Help - quick reply needed for timing question

10 years ago

I appreciate very much any help for my situation! I live in Milwaukee WI area with heavy clay soil which had topsoil stripped by developers when subdivision built. We had soil test done which can be viewed by searching by my username, but the most important result was that organic matter is very low, 2.2%. Cost to amend with sufficient compost to raise OM level is prohibitive but I plan to follow advice received on organic law forum and add grain pellets frequently to fertilize. Yard is overrun with dandelions and has many small bare spots. Plan to do fall renovation with core aeration & light topdress of compost & overseeding. Due to basement wall work last fall regrading done around half of house about 10' wide extending from house out, but seeding at that time did not take, maybe because I suspect 100% rye seed used by mistake. Same company is about to redo with sod hopefully this week. For the last 2 years I've been trying to use organic lawn care but now come to the conclusion that I should do a one-time weed kill using conventional spray. I've been advised Fiesta (iron based organic week killer) is only a temporary fix as it doesn't kill roots. My conundrum is that I'd really like to overseed as much of the lawn as we can handle watering for (lawn is about 7,800 sq. ft.) but would also like to do weed kill and don't know how to time the weed kill. I don't know if I should ask them to hold off laying sod and spray for weeds first. The topsoil brought in to do grading is sprouting weeds also. We'll need to walk on the lawn to do watering once sod is down and our organic lawn care person advised its better to wait a couple weeks to walk on the lawn after spraying. Yesterday I spoke with Melinda Meyers a local horticulturist who advised not to do both spraying and seeding this year. She said sprays can adversely affect new seed and thought you should wait at least a full season after spraying to plant seed. I'm hoping others can share input about whether its possible to spray now and still overseed this fall, or whether there's better scenario (hopefully one that allows me to do both this year.) Its all I can do to just pull heads off dandelions as there are so many and the weed hound was useless at getting roots even when the ground was wet. Now its a mix of warm and cool days and I don't know if that affects when you can spray. If we sprayed now there would be alot more bare spots assuming the dandelions would leave bare spots so that would invite more weeds but I wonder if we could then use either Tupersan a new pre-emergent that supposedly doesn't inhibit seed growth, or corn gluten meal? Does anyone know if Tupersan is effective for dandelions? How much time would I need to wait after applying CGM before putting new seed down? For the last 2 years we used CGM as fertilizer spring and fall and mowed at the highest mower setting leaving clippings on the lawn.
After signing contract for sod I learned only 100% KBG sod is available. I was hoping for a mix of KBG, fescue & rye to avoid problems incurred with using a monoculture. Am I inviting a nightmare by using only KBG? Most of the yard is sunny tho there are a few shady areas. They gave me the option of 3 mixes and if anyone has any ideas of which would be best I'd be grateful to have your advice. I tried looking at ntep.org to check KBG cultivars but could only find two of them.
Option 1
Serene 34%
Right 25%
Hampton 24%
Prosperity 14%

Option 2
Conerto 25%
Crest 25%
Mercury 25%
Pangara 25%

Option 3
Bewitched 60%
Boutique 20%
Blackberry 20%

I am grateful for any help especially with figuring out the timing of weed kill/laying sod/overseeding, but any thoughts about other questions I have are also much appreciated. Thank you!

Comments (2)

dchall_san_antonio
10 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
You are getting too many opinions. Asking here will just add more confusion until you are completely paralyzed by information overload. At least my opinion comes with written explanation you can check out for yourself. You will also get opinions after this which may contradict mine, so that isn't going to help.

KBG will not do well in shady areas. That is the main reason many people get a fescue/KBG mix of sod or seed. Seed is out of the question for this time of year, so sod is your choice. If you have a lot of shade, then 100% KBG might be a nightmare. For shady areas, fescue will predominate. You can overseed these areas with more fescue in the fall if you want to improve the density and help keep weeds out next season.

I believe compost is overrated. Since it has been the preferred choice for organic gardeners since the 1930s, there is a lot of resistance to my opinion; however, there are a lot of lawn folks who are very happy with the use of alfalfa, soybean meal, and milorganite. The best way to improve your organic matter is to get grass roots into the ground and to feed organics from the top.

You have realized a weakness in a full organic approach. Once weeds are established, it can be overwhelming to get rid of them. Sometimes a one-time spray with herbicide can save you hours of time and weeks of frustration looking at your slow progress in de-weeding. But if you continue on a full organic fertilizer routine, you will quickly overcome any negative effects of the herbicide on the soil microbes. Just because you use a chemical herbicide does not cancel out your organic history of fertilizing. "Going organic" has as many definitions as does "vegetarian." Most of the lawn gurus I know follow a mixed approach of using organic fertilizer all year long until the last application which they use a high nitrogen, fast release chemical fertilizer. Along the way they might spot spray some clumps of weeds which have gotten a start for some reason. Generally that is minimal, though, due to their diligence in the lawn - these folks really are lawn nuts. By spot spraying they are not subjecting the entire lawn to herbicide.

Tupersan is a preemergent herbicide. It will have no effect on your dandelions. Usually dandelions are most affected by a product like Weed-B-Gone spray. Weed-B-Gone is a selective type herbicide which only kills broad leaf plants. It has no effect on grassy weeds. Get it in a container that connects to your hose and spray the plants individually. You only need to moisten the leaves of the plant, not drench the soil. There are some handheld spray hose attachments which allow you to screw another hose thread attachment on after the hand valve. I would use one of those to control the application of the herbicide. Or you could use Weed-B-Gone and pour it into an dial-type hose end sprayer like the Ortho brand available everywhere. If you do not use all the product in the Ortho sprayer, you can pour the remainder back into the original bottle. The Ortho has a flow control trigger built in. As for the heat in MIl, you don't have to worry. There are limits but I think you're fine. If you use the spot spraying approach you should be able to do that with no effect on the turf.

My opinion of corn gluten meal as a preemergent herbicide is that it is worthless. I applied CGM at a rate well above the suggested rate every month for a full season and seem to have as many weeds then as any month or year at this house. However, as a fertilizer, it is the best organic fertilizer you can get. Unfortunately the cost makes it out of most people's range especially considering alfalfa is so much less and seems to work about as well. Proper watering and mowing are much more important to control weeds both pre and post emergence.

I've never heard of waiting a full year to do anything following any type of spraying. If you kill the weeds now, Mother Nature will fill it in for you by next June. For your area with the new soil and no existing grass, you can use RoundUp, a nonselective herbicide, to kill everything. Spray it once, water for a week to induce any new seeds to sprout, and spray again in a week to kill the new sprouts. Wait a day or two and you can put the sod down.
grass1950
10 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Weed B Gone liquid spray products recommend that you wait anywhere from 1 week (Weed B Gone CCO) to 4 weeks (Weed B Gone Max) after application before seeding.. I don't use granular weed killer as they don't work for crap, so I can't say how long after their use before you can seed. Spot spraying works best when done with a tank sprayer and concentrate.
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Help - quick reply needed for timing question

Comments (2)

dchall_san_antonio

grass1950

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