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Marks Poa Supina journal

31K views 151 replies 12 participants last post by  ABC123  
#1 ·
2020

Jan - Mar
Iron sulphate for moss. Test different rates as to effects of moss killing, and how much is too much for the fescues at the front, ie makes the grass turn black. ✔ (edit: some info in posts further down this page).
Cut down/move trees.
Gly the celandine in the front fescue grass. ✔
Move black elder tree. Too much shade. ✔ Mar 14th
Start sowing indoor pots of grass seed for plugging. ✔
Core aerate bare areas and sow winter beans as ground cover/green manure for composting and to fix some N in soil. ✔ Feb 14th and 19th.
Aerate, apply lime and top dress with sand and compost from my compost pile. ✔ well, no sand because I didn't get any...

Keep applying lime to adjust my 5.8pH to 6.5pH as per my 2019 soil test (which recommended to apply a total amount of lime at 7t/ha or 700g/m² or 143lbs/M).
Apps done so far: Front area - June 2019 (33lbs/M), Nov 2019 (33lbs/M), March 2020 (60lbs/M).
Back area - June 2019 (33lbs/M), Nov 2019 (33lbs/M), March 2020 (50lbs/M). Retest 2021.

Apr
Gly any celandine in the grass. Plug as required. ✔
Soil temps above 10C, apply Nematrident CT Plus chafer grub nematodes. edit: I've dug a few holes in various spots, it seems like the chafers are destroyed, the nematodes I applied last year have worked. I have noticed leather jacket grubs however, so buy the lj nematodes. https://www.nemasysinfo.co.uk/en/Products/Overview/NEMASYS-LEATHERJACKET-KILLER.html
Spray Triphos seaweed, humic and phosphite.✔
Start with organic slow release fertiliser.
Rates: Maxwell Mycorrhiza 7-2-8. 35g/m² is ½lb/M of N rate. ✔
Continue prepping for a reno of front lawn. I'm attempting to condition the soil with Vitax chicken manure, humic, sand and compost. Will crack on with leveling the area which will be akin to a cycling velodrome as per the slope I'm dealing with here.
Will go with my poa supina/kbg seed mix as this front area is on a heavy soil and north and east facing with limited sunlight. The supina will probably dominate as the conditions favour it, I certainly hope so as thats a helluvalot better than the fescue mixes I've tried there which do not thrive.

May
Top dress back lawn with topsoil and compost and plug edges that failed last year. ✔
Triphos seaweed, humic and phosphite. ✔
Maxwell Advance Generate 12-3-9 ammoniacal based N. 20g/m² is ½lb/M of N rate. ✔
Organic slow release fertiliser. Maxwell Mycorrhiza 7-2-8. 35g/m² is ½lb/M of N rate. ✔
Spoon feed reno grass urea 46-0-0 at 2g/m² (0.2lb/M) dissolve and spray as required.
May 24th PGR 25%AI at 2.5ml/100m². (oops, went with 5ml first app and had phytotoxicity, turned the grass at ground level a squishy yellowey brown)❌

June
Triphos seaweed, humic and phosphite.✔
6X pelleted chicken manure.✔

July
Triphos seaweed, humic and phosphite.✔
PGR 25%AI at 2.5ml/100m² (went with 2ml to be a bit safer, after getting burned in May)

August
Triphos seaweed, humic and phosphite.
PGR 25%AI at 3.5ml/100m²
Start N blitz. ✅

Sept
Triphos seaweed, humic and phosphite.
Crane fly leather jacket nematodes. First adult crane flys hatched Aug 7th. Nematodes go down 2 weeks after peak adult flight time.✅11 Sept
 
#4 ·
9 days for germination! I'm getting excited for the season now...
The bigger pot at front is my crappy soil. Back right is same but topped with ¼" of bagged soil. Back left is bagged soil.

I wondered if my failed germination areas on my 2019 reno was due to my soil (I modified it slightly with sand) but it seems not. (Maybe the rains since then have flushed any contaminants out of the added sand that possibly caused failure). Probably failed due to rotted seed from over watering by hand.



 
#6 ·
Yesterday, sharpened mower blades and mowed at 1.5".
Finished spiking to the front reno area ready for lime app, too wet last week to work on soil.
Turned the compost heap. Compost is looking great, ready for using as a topdress. I'll mix it with some sand to make a 50:50 mix and get it in the holes I've made, after liming.
March 1st, applied moss killing rates of iron sulphate.
February 2020 was the wettest month on record for UK. 288mm or 11.3" rainfall for the month.
 
#8 ·
@ScottW
I use the following:



I go with 4g/m² for moss killing and observe no detrimental effects to the fescue grass. I'll rake out the black moss after a week or so.
I did observe blackening of the ff last season at the 5g/m² rate I did try out, the grass rebounded ok quite quickly.
Bear in mind that this is a 20% iron sulphate product.
I can't do the grams to ounces conversions right now. Hope that helps
 
#9 ·
If I wanted to go with that moss killing rate of 4g/m² over 93m² (1000sqft) then I'd be using 372 grams (13oz) of product. (13oz/M) Again, bear in mind this is a 20% strength product.

Make sure the moss is wet. If necessary, run irrigation first.

If you are going to use a watering can with a fine rose attachment then use about 30 litres of water. In that case that's 3 X 10 litre watering cans with 124g or 4.25oz of product per can. Spread the 3 cans evenly over the whole area.

If you are going to use a sprayer then use about 10 litres of water for the 93m2 (1000sqft). Mix the whole amount of iron sulphate in 10 litres. Spray evenly in both directions.

It is important to be mindful of temperature too. Do not apply at this high moss killing rate in summer. It must be cool (lower than 15C/60F) for this rate.
 
#14 ·
Spent a whole day in the garden. Felt like some kind of karma, spring beating winter, even though I nearly couldn't move by the end of the day haha!


Spread another 80g/m2 (16lbs/M) of chicken manure to the front upcoming reno area to condition the soil.
Dug a few holes to check the soil out, It's not pretty atm. Noticed a few leather-jacket bugs, I'd been thinking they were chafer grubs but after doing a bit more thorough research, I'm now positive about the identification. Will adjust the nematode app accordingly.
Need to call Mr Hulk Hogan to help with the rocks I've found underground, this one is double the size of a basketball.


Forked 4 inch holes over some of the back lawn in anticipation of a lime application.

Decided to spray 2g/m2 of urea 46-0-0 (0.2lb/M of N) on the back lawn. Its been so mild and wet all winter and it looked like it could do with a little help.

Really want a lawn roller...

 
#17 ·
Decided to go for it and spread another 27lbs/M of calcitic lime to the front future reno area. Total of 60lbs/M this month. I'm hoping that 10lbs/M over the recommended app rate won't cause me any problems. Been a bit of an eager beaver here but wanted the majority of the lime done before the reno.
I mowed at 1.5" then spiked more 4-6" holes before the app, then brushed in a 50:50 sand and compost mix. I'll be power raking and levelling after I kill all the celandine and grass with gly.

Soil test in spring 2019 recommended 143lbs/M total lime.

33lb/M in June 2019
32lb/M in Nov 2019
60lb/M in Mar 2020
125lb/M total. Theoretically bringing my pH to around 6.4
 
#20 ·
social port said:
You have been busy already this year. I've also been making some lime applications. It is one of my favorite products to apply because the rate is heavy, so it feels like you are putting down a lot of product.
I have! Best of all is that I'm loving it!
I like applying lime too, it has a nice sweet smell :lol:
 
#22 ·
Applied glyphosphate wherever I saw celandine and blanket sprayed the front area because it's infested good and proper. My concern now is what to do all spring and summer with the resulting bare areas. I will scarify and level. Haven't got a target seed down date yet. Shall I simply fallow and allow weeds etc to sprout? It's on a fairly significant slope, so heavy rain will cause runoff problems potentially.

 
#24 ·
Mowed at 1.25" then put my new homemade lute to work today. Made a mix of 3 parts compost to 1 part topsoil and topdressed. Adding a bit of weight on the lute really made it work well.
Applied 35g/m² (½lb/M of N) of organic Maxwell myco1 afterwards and watered it all in.
Felt good to do that, the compost is nice and dark. I'm already looking forward to using maybe sand next time for more levelling.
Hoping the grass will start filling the gaps soon.



Putting the el cheapo lute to work. It's fab!


 
#26 ·
Chris LI said:
Hey Mark, those thin/bare areas you were concerned about last fall are slowly starting to fill in. You're definitely on the right track with what you've done so far. It's enjoyable to watch your progress. Good luck!
Hey thanks for the encouragment Chris, its much appreciated. I do hope things are improving, regarding the soil mostly, then the grass surely has a better chance to look decent right? I'm patiently doing what I can to amend things and enjoying the work on the way. I know the grass type I chose isn't to everyones taste but lets see how it peforms this year and we'll take another look at the end of the season.

If you look closely, you can see I've cheated a little by cutting wider borders, this has amplified the filling in effect lol. But don't look too closely please :lol: , the bare areas have quite a few weed type grasses, both semi mature and baby size. I'm digging the odd few out on occasion but I believe that once I've defined a new back border I will be mixing some glypho up, hitting a strip on the edge of the border and reseeding.

My wife and I had to use a pick axe to make a few planting holes on that back border because of the rocks underground. Whoever built this place was very lazy and buried so much stuff. We are pretty much finished with planting for now, so next I'm thinking I'll define the border with a few bricks and get some mulch down.