[GrassTuga]

Hi everyone!

New to the forum and glad to be part of the community! I have been in the lawn nutiness for the past couple years having recovered my yard somewhat from what it was - a bunch of weeds.

About 3 years ago my yard was like this:

I was able to read a lot of info on how to take care of a lawn and went on to do just an overseed. Took care of the weeds with pyramid approach and overseeded with Ultra Black Beauty from Johnathan Green. I must say that I liked the grass a lot. I think its 85% TTTF and 15% KBG ... the grass blades were/are all thin and very green.

From there my yard ended up like this:

Last fall we demolished a big slab of concrete in the backyard, and with a lot of renovation we did to the house, the yard suffered. I didn't stay on top of it as much because it was getting damaged anyhow from renovating the house and lots of materials on the grass.

I waited until September and after reading up more I ended up trying my chance to introduce KBG into the lawn. I overseeded PrimeTime blend (4 cultivars of TTTF if I recall on my bag it was Hemi, Turbo, Firebird and something else) and Midnight KBG at a 90%/10% by weight.

My yard still has some weedy grasses which i don;t know what they are... maybe some reminiscenses of K31 and quackgrass (very wide and thick blades)

Anyhow... the patch where the slab was, is 100% weed free and weed grasses free and only has the PrimeTime blend and KBG midnight ... I must say, I was under impression KBG, especially top cultivar like midnight to be finer blade and more vertical and green.

The TTTF is very dark green and it looks like a entryway carpet. The blades are vertical and stay vertical even after stepped on. It has a dark green color. The midnight however, it looks more like a sage color, if I were to say a resemblance to Rosemary or the typical Florida roofs' color ... not sure if it's because its a young grass still or if it's its true color.

Anyhow, the colors between the 2 don't seem to match at all and nor the blade structure. Midnight seems to be thicker and very wide as well.

Here a couple pictures - the more flat and sage grass is the midnight and the other patches is the Primetime TTTF blend.

Not suire if the colors of the cellphone can make the colors noticeable.

Anyhow, is this normal for midnight? If it is, I am thinking of renovating in August the full yard, and I think the Primetime along with Johnathan Green were very similar, with thin bladed TTTFs and dark green colors... I am thinking of going with Primetime route, however I do like the properties of KBG being able to spread and fill in empty spots - especially me having dogs and such, it would be great. Granted my favorite spots in the yard is the Johnathan Green parts that were able to fill nicely along the fence from 3 years ago. It;s matured beautifully and primetime is very similar.

Is there a cultivar of KBG better suited to be blended with TTTF? From what I have seen, it seems the one I picked last fall - Midnight - does not blend that well ..it sticks out a lot

Any advice would be greatly appreciated... and maybe am wrong and midnight and other KBGs once they are fuller, the blades stand up more and there are cultivars not as coarse? Maybe this will change with a full fall season under its belt since last fall it was pretty much germination and didn;t have much time to fill in everything etc... and I haven;t started feeding it much yet.

So far I have put 1 application of Starter Fert, at 0,5 lbs per K of NPK ... and then about 1 week ago Milorganite at full rate.

thanks

 

[SNOWBOB11]

Are those last 3 pictures taken recently after you fertilized? It looks like the grass is lacking nutrients and a bit drought stressed. KBG doesn't look so flat and thinned out normally. I'm not familiar with how midnight blends with TTTF but I would think it should blend better than that.

 

[GrassTuga]

Are those last 3 pictures taken recently after you fertilized? It looks like the grass is lacking nutrients and a bit drought stressed. KBG doesn't look so flat and thinned out normally. I'm not familiar with how midnight blends with TTTF but I would think it should blend better than that.

Yes the pictures are about 3 days old or so...

I fertilized about 4 weeks ago at a lower rate of 0.5lbs of N P and K with a 10-10-10 ... around memorial day I went with full dose of milorganite.

Regarding stress, yes, the lawn has been pressured with disease possibly... I was mowing a little high at 3.5 inches and because the fescue was so thick at times, even at 2-3 days of sunny days and dry, the soil was still sweating moisture... So far this year, I haven't been able to mulch my yard at all... i have to bag it all the time or else the mower just clogs because even though it seems it's dry, the blades are filled with moisture. there was so much moisture that by the crown near the soil, there was mold growing.

I have lwoered the height of cut to 2.25" for a while now and hit it with fungicide right away... it seems to have gotten better now. Some heat stress as well, the last week was rather dry, however i opted to not water it since it was schedule 2..5 inches of rain for today...

Regarding the KBG being so thin, please keep in mind this area was thinner, so actually KBG is filling it in nicely... i would say it has probably filled in about 4-5 inches to the sides since the beginning of the season - it was very late that KBG woke up.

However the texture of blade seems so "flated", instead of being more erect... and the color is very sage as well. thanks

 

[GrassTuga]

here's the difference in width between Ultra Black Beauty and Midnight... it just looks so coarse midnight and its not that black beauty is super think - which it is - but midnight even if it were solo, i would consider it coarse... id say those are 1/4 wide at least if not more (i forgot to put a coin there for reference)