Celebration bermuda is still green. Dialed back the watering to daily after 1 week.

There is far more there than what is visible in the wide photos. Zoomed in, there are little bermuda sprouts everywhere. The lumpyness is hard to swallow at first, but after 6 weeks, I can scrape it off flat without hurting anything. Too soon, and it bust loose a bunch of plugs.

My home built water sprinkler is quite massive as well. 155 gallons per minute. 35 yard diameter throw. Can do 1.5 acres in half hour.

 

Wow, Pete From GCI Turf would like that photo

 

Walked outside this morning to do the watering, and was hit with an amazing rain shower. Ahhh. Love it when the irrigation is easy!

 

Day 14. The urge to rake and smooth is strong in me. Best to not touch it and let it establish. Had rain again today, so no irrigation chores for the last 2 days. More rain forecasted followed by some near 80 degree sunny days. The fuse is lit!

Some of my history:
In the last 3 years I have improved my timing/methods/and efficiency for turfgrass establishment and maintenance. Of course during that timeframe, I also studied about turf management practices. Being in North Louisiana and having large sunny areas, I decided bermuda was the way to go.

The scale of my operation is where the difficulty arises for me. I have 7 mowable acres with irrigation availability at my home property, but also 5 acres at the local airport 80% filled in sofar I have established without irrigation. I've thrown out many common variety seeds and also fed the common. I have purchased 4 pallets overall of Celebration which is my favorite. I have patches of it all intertwined together via plugs/sprigs/seeds. While also large areas with only one cultivar present.

It becomes a bit taxing when doing large scale irrigation (1000 feet of 2" hose, in sections). So much so, I've only been able to do few acre sections at a time in past years. But, im in it for the long game, so no big worries now.

I'm on my last little section which I'm documenting here via lawn journal (my first one).

I put out a flag, so we may watch the spread and then transformation from one single perspective.

Day 14:

 

Day 15:
Big rain last night 1.5" overall. And today's picture was all I did, and am gonna do to it today.

 

Day 18: 1st notable signs of spread!
Some examples:

I call this variant "a normal piece"
A section of sod that ended up flush with the terrain surface. Note the leaves reaching outward up to 1.5 inches.

I call these "scrappers"
Little 1-3 inch chuncks that are partially buried at some orientation. Healthy growth noted.

"Mud Stompers"
Highly familiar, I've likely handled these chunks with multiple manual manipulations by now. Ultimately, I threw it in a mudhole and stomped it in flush. Looks good.

"Stragglers"
Single root balls that have spiked in, and while barely tacked in, are fairing well. This is where being patient about not raking or smoothing it really shines. If you gouged these out repeatedly, there would be casualties and a slower fill in overall.

The "Faceplanter"
This piece ended it's last movement with a belly flop. A great many of these are converted to "Mud Stompers" if laying on a high spot. But if it's mostly buried it can stay that way. Looks like this one is doing just fine with the roots seemingly transforming into leaves.

"Resurrectionist"
Previously buried alive, these sprouts have dug out of they're earthen grave and appear healthy.

Root growth matches the leaves

I gave the previously pictured chunk a new home in an old footprint.

It's an amazing species. Really reminds me of metistatic cancer. Piece breaks off, moves, grows somewhere else and digs in.

 

Day 20: Irrigation chores

 

Day 22: Patiently waiting for the explosion of green to take over the brown.

 

Day 24: I hit it with the landscape rake yesterday. Was gonna wait 28 days, but I didn't knock as much loose as I thought. I moved all the loose pieces into new homes out of reach from the rake tines.

Took down the silt fence today. Raked out the area, gonna toss in some proplugs after it settles a bit.

Random shot

 

Day 26: Collected all the busted loose pieces from the raking. They were already tacking down after 2 days. Placed them in places that were washing out to stabilize the soil there. Two 5 gallon bucketfulls relocated. The green ones on the left were done before the last rain, finished out the lower wash today. Barring heavy rains, I think it'll hold well.

 

Day 31: Had flooding rains since last post. Che k out the wash. Areas of buried pieces are fine and holding, but new washouts next to them.

Otherwise, things are filling in nicely.

I used dye to mark pieces I moved last week. They're doing great and spreading as much in the last week as the 1st 3 weeks combined.

Daily shot

 

Starting to spread out well now! Looking forward to seeing it fill in as the summer gets warmer

 

Day 34: Tactical landscape rake, followed by 1st mow. Dropped the rotary down to 1" and scalped it of course. Lots of dirt moved around, some sacrificial grass sent to the grass afterworld, but necessary.

Before mowing

After mowing

During mowing

This was the washout area. Refilled for the 3rd time.

Silt fence area smoothed off.

 

Day 39: After filling in several washouts from heavy rains, I risked a bit of contamination and spread a few bales of coastal bermuda hay to hold down the erosion. Really starting to notice some growth.

It's almost like putting down "pre-thatch", but fingers crossed it holds the dirt still until full establishment.

 

Day 49: Had trees trimmed all over the property. Been irritating once a week.

I'll snap some lawn pics later. Been wrapped up with chores, and behind on my journal. Looks the same except a large pile of tree limbs in the lowest most barren spot.

 

Trees look good after being trimmed! That part of Louisiana is so picturesque

 

Day 53: Goosegrass popped up in many places. Sprayed herbicides (spot treat). Yesterday, mowed followed by a nice rain.

Filling in has become more than noticeable. Approaching 50% coverage. Not bad for 900 square feet of sod put on 65,000 square feet.

 

Day 60: Watching it spread. Got a moderate rain yesterday. It has been 3 weeks since rain. Been full on irrigation mode around here.

 

Day 61: Blanketed herbicides, burned limb pile.

And the obligatory flag pic with background fire.

 

Am able to really see the progress now. Just reviewed day 14 vs 61. Nice!

My curiosity is piqued, what's the blue line on the ground in your second photo - to the right of the burnt pit and ground flag?

 

Am able to really see the progress now. Just reviewed day 14 vs 61. Nice!

My curiosity is piqued, what's the blue line on the ground in your second photo - to the right of the burnt pit and ground flag?

Thanks! My spray rig has an 11 foot boom on an ATV. I use my backpack sprayer and mount it such that it squirts a blue line at the edge of the swath. Allows for highly accurate applications without overspray or skips. Also, I use WAY less dye than if I dyed the whole tank.

 

Day 66: Took massive rainfalls and wind over the last few days. Lawnmower has been down for bad solenoid. Washouts and downed limbs everywhere. A lot of that of that cleaned up now.

 

Day 73: I'm losing track of what I do when, but this picture is from today.
In previous days,
-Scooped up all the fire debris from burning the limbs.
-Used the landscape rake on the tractor to smooth out some funny spots.
-A deep scalp with the Spartan 72" rotary with sacrificial blades at 1/4 inch. It moved a bit of dirt too.
-Had to do a leaf blowing as there was hella storm debris from a microburst that bullseyed us on father's day. Damage to all structures on the property. Storm cleanup has been non stop this week.

There is substantial enough goosegrass I'm going to spot spray herbicide soon. Also, I need to research the best preemergent for goosegrass for next year. I know prodiamine works, but im having limited results due to timing.

buy some sand, and do my first sand leveling.

Tonight, I'm pumping water. Gonna get everything a nice deep drink before what's coming. Also proplugged the area I burned off with the tree limb fire.

In weather news, a drought looks to be on the horizon as temperatures are forecasted to soar to over 100 degrees in the coming week. I'll soon be pumping the lawn hard with irrigation and fertilizer to get max fill in while it's bright and hot. Switching to graveyard shift for chores this week.

 

Impressive coverage with 2 pallets. I guess clay has positive aspects when sprigging, holds moisture for much longer than sand.

 

Day 76: Mowed. Had a nice thunderstorm yesterday, so irrigation is covered for the week. Brutally hot temps lately. I am happy with the coverage thus far.

Some other photos.

The large bare spot was from the burn pile. I have it pro plugged.

 

That’s incredible! I was silly wondering if 3 pallets would be enough 😄