, and I'm used to a much longer look. My old lawn was at 3.5 to 4" actual, and I swear, I'm looking at an official US Marine Corps haircut (Dead level, and just about 1/4" in height, thank you sir) when I look at my lawn. It's just not what I'm used to, not what I prefer. Are you getting the tillering, the 'spreading' aspect of the KBG? I know I'm going to bring up my height for the hot part of the summer, but was planning on only one notch on the mower setting, maybe up to 2.5" actual. If I can keep the density, keep the aggressiveness, at a 3" height, well, we're taking it higher.

One thing that I have learned over the past year is that claim that KBG would crowd out weeds in year #1 was not accurate. There was one particular person here who kept assuring people that weeds wouldn't be a problem once the KBG started spreading. Well, from following some renovations here and near home, that wasn't the case at all. In fact, I would say a liberal use of weed control products is in order for year #1.

philes21,

Eastpenna, how's your density? Is it filling in nicely? Is it crowding out other grasses and weeds?

It is getting real dense and filling in really nice. It is taking over where the weeds where, there are no bare spots. I did spray some weed killer to help (one that comes ready to hook up to your hose). When you walk on it now, it's nice and soft. If you were to fall down, you probably would not even get hurt. lol.

At this point, I can tell you that I am SO glad to have done a renovation, I can now see that in the future this KBG lawn will awesome. Just about four weeks ago I was not so optimistic.

I would say to start bringing your height up, in July I will go up to 4-3/8", that is as high as my trim mower will go.

Rutgers
KBG crowding out the weeds is fact! I had no weed problem on my renovation. Last fall there were weeds I let them be,some were killed by winter,the rest by the well fed KBG smothering them out. New grass needs food in the early spring to outcompete the weeds. I posted pic's of my lawn a month or 2 ago read that thread.

I am seeing some really dark and thin spots here and there in my lawn. I am wondering if this is what Poa looks like when it is dying. But I really don't know. I am seeing similar spots on a neighbor's lawn that was sodded with mostly KBG last fall, and also has a bunch of Poa (poor sod I guess). I have also had some torrential rains recently.

Is it too early for Poa to start dying? If it is, what am I seeing here? It doesn't look like a fungus.

two cycle nut....I am glad to hear that your renovation worked well and that weeds were crowded out by KBG. I probably haven't seen enough to really say for sure, but if I were betting, I would say that the average renovated lawn will not be able to crowd out weeds for quite some time and that some use of weed killer will go a long way to helping things move along.

I walked over to my neighbor's new KBG lawn today (renovated in the fall), and I absolutely couldn't believe the difference in just 2 weeks. I declared war on the weeds, and it appears that the grass has spread into most of the areas where the weeds had died out. The only bare spots that he has are where some animals went to work and dug out large holes early in the spring.

When I renovate next year, I am going to use weed killer in the same way that he did. I enjoy fertilizing organically, but my new policy is "hybrid" and I'll cheat whenever necessary.