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Need some advice on improving my lawn...

8 years ago

I've recently found this forum and been reading it none stop. Picked up a lot of good advice. I'm learning a lot from from you guys so I thought I would make a post and see what kind of advice I could get. Anyway ... I bought my house 11 months ago. It's about a half acre lot in Valparaiso Indiana. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do much in terms of lawn care since I had other issues to address. Now I've been able to get to work on my lawn. I'm not looking for a show piece type lawn but rather a durable lawn that looks nice.

No soil test yet I plan on doing that this weekend I also plan to do the jar test this weekend I believe I have very compacted clay I'm working with we just had a ton of rain and the yard is still rock hard I plan on shampooing the yard to loosen it up

As far as water goes I haven't. I know that's not good and is contributing to my problems.

I mow at 3-3/8 height I also side discharge instead of mulch. I now twice a week weather permitting What's the advantage to mulching over side discharge?

About a month ago (before I found you guys) I applied Scott's weed and feed (I know after reading the forum there are better ways to handle weeds. Won't make that mistake again) I've started spot treating with weed be gone to eliminate weeds in the yard. Im also going to spray with CCO this weekend to get rid of the clover. I've also started using round up on the bigger weeds where I want to seed this fall.

As far as fertilizer beginning of May I applied some. Then again when I did the weed and feed. However I'm now going to put down Milorganite in a week or so and start using that.

Here are pictures of what I'm working with.

By no means is it the worst on my street or awful. However I believe with some work it can be better. I want it better

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Comments (5)

User
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
You appear to be well on your way to instituting a lawn care program that will produce the results you want. The advantage of mulching vs side-discharge is mulching will cut the blades into smaller pieces making for more rapid decay. The other advantage is that mulching will more evenly distribute the blades through the lawn. One caveat with Milorganite: the amount of fast release nitrogen in the bag can vary. Check the label. You don't want to be dropping too much fast release during the summer months so as to avoid turf stress and disease. Otherwise Milo almost anytime is fine.

One other point. It appears you have quite a bit of fescue. A healthy fescue lawn should only be fed around 2-3 pounds of N per year to avoid disease issues.
dchall_san_antonio
8 years ago
Very nice to see you're doing some homework. Can't tell you how many times someone writes in with a question that's identical to one posted a day earlier.

In your picture #1 what's going on with the brown in the lower left corner? Is that an optical illusion or is the soil heaped up 10 inches higher than the concrete? If it's not an illusion, do you have any issues with water backing up toward the house? And if not, then it would look better with a little retaining wall down there.

Also in the first picture, what do you think is going on along the driveway with the tan area? My first thought was chinch bugs but then I thought it might be car exhaust cooking the grass. It only takes a minute or two of hot exhaust to cook grass. If nobody parks a car right there with the exhaust pointed at that spot, then go to YouTube and search for chinch bugs. Mute the sound so you don't have to listen to the ignorant comments made by the people shooting the videos. Those videos are good to learn how to find and recognize chinch bugs. They're not helpful when it comes to getting rid of the pests.

You have what will be a very nice lawn once you get the moisture and fertilizer under control. If you want it still nicer, then you'll have to get a soil test.
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I'm sorry I must have only previewed the previous message & not posted it! I live in Indianapolis, zone 5 B. Most of the residential grass here is a combination fescue/bluegrass, which is what I will probably use. I only have a couple of trees at the back edge of the lawn, so the only shade is from the house, which faces east. I did the jar test last week, & it still hasn't all settled. It looks like 5% sand, 10% silt with 10% clear water at the top leaving the remaining 75% clay. Also did the rolling test & had a strip about 4" long before it broke. I sent my soil samples to Purdue's extension & am waiting on results. In the meantime I just used a test kit from the hardware store. The pH color change was considerably darker than the color indicating an 8. Nitrogen & phosphorous had barely any color, indicating very low amounts of either & potash was right in the middle. Another indicator is drainage. There are a number of holes in the yard from where the previous owner removed the scrubs. When it rains they fill quickly with water (about 6") and take a good 10-12 hours to drain. Its sticky when it's wet & like trying to dig into concrete when its dry. I'm still raking up the left behind rubber mulch, but it hasn't rained for 4 days & it's still wet under those areas. I'm not opposed to clover & mulch in the back yard for this year, but would like to have grass in the front. Thanks for your responses.
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What you do really depends on where you live, what kind of grass you have, what kinds of grass you want, whether shade is involved, and...whether you're willing to water it as much as 1 inch per week in the hottest heat of summer. Based on the dramatic difference between the two pictures, and based on grass apparently escaping over the concrete, I'm going to guess you have a Kentucky bluegrass lawn. And I'm going to guess that a tree or building shades the grass in the top picture. KBG is a full-sun type of grass. Where people have a mix of sun and shade, then it would be appropriate to mix a blend of fescues and KBG. Fescue can tolerate shade and remain green, but it tends to thin out over the year(s) and requires reseeding IN THE FALL to stay dense enough to fight off summer weeds. If this is KBG then overseeding is not necessary. Furthermore, seeding in the spring should be avoided if at all possible. If you had a lot of bare soil, then I might seed now, but you don't. You'll be much better off taking proper care of what you have. Here are some basics: Water 1 full inch all at one time, once every 2 weeks until the temps get up into the 90s. Then change to once very week. Measure 1 inch using cat food or tuna cans. Time how long it takes your sprinkler to fill the cans. Don't be surprised if it takes hours and hours. Mulch mow KBG at the mower's highest setting or one notch lower. Fertilize with synthetic fertilizer on Memorial Day. If you feel the need to do something now, use any organic fertilizer. If you want an inexpensive organic, let us know. Milorganite is fine, otherwise. Don't be tempted to use weed n feed. If you want to kill weeds, spot spray individual weeds with the appropriate herbicide. And there's no need to aerate. If you have hard soil, aeration won't work nearly as well as spraying 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet of any clear shampoo.
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Don't do anything else, including raking, until we figure some things out. Spraying the bermuda might have been a mistake. I realize you don't want bermuda, but it might be the most dominant grass for your area. It can be beautiful when properly cared for. Certainly it will overrun fescue every time. Where do you live? Dethatching is rarely necessary. Think of that "thatch" as organic fertilizer that you just took away from your lawn. I don't think that was thatch, but it's still not available to the lawn anymore. Some grasses can be killed out by dethatching, so we need to know what you have before you go any farther. Core aeration is unnecessary for seeding and very, VERY rarely necessary for any other reason. Whatever issue your lawn has that you think requires core aeration probably has a better solution. That grass with the dime looks far too dense to be fescue. And it looks coarse bladed to me. Can you dig down through the grass and tell whether you see runners across the surface? Really need to know where you live.
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At least you're not afraid to water! Watering could be the problem depending on your soil. What you should be doing is watering deeply and infrequently. Deeply means 1 full inch all at one time. It should not be spread out over 7 days. You should measure the output of your sprinkler by placing some tuna or cat food cans around the yard and turning on the sprinklers. Put some in the dry spots and some in the green spots. Time how long it takes to fill all the cans. That will be your watering time from now on. Infrequent watering means you water only when the soil dries out and the grass shows signs of stress. As a general rule of thumb you can go by the high temps of the day. Colorado (mountains) might be a little different due to the low humidity, but possibly not. Anyway in general you should be watering no more than once per week in the hottest heat of summer, once every 2 weeks with temps in the 80s, once every 3 weeks with temps in the 70s, and once every 4 weeks the rest of the year. Here is a picture of some lawns. The green one gets deep and infrequent water. The rest get daily water.
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zart312
Original Author
8 years ago
Yardtractor ... I thought I had read milo was a slow release and could be applied basically anytime. Thanks for clearing that up. Since I bought a Scag mower ( slightly over kill for my yard I know but I love it ) I would have to buy the block off and mulching blades, do you think it would be worth it? I'm not opposed to spending the money if it will improve the lawn.

Dchall thanks for the compliment. I'm trying not to look to foolish talking to you guys. In the first picture that's all water in the street. When I bought the house last year the previous owner was pumping the water from the sump pit about 5 feet away from the house and flooding the yard. So my quick fix was to buy some hose and take it out to the street. During summer when it's hotter it's not like that. However, I'm going to fix it right this year. As far as those brown spots ... I wasn't paying attention when I was spot spraying the weeds and grabbed round up in stead of weed be gone. Oops. I am going to get a soil test from Logan Labs (that's what you recommend right?) so hopefully you guys can help me figure where to go from there.
User
8 years ago
Milo is considered a slow release product: however some Milo (professional greens product-small prill- for greens) can contain up to 40% fast release. It can vary. I wasn't pushing you to spend money to mulch. Just answering your question. I also use a a professional mower (60" width) with side discharge. A mulching deck would cost me near $4000.00. It does have a tendancy to blow the clipings either away (wasted) or into a heavy layer that is too thick and harmful for the turf. It's less of a problem if I mow at least 2 times a week, but sometimes that isn't possible. Mulching can supply up to a pound of free N a year to the lawn, so if a mulching kit was $100 or so, I think it might be worth it.
zart312
Original Author
8 years ago
I didn't think you were pushing one way or the other. I did some googling and couldn't find a clear answer for mulching vs side discharge. I appreciate you clearing that up. I haven't priced out what it would be for the block off plate and mulching blades yet, but I have been looking at high lift blades to replace the factory blades. That was around $60 for the set. I've been thinking I may just bite the bullet and set my mower up for mulching just to see how I like it. I get a great quality of cut as is but always looking for better.

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