[Dono1183]

One week post scalp. It's looking a lot better. It definitely needs to be verticut. Next year I'll reevaluate the cultural practices based on the weather. Hopefully we don't have a repeat of this summer.

 

[Dono1183]

Got a mow in today. I've had several insurance issues the last few days. Got rear ended on Friday, then my float switch failed on my ac and had water coming through the ceiling. Anywho, got a chance to get in the yard which helped mitigate some of the frustration.








I'm hopeful that some of the rain we have forecasted will actually hit us and help finish the fill in right at two weeks.

 

[Dono1183]

Got an early morning mow in before work today. We got .2" of rain which may not be much, but makes a huge difference. Austin got over 5" of rain in August. We got less than 1". The hill we are on definitely creates a rain shadow. Hopefully we'll get some more since we're in a wet pattern.
The lower temps help a lot to help with the lawn. It's been going through a nice recovery since I scalped it a little less than two weeks ago.






This area is where my outdoor table was for a couple of weeks. It was struggling so I've loved the furniture to help it get some additional sunlight.

 

[Dono1183]

This weekend had some great temps but no rain again at our house. The cooler weather really has been great as August and early September tend to be really hot around here.
I got a couple of mows in, as I noticed that three days was really too long with how fast the grass is growing.




Some friends came over on Sunday and they brought their koob set. It's a lot of fun. It's a game based entirely on sticks which is neat.


We started moving some of the old planter edge rocks to create a more level area for the trash and recycling bins. The cats seemed to really enjoy the trench it left behind 😆.

 

[Dono1183]

Got a mow in yesterday morning before work. It was quite dewy. The grass continues to do well despite the lack of rain. We keep getting rain around us, and with the lower temps the evapotranspiration has been very manageable. I am however back to watering twice a week.




I also came across this guy in my travels of the lawn.

I tend to see more tarantulas around this time of year. They're super neat.
Also got a couple of nice photos of sunrises since we've had a lot of cloud cover.


Hopefully the continued lower temps will allow the irrigation i'm doing to help the grass stay happy until fall gets here. I'm guessing it won't get "cold" until around Halloween.

 

[Dono1183]

I continue to have to deal with the armadillo. It's about to go to the next phase of our disagreement on what's available for him to forage through.
Mowed single doubles which fun. They're kinda hard to make out though since I don't mow them often and my mower doesn't have a drum on it.




On a separate topic, I was driving around south Austin on Saturday and got to see the B-52 that overflew the Texas -Bama game up close. They were doing loops until their scheduled pass. Doesn't look like it in the image, but this was no more than a few thousand feet high.

 

[Buffalolawny]

UFO's are Everywhere.

 

[Dono1183]

#rainwatch is back. Lol. We've gotten .8" of rain at my house since June 30. I bet if I total my rain for the year it's less than 7". It's been brutal. I hope that this cycle gets broken, but they're forecasting another La Niña winter which likely means low rain totals again for us. The real question is whether or not we'll get a wet spring. 🤞🏼

 

[Dono1183]

I put down .5 lbs of N last week. Temps are forecasted to be in the 90’s and high 80’s for at least another two weeks. We typically don’t get our first cold front until Halloween. Lawns chugging along. Still no rain, and we don’t even have an elevated chance for rain for the next two weeks. I figure at the end of the month I’ll put down my pre-em and get ready for our winter time.

 

[Dono1183]

Got a mow in today. Lawn is still growing well. We’ve had temps in the 80’s and lows in the 60’s so I haven’t had to water as much. That being said #rainwatch continues. Still don’t have any rain in the forecast.
I’ve had to slow down my mowing in certain areas where I’ve been scalping. The lawn has gotten spongy since I didn’t verticut this year, and my height of cut reset didn’t do much to thin it out. Next year verticutting will be part of the regular maintenance with the celebration. So long story short, I mow slower, and my scalping isn’t as bad.

Bonus pic of a very pretty sunrise this morning.

 

[Dono1183]

This post is more of a comment on the “macros are macros” take on fertilizer. While I agree in principle, there is a chance that the cheap fertilizer you buy is not very good.

For example, I bought a bag of 1-1-1 and I ended finding out that it was full of small rocks. These rocks were evenly distributed across my lawn. I’ve been cleaning them up ever since.

So yes, saving money is good, but understand that there is a quality difference between fertilizer brands. I’m not advocating to go for the designer stuff, just make sure it’s a reputable source.

 

[Dono1183]

Mowed, watered and put down my last fert app for the season on Sunday. Lawn’s looking a little not so great. I guess the cooler temps don’t agree with it.

I’m looking forward to being able to verticut it next year along w some actual rain on a regular basis. Bc you guessed it… #rainwatch continues. In 3.5 months we are still at .8” of total precipitation. I’ve really enjoyed the lawn this year, but like summer, I’m kinda ready to move on and hopefully have a more normal year next year. Unfortunately they extended La Niña even longer, and we’re not supposed to go ENSO neutral until the spring.

We also had another really nice sunrise.

 

[Dono1183]

We finally got some rain! .75 inches to be exact. It was also very cool yesterday. Temps around here are going to yo-yo but will be back to the 80’s by Thursday. I also put down my pre-em for the winter. It’s my first time using pre-em in the lawn, so I’m curious to see how it goes.
I mowed on Sunday:

In other news, we are finally redoing our front lawn. We are getting a circle driveway to facilitate ingress and egress, and to regrade the area. I’ll put down prg for the winter and then lay sod in the spring. I’m looking forward to having a complete front reno done instead of our rock farm that we currently have.

 

[Dono1183]

Mowed today. Lawn actually had quite a bit of growth despite the highs in the 60’s the first half of the week. The rain really helped I guess. Hopefully we can get some more soon. Overall pretty stoked that the lawn is this green in late October.

I started tearing up the walkway in the front yard. Construction should start next week and I hope to have this completed by this weekend. I’ve found that doing low skill demo can save me a lot of money on these types of projects, so I get to use a jack hammer for a bit. Thankfully there’s no rebar in it, but it is fairly thick. Anyhow, this one section took about 50 minutes. I get to work from home three days a week so this is perfect lunch time work. My goal is to make it easy for the bobcat to just scoop the stuff up and not have to take the added time to break it up.

 

[Dono1183]

I mowed on Monday and then that night we got .75” of rain. That’s 1.5” in about a week, which is great. Unfortunately the areas that were drought stressed have really slowed their growth despite the water due to the temps. So I think that they have just kinda quit for the season. Oh well. As long as we get some precip, I’ll take that, especially due to the extreme/exceptional drought conditions we’re in.

The strips between our stone pavers in the lawn have gotten pretty big throughout the season. It’s been fun seeing how they behave. I never reset them during they year to see how it would turn out.

Our front yard project should start on Monday barring any unforeseen issues. We’ll be adding a second entrance and a loop to the driveway. Our current setup is a real hassle. I’ll be removing the two cedars and the other trash tree in the front, and replacing those w some different ornamentals. We won’t have as much lawn area, but that’s fine by me. I got done breaking up the walkway as that will be going away. That was a fun lunch time workout sarc/. But it’ll save us time on the project which saves us money.

 

[Dono1183]

Since my last post we’ve gotten another .61” of rain. We even have some more forecasted for Friday. This has been really helpful as we’re still over 10” behind for the year. The lawn is holding up. I put down a preventative rate of azoxy for the fall. Color seems to be going, and the previous areas of drought stress have checked out. I’m only mowing once a week now. On Thursday I did a double cut.

The front yard project got underway in earnest yesterday. Over the weekend I cut down the trees and left stumps for the bobcat to push the root balls out.

We also took our fish pond liner out. It is getting replaced w a bigger deeper tub. We enjoy watching the fish from the office when we wfh.
They started carving out the driveway and put down the culvert. The road base will be finalized today and grading tomorrow. I’ve also ordered 15 yards of nice soil to put down over the recently regraded soil that’s there. A lot of rocks came out, and I think that it will make a good base for the lawn. My mowable area is going down to about 3,000^ ft. So it’s considerably smaller, but I’m pretty happy to not have a ton to mow out front. Once that soil is down I’m putting down three yards of sand to level and I’ll seed prg for the winter. I’ll sod in spring.

 

[Dono1183]

The front yard is coming along well. We’re right on schedule which is nice. Tomorrow they’ll start lining the driveway with limestone block. After that they’ll top it all with decomposed granite. I changed my soil order to 10 yards since I saw how small the area actually is. It worked out well. I put down a 50 lb bag of seed. It’s not actually fifty lbs of seed as it’s only about 50% seed based on the label. But it was enough to thoroughly cover the new soil. Anywho, I’m excited that this area has a good base for the sod I plan to lay down in the spring.

The masonry sand that they ordered is really nice quality. I ordered a couple extra yards to have on hand. I may use it for the front in the spring when I sod. Since I already seeded I don’t think there’s any use to it for the front. The front soil needs to work in and get a little more compacted. It’s pretty loose right now. Once the grass is in the mower will help with that.

 

[Deltahedge]

That looks great. I can't wait to see what it will look like in season next year.

 

[Dono1183]

That looks great. I can't wait to see what it will look like in season next year.

Thanks @Deltahedge !

 

[WillyT]

Yes that looks great and will keep getting better and better!