Are you going to apply a preemergent in the spring to give the grass some more time to fill in and crowd out the weeds, or are you going completely organic from the start?

Looking Good Morph!! Looking Good!! The other day in another post, you mentioned that you had mowed a couple of times, just curious did you bag or mulch?

No pre-emergent, nope. The grass is already crowding out weeds, and I expect that to continue and strengthen in spring. Anything that's there I'll take care of in May.

Mulch mow. I don't have a bagging mower, and probably wouldn't have bothered if I did. Besides, there are thousands of hungry worms down there waiting for dinner.

Congrats on thhe new lawn. You cant thank me for encourangement because I was one of the people that said you were crazy to do it in the mid 90's. Or did you end up having to reseed? Either way it looks good. You can call me a hippocritamus. I seeded my front and side yards today and it was 91. I'm gambling on the heat going away.

Congrats Morpheus, that is awesome. Bill Hill

Just my $.02, go for the synthetic pre-emergent next Spring, at least once! Then continue the regularly scheduled program. I think it will save you a lot of hassle as it will allow the KBG to thicken and spread next spring without competition, bringing it into the summer heat healthy and ready.

Again, just my $.02 of course....

Morph, that is a pretty good looking yard and, judging by your photos, getting better all the time. I have seen yards come better and faster, but, as I've alluded to in the past you have done something I have almost NEVER seen.

You have shown the good, the bad and the ugly. Truly most of us have a tendency to only share our successes. You posted your attempt to get started early and you ALSO posted the setbacks from that which some might learn some things from. You hung in there, re-seeded, kept working hard and showed the interim and then these last nice pics.

I seriously give you a pat on the back for being an open book and hanging in there. I've seen alot of posters come and go over several years here, and most of us could learn a thing or two from you.

Good luck with continued progress on that good looking yard overhaul you have going.

Just my $.02, go for the synthetic pre-emergent next Spring, at least once!

I was going to dormant seed the little holes and sections that aren't good, so pre-emergent is out until after that sprouts. By the time that happens, it's already too late to do much good, I'm afraid.

Good luck with continued progress on that good looking yard overhaul you have going.

Thanks! Yeah, if you can't show off your mistakes, you're just fibbing to yourself and everybody around you. And I did make mistakes. My justification being that I've never done this before and was playing it by ear. For others:

* Really, August 5 is the absolute earliest you can go around here if you can water a lot. August 15 is more reasonable.

* Topdress. You'll be glad you did.

* Try not to do this during the driest August and September on record. Oh, if you can avoid the third-hottest August that would help as well...

There's still work to do, although increasing areas are getting my stamp of approval. The clock's ticking, the last seed went down September 14, the weather looks to stay warm for the next ten days (downright hot for the next four), and not much rain in sight.

I bottom-dressed which worked great for me. IE put down compsot and then slit seeded right into / over it.

I thought this was MUCh easier than top dressing.

I was going to dormant seed the little holes and sections that aren't good, so pre-emergent is out until after that sprouts. By the time that happens, it's already too late to do much good, I'm afraid.

What about Tupersan (Siduron) morpheus? I was thinking about dormant seeding some spots and then use Tupersan as pre-emergent?

Morpheus,
You showed us all persistance pays off in the end after all!
I thought you don't see the dark green KBG color until its at least one year old. But your lawn is looking nice dark green.
Since KBG spreads, are you not concerned that adding more seeds is going to create crowding problem?

Tupersan costs the moon, so I wasn't going to bother. Since I've noticed that pre-emergents are at best semi-reliable, I'd rather use a cheap one or not at all. :-)

I thought you don't see the dark green KBG color until its at least one year old. But your lawn is looking nice dark green.
Since KBG spreads, are you not concerned that adding more seeds is going to create crowding problem?

It seems to be darkening a lot faster than one year--if the change from Day 30 to Day 50 is any indication, this will be fantastically dark in another three growing months.

Maybe that's the effect of organic fertilization and (now) very well-broken clay soil. Strangely, I looked in a blank area and noticed worm holes. An average of every three inches spread over 200 square feet. And those were just the ones I could see.

I won't seed the areas that have sprout (and the back face finally has a lot of sprouting going on as temperatures and daylight hours adjust into fall). From the looks of it, I'll need about two pounds and no more, dropped here and there over 7,000 square feet. Possibly much less-even areas that didn't sprout are tillering in fast and there's still another month to go in the season.

One of the nice things about seeding early is that you enjoy that dark green several weeks before winter arrives.

I would also recommend using pre-emergent--if only on areas you don't dormant seed. Not sure if a lot of your weeds that cropped up went to seed, but if they did, you may get some surprises next year, thick lawn or no thick lawn.

Overall, nice job! And thanks for all the pictorial updates!

I think it looks terrible to be honest. Too many weeds and the lack of density. The color is also way off... Nothing like the dark green color KBG is known for.

Anyway, maybe you'll get it right next year, good luck.

Just kidding, man. Looks good, it really does. Keep pulling those weeds by hand and mowing short (1 1/2"k) until fully established.

Keep posting more pictures of the project.

Regards,

Auteck.

Anyway, maybe you'll get it right next year, good luck.

AND the horse you rode in on, dude. :-)

So far, so good. Not perfect (which, ultimately, is the only acceptable answer), but it's starting to visibly move in that direction! As of today the western face has tons of sprouts and the large patch in the southeastern front is almost closed up.

I didn't let the weeds go to seed, fortunately. Heck, as soon as I saw bloom on anything I trundled out and clipped it. I sure could have missed a crabgrass plant or two, so I'm certain that there are plenty of seeds of those.