A warm day in Feb
Pruned the trees and rose bushes.

17Mar2019
Took soil samples and dropped SOP (1lb/M). I knew I needed the potassium, so I dropped some without getting the soil results back. I also did a clean up mow with rotary to pickup any branches.

23Mar2019
First reel mow!!! Tuned up the 220E and replaced chains/sprockets. Found a tunnel mole in the backyard on the initial perimeter pass. Used the 220E to get it flat. Mowed the front yard and when I returned there was a new tunnel. He/she was on the move. It was moving around 1in every 20s. I used the 220E to get the tunnel flat, permanently flat.

27Mar2019
I took this mid second reel mowing. On the right side you can see the Reno from last year. The Reno looks better than my nomix. The TTTF at 1in took a beating and it has white leaves. I think it will recover.

 

29Mar2019
A perfect drizzle rain for prem. I missed the opportunity.

 

Looking forward to following this year.

 

@g-man any theories on why your NoMix greened up and your neighbors' have not yet?

 

@Alex1389 yes. Fall Nitrogen.

 

Not only Purdue is out of the final four, but also this.

This morning with better lighting. The weather folks never talked about snow. The roads weren't prep or treated. Good Indiana weather, if you don't like it, wait an hour it will change.

 

:shocked:

 

It been a busy last couple of days. The kids has spring break this week. We went to Cincinnati to see 100% Perennial Ryegrass. The boy watched a game eating peanuts and cracker jack. :-D



The snow stayed until late Monday on the yard. We returned Wednesday and the lawn needed a mow. It is starting to take off.
03Apr2019 Before mowing

03Apr2019 after mowing




Thursday morning I spent it here.


Thursday/Friday I spent the afternoon doing the retention wall on the left side of the house. The ground was moist on Thursday and I was able to do a lot. It rained on Thrusday night and Friday was slow with all the mud. Getting it leveled in all directions is hard.

I got 15 bags of mulch from the Lowes special. My son took all the old mulch out and we then placed the new one. I redefined most of the beds. Two of them have plenty of bewitched KBG that I want to transplant.

Yesterday I did another mow. I'm at 24mm (1in) and I dont like it this high. I want to leave the reno areas at 1in thru the summer. I edged, trimmed and striped the lawn for spraying. I then finally sprayed prodiamine at 5grams/ksqft (0.32lb ai/acre rate). I sprayed the whole yard at this rate. I plan to do a second (split) app in 8 weeks but only to the areas not getting a reno.

Reel low Northern mix (look at the TTTF at 1in):


Last night pictures. (the pixel night images look great)




After all this work, today(07Apr2019) it is supposed to rain and I'm going to rest.

 

I really like this pic. You can see the stripes, but what stands out to me is the crisp, clean edging. I see the sign in the next door neighbors lawn. Did they get tired of competing with your yard?. :lol:

 

I really like this pic. You can see the stripes, but what stands out to me is the crisp, clean edging. I see the sign in the next door neighbors lawn. Did they get tired of competing with your yard?. :lol:

Agree. It is looking great already, g-man.

 

@Pete1313 and @social port , you guys like the picture I did not plan or even stopped to take. I went get my son from the neighbors house and took that image while walking.

She got relocated to California from work in October. It is finally pending. It needs prem.

 

Looking good! I think you accidentally captioned a couple of those pictures as "May" instead of "April"

 

Spring flush is here. My last mow was on Saturday. After looking at it today, I could mow again today.

Growth Potential is high. Water usage is about 0.1in per day. We had nice rains that are maintain the field capacity all good. Dollar spot probability is increasing, so I need to get the hose ready for dragging.


I want to highlight two things with this image. I have not applied any nitrogen to my lawn since 15oct2018. I also did not apply the late winterizer application either (after top grow stops).

 

@g-man Are you planning on applying any N to your reno area in the back this spring?

 

Yes. This week. I dropped alfalfa pellets but those take a while to feed.

 

13APR - Built some more trenches to channel water out of the backyard and prep for leveling. Took bewtiched from the mulch bed and plugged into the side yard.

16APR - 1lb of K and P/ksqft. Reno area got 0.25lb of N/ksqft. It is spreading.

Mowed with single doubles on Tuesday night. Clippings were at 1in in length and hoc at 1in. No nitrogen.




17 Apr - 7am images (still dark) - using Pixel Night mode





Next steps:

- The Reno might need iron. Let's see how it responds to AS.
- There are a couple of grassy weeds that will get round up.
- Monitor the neighbor yard that looks to have leaf spot.
- Grow is crazy, but will wait for seedheads to pop up before PGR.

 

@g-man, looking good! :thumbsup: question, what are your thoughts on waiting until seed heads before primo compared to starting on it after the 2nd true full mow? Is the wait due to the part you renovated?

 

My thoughts are that I don't like the seedhead phase. It is about to start soon. I think if I start pgr, I'm just going to extend it because the grass is growing slower.

By the way, I'm in my 4th true mow this weekend. I'm at a rate of 1in of grow in 5days.

 

Makes sense. I'll do my second true mow on Saturday. Alittle behind you as I'm further north, but looking forward to get back on the primo as the growth is ramping up in spots.

 

Your sidewalk looks like it as some striping on the sides and really makes your lawn pop. Do you bleach your sidewalk and driveway or is it just newer paving because it looks nice?

 

Talking the talk and walking the walk...good looking lawn sir...

 

@iowa jim the concrete is new and fairly white. I applied a chemical to prevent salt damage, not the best application.

@ctrav I think it is important to show that what we recommend works. Also to show that things not always go according to plan.

 

Reno update.

Last year I did a Reno of two challenging areas. One is was the no mans land area between my yard and the neighbors. It was not smooth and the water flow was not right. The other area is a 45 degree slope near the patio plus I wanted a sod farm for plugs. I wanted to tackle these areas ahead of the backyard Reno to be sure I could focus on them.

I had struggles with downpours, washouts and melting out.l fungus. Things did not look too good at the end of the season (see my 2018 journal).

But here is the current status. The back looks great. The section behind the tree still needs to fill in. I need to apply more iron to it. I think by summer it should be all good.







This is the side with the 45 degree slope. It is almost all filled. I still need to clean up the bed around the tree to grab the kbg that is growing in there.



This area is still filling in. I used plugs from the other mulch beds to help it fill in faster. This was going to be the plug farm. I might make the mulch areas bigger and plant boxwoods and hostas. It is in the side of the house with a/c, gas meter, etc.

 

It been raining a lot in Indy. Rain + spring flush means a lot of grow. Even yards that are not normally treated look awesome.

26Apr2019 - On Friday I managed to mow. The color is crazy dark. I had 1.5in clippings in a 1in hoc (1/3 rule?)

28Apr2019 - It was a rush mow on Friday because it was long overdue. We had rain again on Saturday and Sunday am, but in the afternoon the sun came out. So I told my dear wife I was going to mow. After 10min of explaining why I needed to mow, I failed to convince her. I mowed and sprayed FAS at 0.32lb of Fe/ksqft to the Reno area. I also planted flowers and started the garden.







30Apr2019- Play soccer with the kids. Talked to the new neighbors. Dropped 1lb of AS to the Reno area. The rest of the lawn looks that it will need nitrogen this weekend. My son helped me to prime the irrigation lines.

Things to do next:

-I want to spread the Grubex, but I'm looking for a good rain timing to avoid downpours.

-I need to gly this:


-Install these:

 

So much rain plus timing did not work for being able to mow for a week.

02May - kill POA t day. Spot treated all I could find. I first used my hand to pull up as much as possible and expose as much of the leaves. I went with a low concentration. I want a slow kill so the gly gets to the roots.

- also applied azoxy to the Reno border area. It looked like leaf spot was showing up.

04May - first N of the season. 0.45lb of N/M via AS for the entire yard. The lawn was too wet to mow, kinda like the Kentucky Derby mud fields.

05May - finally mowed!!! It took 3 directions to go from 3.25in to 1in. Clippings everywhere! My plan was to do tenacity + triclopyr yesterday, but it got too dark. Tonight I will switch to PGR and FAS. More rain in the forecast and I can't keep up.

I need to inspect this area better. I see some yellow there.



This is the side reno area. The mid section is before mowing. It is filling up!