Since it had been over a week since I last mowed, I decided to give it cut as it was looking rough from all the dragging and spots were starting to grow a little long. It's starting to fill in slowly as I haven't fertilized it in a few weeks as I don't really want a flush of growth as that can lead to other issues. I decided to drop it to .40" as that is where I would like to keep it for the rest of the season or at least until it all thickens up and matures. Hopefully if things keep going like they are I plan on spraying it with PGR next weekend to help it tighten up some more. It was nice to mow and not have the mower bounce all around and actually put down some OK stripes

 

*COUGHCOUGHCOUGH*

Oh excuse me, sorry, didn't mean to disturb the quiet. Since I'm here though @Mightyquinn according to the last 25 pages I just read you guys put that Rubber mulch down in 2017/2018. I typically put down 25-2yd bags of Cedar Mulch a year. How is that stuff holding up, would you do it again?

 

*COUGHCOUGHCOUGH*

Oh excuse me, sorry, didn't mean to disturb the quiet. Since I'm here though @Mightyquinn according to the last 25 pages I just read you guys put that Rubber mulch down in 2017/2018. I typically put down 25-2yd bags of Cedar Mulch a year. How is that stuff holding up, would you do it again?

LOL!!!!

Yes, it's still going strong and I have ZERO regrets. It's so nice not having to re mulch every year. Once it settles and locks in it doesn't really move too much either. I do get an occasional piece out in the lawn but since it's rubber I don't really worry about it with the reel mower as hitting it doesn't do any harm. The rubber smell goes away after awhile and you don't ever smell it.

 

LOL!!!!

Yes, it's still going strong and I have ZERO regrets. It's so nice not having to re mulch every year. Once it settles and locks in it doesn't really move too much either. I do get an occasional piece out in the lawn but since it's rubber I don't really worry about it with the reel mower as hitting it doesn't do any harm. The rubber smell goes away after awhile and you don't ever smell it.

Well damn. I was in Lowes last week and saw that stuff and it was like $9 a bag, and I was like, yeah no way that would be worth it. Thanks for shattering my dreams. Now I'm going to have to think about the mistake I made all year until it's time to remulch next year and swap over.

Thanks.

 

If it was me, i would start stock piling the stuff over the winter. Go buy a few bag here and there over the Winter and then when Spring arrives you have a good stash to start with and you didn't have to break the bank all at once.

This is actually a really solid suggestion, unfortunately there are two problems with this approach:

1. The BOSS would kill me if I tried to stay any more crap then the 10lbs of potatoes I already have in the 5lb bag.

2. If/When I get around to starting a lawn journal, you all will get to see that If I start a project I have to finish it, because if I don't something will break or I'll "oh squirrel" and move onto something else and completely forget about it.

In all seriousness though, with our discount at lowes we auto get the 6 months no financing instead of the 5%, hence 3 or 4 times a year we'll go buy a bunch of stuff we can't afford then pay it off before the interest hits. Lowes hasn't taken our card away yet and it's back at $0 balance (well was before last weekend) so it must be working for us :lol:

 

Looking on point...nice color of course. You gotta love the lower demands too.

Excited to follow along the rolling, it's something I want to do just to get 'next level' smooth

 

Looks like a dark green carpet!

 

Yeah, I'm really enjoying how dark green it gets with minimal inputs. It would be a challenge to get 419 this dark without excessive growth. I still think this is the perfect grass for reel mowing.

 

Ok, haven't really updated this in awhile. I did run into some issues after the sanding as there were some areas that just weren't responding well to water and fertilizer like the rest of the lawn so I was starting to get worried. I couldn't quite figure it out at first as I was going through all the possible things that it might be so I started with the basics of fertilizer and water and that didn't really seem to do anything so I finally was pretty sure it could be a fungus but wasn't sure what kind as it was something I hadn't really seen before as it was affecting large areas of the lawn but was spread out over the whole lawn. I was also getting a ton of mushrooms in the lawn too which I thought was strange since I hadn't added any organic matter to the soil and had pretty much removed anything that would have caused them. I think I had Anthracnose as most of the symptoms matched that description. So I sprayed Propiconazole and Chlorothalonil together at max rates and after a few days the lawn started waking up again and was responding to fertilizer applications and water. All the mushrooms were gone to which I was more than happy about. THIS is the reason I DO NOT like mushrooms in the lawn as I take them as a warning sign as to things are NOT right in your grass.

I also had a weed outbreak in the lawn during all of this too so I sprayed the Celsius/Certainty/Prodiamine combo which took out some of the weeds but realized after everything else started to die off that I had a major infestation of Goosegrass so I reached out to friend that hooked me up with some MSMA which seems to have taken care of most of the Goosegrass. I applied the Prodiamine to get me through until Fall and prevent any other weeds from growing. The lawn is finally thickening up now and I am glad to be over that hurdle as I was really concerned for a little bit.

I am currently cutting it at .5" and I am on my 3rd round of PGR. Just using T-Nex alone really slows the growth down on TifGrand as I can almost get away with cutting once a week and barely fill up 1.5 grass catchers full of clippings. My plan right now going forward is just to maintain what I have for the rest of the season and then get a soil test done once it goes dormant for the Winter. I am definitely going to need to do another sand leveling next year but I also plan on incorporating an aeration/asphalt roller project in the Spring as I think that will go a long way to getting everything smooth and level and to take down some minor high spots in the lawn too. I'm also getting low on fertilizer so I plan on taking a trip on Friday to stock up for the next few years.

Did you take any pictures of what the Tifgrand looked like when you were addressing what you thought was fungus. I've seen my Tifgrand do strange things, and then like magic it clears itself up. Also its such a slow grower that when I buried mine in sand after the resod last year it took a long while to recover. I'm very curious though about what your turf was looking like, was it short of shedding?

 

Sorry, I did not take any pictures. Just look up the symptoms and pictures of anthracnose and that's pretty much what my lawn was doing. It wasn't over the whole lawn but in large patches. The leaves were brown but didn't really have any lesions on them. Yeah, it was taking forever for the grass to fill in some areas after the sanding which caused me to start thinking of what could be wrong.

 

Sorry, I did not take any pictures. Just look up the symptoms and pictures of anthracnose and that's pretty much what my lawn was doing. It wasn't over the whole lawn but in large patches. The leaves were brown but didn't really have any lesions on them. Yeah, it was taking forever for the grass to fill in some areas after the sanding which caused me to start thinking of what could be wrong.

I've seen a little bit of that in the Tifgrand

 

I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.

I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.

 

I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.

I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.

Did they have any other of the 20-20-20 or water soluble fertilizers? I've been using that Southern Ag with excellent results but the farm supply I found it at only had the one bag in stock. I stopped by another store in Wilmington and they had a Ultra Sol 20-20-20 that looked similar on the label.

 

I think that's the only kind they had but you would need to call to be sure. I do believe they had plenty of it though.

 

@Mightyquinn you gotta paint that fence! your grass is unreal

 

@Mightyquinn you gotta paint that fence! your grass is unreal

Thank You!!

Yeah, it's on the list of things to do but I am thinking about replacing most of the fence as it's starting to show it's age quite a bit.

 

I just sprayed mine...quite satisfying and shockingly easy! But ya...if you are getting a new one then I totally get it

 

I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.

I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.

I need to do the same. I need to hit this place up for some Potassium Nitrate. I have called around everywhere around Fayetteville and no K products. This is hard to believe considering the sand, and EVERYONE is probably very deficient in K.
I've been ordering SOP online for about 65 bucks for a 50 lb bag shipping included. Which isn't horrible, but it's a PITA to mix and spray. Anything over 2 lbs in the sprayer and it bogs it down. It's not very soluble. And you have to use Hot Water.
That new grass is looking awesome!

 

I went to Southern Seeds in Middlesex, NC this morning and restocked on fertilizer as I was getting low and this haul should last me a good 2-3 years. I just wish Southern Seeds were closer (it's 1.5 hour drive each way) but you can't beat their selection and the prices weren't too bad.

I ended up getting 3 50lb bags of Sprayable Urea ($23 a bag), 3 50lb bags of Potassium Nitrate ($40 a bag) and 2 25lb bags of sprayable 20-20-20 ($28.33 a bag). I know I spent a good amount of money but now I don't have to worry about fertilizer for the next few years.

I need to do the same. I need to hit this place up for some Potassium Nitrate. I have called around everywhere around Fayetteville and no K products. This is hard to believe considering the sand, and EVERYONE is probably very deficient in K.
I've been ordering SOP online for about 65 bucks for a 50 lb bag shipping included. Which isn't horrible, but it's a PITA to mix and spray. Anything over 2 lbs in the sprayer and it bogs it down. It's not very soluble. And you have to use Hot Water.
That new grass is looking awesome!

It's definitely worth the trip up there as they have everything you could think of and it was a pretty painless process. I was probably in and out of there in less than 10-15 minutes as I knew exactly what I needed. Yeah, finding SOP around here is almost impossible let alone some water soluble stuff. Have you tried looking at Nutrien AG, they have one in Salemburg and another larger one in Clinton.

 

MQ,
What rates are you spraying that Potassium Nitrate at?

 

1lb/M every 2-4 weeks

 

Thank you. I just made the journey up to Southern Seeds today. Your invoice helped since it had all the product #s on it. I was in and out in 10 minutes. That place is awesome. I just wish I knew everything they had in their warehouse.

 

Thank you. I just made the journey up to Southern Seeds today. Your invoice helped since it had all the product #s on it. I was in and out in 10 minutes. That place is awesome. I just wish I knew everything they had in their warehouse.

You can ask to walk around and see what they have, that's what I did the first time I was there. I ended up getting additional things that I saw that I wanted but now I know what I want so it's just as simple as calling before going up there :thumbup:

 

@Mightyquinn Hey MQ…how's the lawn looking?

I always enjoy your updates!

I'm sure that TifGrand is looking awesome!

 

@Mightyquinn Hey MQ…how the lawn looking?

I always enjoy your updates!

I'm sure that TifGrand is looking awesome!

I might do an update on Sunday. I did a mini scalp about 2.5 weeks ago but it has recovered quite well. We have only had .11 inches of rain since the 23rd of August.