When should i Round up the lawn? It all depends on when you are going to drop seed, and if you are going to fallow for a bit. In actuality you can round up a few hours before you lay seed, but that isn't too practical for home lawns. For a home lawn, 2 weeks is probably the least amount of time I would suggest, since after about a week you should know if you missed any areas, and you can reapply. Also when applying it, it is important that everything is green and growing. Dormant, or sluggish grass/weeds won't absorb it, and they can wake up during the renovation. So most people recommend watering a few times a week before you apply round-up, and afterwards as well. Which type of RU? I saw blue and green cap ones. Just use the straight round up or any brand that has glyphosate as the main ingredient (I use Ortho's from Home Depot, it's a little cheaper). The other kind has another chemical that makes things turn brown in a few days, but I don't see the need for it when renovating, plus it costs more. Should i drop the Calcium lime before i drop seed or after? Drop Potassium sulfate before or after? Your next liming should be 90 days after the one you did this spring. If that coincides with seeding then I would wait till your grass has been mowed a few times. When seeding I would use a half app of starter fertilizer at the time of seeding, and the other half after it has been mowed once or twice. So then lime 2 weeks after that starter app. The starter is high in K, so that will count towards a K app. Would it be smart to fallow the lawn? It's not a bad idea, especially if your weed pressure is/was high and you don't mind having a brown lawn for a month or so. Better to do a TTFF/KBG lawn or just KBG? It all depends on you and your lawn. If you have a good amount of shade, TTTF is going to do better. KBG makes the best lawn in my opinion, but it has a longer establishment and maturity time, so don't expect a full KBG lawn to be really nice next spring. It really hits it stride in its third year. TTTF/KBG is a nice compromise, but there can be some issues with color matching and growth rates. For the TTTF cultivars, those are all good. I would definitely use Bullseye, it is one of the best. LS 1200 is good, but it does poorly in shade. For the KBG: Bedazzeled: A good choice, not too dark, good spring green up, not sure about it's disease tolerance. Prosperity: A very dark cultivar, might not blend well with TTTF due to color, but I can't say for sure. It also has some disease issues, might not be the best if you are just using one in a mix. Moonlight 2: Not sure about this one, check the NTEP's and it's tech sheet. Emblem: Not a good choice. Seed on the market is old as it's being discontinued. A very aggressive cultivar, might dominate lawn. Also very dark. Has a very long dormancy period as well, i.e. slow spring green up. Blueburry: One of the darkest cultivars you can get. Might not blend well, and it might have disease issues. Moonlight SLT: A good cultivar, supposed to have some shade tolerance. Check the NTEP and tech sheet for mixability. Award: A compact midnight, so it's going to be dark, and might not blend well. Does OK in shadier sights, but not great. There are a few others to look at. Bewitched: A dark cultivar so be warned, but does well in shadier areas, not too aggressive, and has good disease tolerances. Unique and Apollo. Not as dark as some, good shade tolerances. America: An old standard, has been around for a long time, but still performs well. Has some shade tolerance, not as dark as others. Orfeo: A very fast one to germinate and establish. Blends well with TTTF, but is aggressive, so it can take over. In reality, color might not be as big an issue as I make it out to be as KBG really needs good soil high in iron to reach it's full potential while TTTF seems to be less finicky to iron levels. Many of the growers say a lot of their cultivars blend well with TTTF. If you are really worried about it though, then just go with all TTTF or KBG.

It sounds like you basically ignored Grass' original advice and went ahead and did what you wanted to do. The problems you're having were cast in stone when the lawn was seeded in June. The only worse time of year to seed is the few weeks after you seeded. You're lucky to have any grass at all. If you are shooting for "level" in your back yard, you are going to be disappointed. Level soil does not drain. You need the soil to have a slope so it drains away from your house. You cannot add soil up against the house, so if adding soil outwards away from the house will redirect the drainage toward the house, then you cannot use any soil there. Adding topsoil to a lot that was once properly graded is a huge mistake. It is a common misconception that adding soil will help the old soil. It won't. Adding organic fertilizer or compost will help. 99.99% of the time the problem with the old soil was depletion of the organic microbes. Adding organic fertilizer feeds them and they repopulate the soil. You should not have to reseed a Kentucky bluegrass lawn. KBG spreads and forms a dense carpet of grass. Give it a chance, and it will become dense all by itself. Next year will be great and 2015 will be fantastic. Just leave it alone. Overseeding is a concept for fescue and rye, not KBG. From the picture it looks like you are mowing at the lowest setting. It will do better mowed between mid way and the top. That will help keep the weeds out. Mature KBG lawns should have little problem with weeds. The hopping insects are harmless. You wasted your energy, time, and money on those guys. Furthermore your insecticide will wipe out the beneficial insects in your soil. Those include the invisible insects that were helping to give you good soil. So by adding the insecticide you have made your soil just that much less healthy. At this point you can give the insecticide a few weeks to dissipate and then come in with the chickety doo. After doing this to the soil it sorely needs the chicken manure to replenish the microbes you've been killing. So if I can be helpful instead of critical, I'd suggest you save your money on seed and spend it on the chicken doo. Also when the grass stops growing and before the first snow, hit it with a high N fast release fertilizer as a winterizer. In the early spring use a preemergent that does not contain fertilizer. Do not fertilize with any chemical ferts until Memorial Day. When the lawn comes out of dormancy, it will be growing like a wildfire whether you fertilize or not. By fertilizing early you can force the grass to use all it's energy causing it to crash in late April. Avoid that and just fertilize in late May. Watering has not been mentioned at all in this thread. We often assume the OP knows how to water, but in your case I'm not so sure. I just can't imagine how you still have any grass left after a June seeding unless you were watering "wrong." Wrong means lightly every other day or more. In your case it might have accidentally allowed the new grass to survive, but it is a bad habit for long term care. This time of year in northern WI you should be watering about once every 3 weeks. If you are watering more frequently than that, then that will encourage more and more weeds to come to the lawn. If you need to change to once per month, do it slowly. Then in the spring you can start with monthly and as the temps move up into the 70s, move to once every 3 weeks. In the 80s go to watering every 2 weeks. The amount to water is an inch unless Mother Nature has helped you out. Measure an inch using cat food or tuna cans placed around the yard.

Use the spring and summer to learn and practice good grass management habits. Sometimes well cared for weeds will look very nice for a season. Basics of Lawn Care After reading numerous books and magazines on lawn care, caring for lawns at seven houses in my life, and reading numerous forums where real people write in to discuss their successes and failures, I have decided to side with the real people and dispense with the book and magazine authors. I don't know what star their planet rotates around but it's not mine. One of their problems is they write for local readers. With that in mind, here is the collected wisdom of the Internet savvy homeowners and lawn care professionals summarized in a few words. This should work for most of the US of A. If you follow the advice here you will have conquered at least 50% of all lawn problems. Once you have these three elements mastered, then you can worry about weeds (if you have any), dog spots, and striping your lawn. But if you are not doing these three things, they will be the first three things suggested for you to correct. Watering Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an inch in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. Do not spread this out and water for 10 minutes every day. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. If that does not work, then you might have to water more than once per week during the summer's hottest period. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds. You will have to learn to judge when to water your own lawn. If you live in El Paso your watering will be different than if you live in Vermont. Adjust your watering to your type of grass, temperature, humidity, wind, and soil type. It is worth noting that this technique is used successfully by professionals in Phoenix, so...just sayin.' The other factors make a difference. If you normally water 1 inch per week and you get 1/2 inch of rain, then adjust and water only 1/2 inch that week. Mowing Every week mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. However, bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses will become the most dense when they are mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. In fact there are special mowers that can mow these grasses down to 1/16 inch. Dense grass shades out weeds, keeps the soil cooler, and uses less water than thin grass. Tall grass can feed the deep roots you developed in #1 above. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass nor does it look shaggy sooner. Once all your grass is at the same height, tall grass just looks plush. Fertilizing Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 5 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. Follow the directions on the bag and do not overdo it. Too much is better than too little*. At this point you do not have to worry about weed and feed products - remember at this point you are just trying to grow grass, not perfect it. Besides once you are doing these three things correctly, your weed problems should go away without herbicide. * This used to read, "Too little is better than too much." Recent test results show that you cannot get too much organic fertilizer unless you bury the grass in it.</i>

Craziness or not, these substances are banned in certain parts of Canada due to the perceived risks towards children. Not looking to debate the correctness of the ban, but it is in place in certain parts of Canada, and has been for a number of years. It sounds like the OP is in Canada (Ontario) as he/she mentioned the ban. (There is even a hotline to report if you see or smell a neighbour using the banned substances!) So yes, the products are banned in the province of Ontario, Canada (and I believe a number of other provinces have a similar ban). We do have access to Roundup, but it is limited access. Bottles under lock-and-key are expensive, diluted and do not spread very far. I haven't seen the concentrated version for years so I don't think it is available to homeowners. I think that they are trying to prevent us from spraying an entire lawn, so give us limited access to the product for such things as poison ivy control. It might be difficult to buy many, many bottles (though one could go store to store to load up on lots of bottles). There was a suggestion that a professional company may be allowed to use the chemicals on the OP's lawn even though the OP could not. I think that even the professionals have to adhere to the provincial guidelines for residential lawns - otherwise - the ban wouldn't really be effective and everyone could use 2,4-D just by calling a professional. For sure, it has been years since I've smelled 2,4-D in the neighbourhood, and the professionals post signs of the chemicals they use on homeowner's properties, and I don't see 2,4-D in the list anymore. But the OP can always try - maybe they make exceptions in extreme cases. However, if you install a brand new lawn and your neighbour has a lawn full of weeds, you are pretty much out of luck as the weeds move across into your lawn quite readily. My suggestion to the OP would to ask an Ontario professional for advice as the rules are specific to our province. Perhaps the OP could simply spot treat the individual weeds in the lawn with the diluted Roundup, and then use a sod-lifter to remove the existing lawn. Then replace with new lawn. One thing for sure in Ontario is that once you install a new lawn, keep it as healthy and well-watered as possible to try to reduce the chance of it turning completely to weed again.