[coreyndstuff]

Hello all!

I'm brand new to the forum but really excited to be a part of the community. I'm very new to lawn care so apoligies in advanced if I don't provide enough information here to provide an adequate answer. If you ask me for more context I'm happy to provide it!

I bought a house in June and the lawn was pretty good. It has it's bare spots, some dead spots, and a fair amount of weeds (pretty sure no pre-emergent was put down this year). I did a july and august Milo treatment. I also spot sprayed in a can the weed on Sept 6 (Weed B Gone).

I believe the grass is *mostly* TTTF. The previous owner used Scotts Heat Tolerant, which I think is primarily TTTF. I have been mowing high, and some watering (June was brutal in MA and I wasn't watering enough - but it looks nice and green now). I have been hand pulling weeds that I didn't kill with the quinclorac based weed killer.

With that said, I also am a new Dad, so I don't have unlimited time to work in the lawn, but enough that I'm on a lawn forum (after all ;D). So with all that said, here's my plan to improve things this fall:

Starting Now in Prep for Sept:
- Fight the good fight on weeds as much as possible so I can get bare dirt where a lot of crab grass is so I can reseed and hopefully let the grass beat weeds next year
- Rake the bare spots that got hit especially hard by the weeds
- Slowly take the height of my mows down from max (4" all the way to 2" right before I seed). At this point with 4 mows left before seed day, I'm at 3.5". I'll probably drop to 3", 3", 2.5", 2" or something like that.

Roughly 1 month after my weed treatment, Sept 6ish.
- Seed Tall Fescue Mix: https://www.seedsuperstore.com/catalog/p-100003/ss1000-tall-fescue-blend
- Apply Scott's with tenacity: https://www.scotts.com/en-us/products/lawn-food/scotts-turf-builder-starter-food-new-grass-plus-weed-preventer
- Milo application
- Top coat with peat moss on the patches
- Water, water, water.

A few bits I was considering, but if they can be avoided I'd love to save the money:
- Aeration (~$90 from a lawn service - pretty much the same as a rental and a lot less time for me)
- Spread Peat moss across the *whole* lawn when I see, vs. just the patches.
- Other seeds... the Tall Fescue mix feels right for my needs, but I'm not hard pressed to stick with it.
- Should I be bagging already while taking it lower?

Thanks in advanced!

 

[kds]

That's pretty much the same as my plan. The Scott's with tenacity worked GREAT for me this spring.

How compacted is your lawn? It's usually a good idea to aerate once a year, usually in the fall (doesn't hurt to do it in the spring either). It's recommended to aerate when overseeding to help it get good seed/soil contact.

I did some areas this spring where I used the slit seeder to lay the seed down, and then I spread peat moss in some areas and not in other areas. The areas with peat moss germinated way faster and thicker, by far. It also helped keep the birds out. In the fall you might start seeing the big box stores discounting peat moss so they can start winding down their garden centers, same with milorganite.

 

[coreyndstuff]

How can I determine the compactness of the soil? Is there an easy test?

 

[social port]

How can I determine the compactness of the soil? Is there an easy test?

A simple way is to press a long screwdriver into your lawn at several different places. If you can push the screwdriver in more than, say, four-to-six inches, you are in good shape. The deeper you can push, the better.
Aeration can be helpful, but it can also be unecessary. From what I can tell, lots of folks have success with aeration, and lots of folks have success without aeration. It does add to cost and effort.

And I would say that the earlier you bag, the better. It means that you will have less to deal with later.

FWIW, your plan looks good to me.

 

[g-man]

Welcome. It is a bit late, so I will give you a condense response.

I think there is a typo above. Weed b Gon applied Sept 6? Or it should say Aug 6?

Could you post a picture of your lawn, the weeds and bare areas? I think we could give you better advice if we could see it.

Is Sept 6 your seed down date? Taking the lawn down too fast could cause some damage. Try to bag when you mow to ensure good seed to soil contact.

I think that Milo and starter is too much nitrogen for a young lawn. I would just do the starter since it has the tenacity (or do the liquid tenacity).

To me aeration and seed don't go together. Either the seed falls into the hole or into the plugs. In either spot, it can't survive long term. Also, most of the time aeration is not really needed.

To me peat moss for the entire lawn would be a good thing to do after aeration to fill the holes with organic matter. This might be helpful if you OM is low.

Congrats on the baby and feel free to ask more questions, we are here to help.

 

[social port]

I think that Milo and starter is too much nitrogen for a young lawn. I would just do the starter since it has the tenacity (or do the liquid tenacity).

Yes! Nice catch.

 

[coreyndstuff]

Here are some photos of the lawn:

Example of bare spots:


General lawn photo (it's mostly good, with some areas infested by clover, and other weeds)


This is another area with bare spots:

 

[coreyndstuff]

I did the screwdriver test and it's nice and loose to 2" becomes really solid around 3-4. Aeration might be well overdue.

 

[g-man]

Ok. The pictures help me understand better. If those are current, I would start to drop to height of cut (hoc). It looks too long and it is falling over.

For the weed, those will take repeated WBG applications (weekly) to control them or switch to a Clover, Chickweed, Oxalis. https://www.ortho.com/smg/goprod/ortho-weed-b-gon-chickweed-clover-oxalis-killer/prod70214

 

[coreyndstuff]

I'm okay leaving the weeds if it's just for appearance. I can attack with a pre m next year. My understanding was I need to lay off the weed killer if I want to overseed, which I feel like is the right call for this lawn.

I'm surprised to hear I'm cutting too long! All the videos say cut long .

I was at the tallest setting for most of the summer and honestly it never felt like I was cutting enough - the grass would still sort of lay down. I dropped it a notch this weekend (these photos are from Monday. I cut Saturday). I will continue to drop to get to overseed height, but it sounds like you're suggesting my standard height needs to be shorter? I think the current height of those photos is ~3.5".

Thanks a lot!

 

[g-man]

I dont like grass that will lay down. If it lays down, it has a chance for moisture retention that leads to fungus. Since your lawn is not really dense, it will lay down more easily.

A suggestion for summer is to cut long to prevent evaporation of the soil moisture. The longer blades block the sun from getting to soil. That's great during during a drought. It helps the lawn survive better if there is no rain. But a long cut could also have the effect of keeping too much moisture after a rain. With warmer temperature this makes a perfect petri dish for fungus.

Leading into summer, push the hoc as high as your lawn seems to tolerate without getting into the laying down.

 

[kolbasz]

I dont like grass that will lay down. If it lays down, it has a chance for moisture retention that leads to fungus. Since your lawn is not really dense, it will lay down more easily.

A suggestion for summer is to cut long to prevent evaporation of the soil moisture. The longer blades block the sun from getting to soil. That's great during during a drought. It helps the lawn survive better if there is no rain. But a long cut could also have the effect of keeping too much moisture after a rain. With warmer temperature this makes a perfect petri dish for fungus.

Leading into summer, push the hoc as high as your lawn seems to tolerate without getting into the laying down.

I can relate to this. In an effort to battle POA and try choking it out, I went to 3.5" after the first 2 cuts of the year. Needless to say the weather was terrible and perfect for the above mentioned fungus. In an effort to fix one thing I broke something else. My grass was the worst it has been in a few years since I started to care about it more. Oh, did I mention I still had POA to deal with.

I never thought long grass would make fungus. I thought keeping things moist was good for growth, never once thinking about the fungus I was making to ruin the grass.

this has been a bad year for my grass...