how to rehab this lawn?
homesweethome360
9 years ago
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kimmq
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Lawn Rehab with Bermuda: a few questions
Comments (10)OK this post is still fresh. Try this schedule. 1. Give the yard a good dose right now with 20-20-20 at a rate of 5lbs/1000 Ft2. Water it in real good. 2. Wait about a week for the Fertlizer to kick existing grass into high gear, then nuke it with Round Up Pro Granules mixed to 4% solution. 3. Wait a week and reapply RU Pro 4. Wait another week, scalp mow, bag and rake up debris. It may take a few passes with the mower. 5. Regrade or fill your low spots. 6. Rent a vertical mower aka Power rake and make a few passes at right angles. Do not sit it to cut real deep. What you are trying to do is loosen up the top 1/4 to 1/2 inch of soil, than rake smooth or drag it like suggested. 7. Broadcast seed. 8. Rent a water roller and roll the seed down. Do not rake it, roll it. 9. Start watering keeping the seed bed moist, not drenched and muddy. This will probable require several light applications per day. Keep the watering up until it looks fuzzy green then start backing off. Once the first grass blades reach about 1 to 1-1/4 inches start mowing. Warning make sure you use a sharp mower blade for the first couple of cutting. A dull blade will grab and tear the young seedlings right out of the ground because they have shallow roots, so make dang sure the blade is sharp and cuts, not tear....See MoreXpost W/ AZ gardens: Buffalo Grass lawn rehab
Comments (3)Sounds like you think the experiment failed. Did you plant a seeded variety of buffalo or sod? I don't think that was thatch. I think that was buffalo grass plants. Thatch is a dense mat of plant material just above the soil. It ranges from roots to stolons to grass plants. Yours didn't look like a dense mat of anything. It looked like grass in a dormant stage. In the wild, buffalo grass would NOT be closely grazed by bison or cows. If it was grazed at all it would be grazed once in the spring and the bison would move on looking for tender new grass. They would have kept on moving until they reached central Canada and then they would have returned feeding on other grasses. By the time they returned to your buffalo grass patch, it would be 18 inches tall. The only time forage is closely grazed over long periods is after fences are installed to keep the livestock from leaving to look for fresh forage. Fencing animals in is not natural or "in the wild." What is your watering schedule? How long and how often? Is the blue grama an experiment or do you have reason to believe it is the solution to a problem?...See MoreGross Lawn Rehab; fixing weeds, compaction, rodents, etc.
Comments (29)Re: the rehab and what I did right or wrong.... 1) I would not install sod next time in the first place. I would get the exact seed that I want and call in a hydro-seeder. 2) Really make sure to scalp the lawn. I mean cut it really short! Nothing taller than 1/2". Anything taller than that and it mats down under the top dressing which means the seed won't take because the grass underneath creates an air pocket that kills the new grass, but KBG doesn't grow through like some of the warm season grasses. 3) With KBG I'd do it in May if I had a choice. There are going to be weed problems whenever you expose fertile soil, but it is manageable. Forget about the weed issues because there is an easy solution there with KBG. But KBG takes a LONG time to come in from seed. The one thing that doesn't help is if it starts to get cold before it really starts growing well. IOW, if you wait till Sept to avoid some of the weeds and it starts to drop below 50*F in Oct, it'll be till late next spring before things start to look good again. The important issues with KBG are moisture and soil temp. May/June is best IMO. 4) Do it all in one shot! If there are low spots that will require more than the suggested 1/4" top dressing, just go ahead and fill them in. Don't wait! Have your preferred seed on hand and get that thing level the first time. This work is too strenuous to be doing it more than once. Little touch-ups later are to be expected, but get it 90% done in the first shot. 5) Anything more than 4,000sf you should try to locate a mechanical spreader for the top dressing and drag the lute or chain link around with a lawn tractor. 6) This is a point of debate, but... Currently the Orbit sprinkler heads are much better than the Rainbirds. Make sure that your sprinklers are exactly how you want them before doing anything with the lawn. And yes, sand isn't great for them, but it is pretty easy to fix. There are probably more that I'll include later....See MoreWhat grass type do I have and fall lawn rehab
Comments (7)You most likely have a mix of fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, possibly rye, and some weeds. I would water that with an oscillator sprinkler that has an adjustable spread on it. Set it up to be in the center of the lawn and sweep from phone box by the road to the other end. It will take hours and hours to get deep watering done, but deep is deep. My oscillator takes 8 hours to put out an inch. You may only have to water once every 2-3 weeks when you do it that deep. When you renovate, do you want to kill everything that's there? That's about the only way to make a pure KBG lawn. Here's the general nature of how that goes. Change to daily watering for only 5 minutes, but 3x per day. The idea is to germinate all the weed seeds. Do that for a week and spray with Round Up, Grass-b-Gon, or whatever plant killer you are allowed to use. Then continue watering 3x per day for another week to get the slow sprouting weeds. Spray again to get that stuff. Let that all die for a week, rake up the dead stuff, level the surface the way you want it, scatter seed, roll the seed down (or for 1,000 square feet just walk on it to press the seed down onto the soil). Then continue watering 3x per day same as before to sprout the grass seed. KBG seed takes about 3 weeks to get 80% germination. With the prep and Round UP, you should not get any weeds in this lawn. Do this as early as you can in the fall so you have time to redo any spots that came out thin. KBG will spread to fill, but not much the first year. When it gets up to 5 inches tall, mow it down to 4 inches or whatever the mower's highest setting is. With all that in mind, are you up to that much of a project? Raking it up is the only hard part. If you are not allowed to use herbicides, you might need to have a landscaper come in with a tractor and a box blade to scrape the surface off. That will leave the perfect surface for new seed....See Morehomesweethome360
9 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agokimmq
9 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
9 years agokimmq
9 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
9 years agokimmq
9 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
9 years agoUser
9 years agokimmq
9 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
9 years agoCarol Burnett
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