[mrigney]

Figured I'd start a journal for the season since everyone else is doing it. Peer pressure and all. Quick backstory. Bought my current house 4 years ago. Spent the first 3 years watching my backyard slowly go downhill and turn into mostly weeds.

Here's a picture from April 2015


April 2016


Finally decided enough was enough and decided to resod the back last year on Memorial Day weekend with Celebration. By late June, things work looking pretty good, I thought.


Then I found this forum (or better, @Ware actually tracked me down and invited me). Which of course led to buying sprayers, Prodiamine, Celsius, and finally over the winter a McLane. So this year time to "get serious." Just finished scalping the back down to 5/8" with the Mclane. So it's currently looking nice and trimmed. Now waiting on some growth.



Meanwhile, my front yard has always looked decent. Emerald Zoysia. But, the more I looked at it last year, the more I realized that it probably hadn't been dethatched in decades. So, have a dethatcher lined up for this weekend and plan on getting to work on it. Right now, it looks like this:



Looking forward o tracking progress over the course of the year!

 

[Colonel K0rn]

Having never seen Zoysia in person, I can only assume that they look pretty close to each other in the yard, but I have learned that Zoysia isn't as forgiving when it comes to scalping.

That's a cool looking fort!

 

[mrigney]

Neat story on the fort. It was here when we bought the house. My kids (6,4, 8 months) love it...well, the 8 month old doesn't care, but the other kids do. Was out for a walk one day and neighbor's son two houses down stopped us. He's probably in his early 20s. Asked if we liked the fort. Turns out, it was his fort when he was a kid. When he outgrew it, they moved the fort from his yard to our yard for the previous owner's kids to play in. So it has now been at multiple houses in the neighborhood and has been played in by at least 3 families worth of kids.

@Spammage has been giving me advice on the zoysia. Going to dethatch before goina any lower. INterested to see what it looks like after the dethatching.

 

[Movingshrub]

Did you get it from robin rents? Bagging or non bagging version?

Has your zoysia started to green up? I am assuming your Bermuda is still brown.

 

[mrigney]

@Movingshrub Yes, got it from robin rents. Non-bagging, 22". Zoysia has started to show a little bit of green, bermuda has a tiny bit of green if you look close (see pictures below).

Did some major work on the front yard this weekend. Dethatched and then did the spring scalping mainly following advice from Spammage. For a starting point in the front yard, here are a few pictures of how it looked from last year, including some plugs I took last year.




That last picture is the end of the summer after I had taken the zoysia as short as my rotary would allow and it had mostly recovered. First three are the state of the zoysia pre-scalping last summer.

So, rented a dethatcher and made three passes. Two perpendicular, than a diagnoal. Looked like this when I finished.




The next day, after I recovered from dethatching, went ahead and took the reel to it and brought it down to 11/16" to start the season. Will look to maintain at an 1", I think.

Also of note this week, the bermuda is showing sings of life.

 

[Movingshrub]

Did you manually rake up all of the thatch afterwards? Any thoughts on the machine you rented?

Also, hope you didn't experience any damage from the storms. It looked like the north end of the county had it worse than the center of HSV city.

 

[mrigney]

Not a lot of reference points for the machine. First time I've dethatched. I thought it worked well. It was missing a few minor pieces (which has been a problem w/a couple of things from robin rents) like a cotter pin, but didn't really affect functionality.

For cleanup of the thatch, I took my rotary and bagged the vast majority of it. That honestly worked way better than I anticipated. Made a pass w/the rotary after each direction of dethatching. Got probably 90% of material that way, then went back and raked up the rest. Hardest part was maneuvering the dethatcher. Pretty heavy device (150#? Maybe more?) and not self propelled. So that was a workout. Did my 2.5k front area in an afternoon, though.

No damage here in south Huntsville. seems like everything was north or south (Hartselle/Cullman over to Arab). Hope you escaped damage as well.

 

[mrigney]

Survived one more really late freeze in North Alabama overnight last night. April 8 might be the latest freeze since I"ve lived here (2009), although I'd have to check. Spent yesterday evening trying to cover up my fruiting trees/bushes (plums, blackberries, blueberries) and get my roses covered. I think I succeeded in that. Going out of town for work this week, so wanted to make sure to get everything cut even though it probably doesn't need it. Cut the front at 1-1/8" and the back at 11/16". Getting ecent green-up with the Celebration now and really excited with the dark green color that it has. Expect things to really accelerate this upcoming week as temperatures are supposed to be up near 80 by the end of the week. Here's the current status of the yard.

Front:


Back:



Also edged most of the driveway. It needed it. Need to edge the curb but ran out of time today.

 

[mrigney]

Been busy over the last month. Need to update this for my own good. Pictures coming later b/c it looks like postimg.org is down right now. Yard has greened up significantly over the last month. However, at the same time, have also been invaded by some sort of weed...dogfennel, maybe swinecress. Unsure. Bottom line is I need to get some Celsius ordered and blanket spray the backyard. This is showing me the importance of pre-e (didn't get any down in the fall, just got some down around March 1). Grass has a few spots left that aren't green yet, but it is getting there. Expected it to finish green-up really quickly now that we're warm here. The areas that have greened up look/feel great. Can't wait to get Celsius sprayed and the lawn greened up completely.

 

[mrigney]

So over the last 10 days, we've had our first warm spell of the year. First temps over 85, first time we've had morning lows in the 60s. Even have hit 90 the last 6 days. First picture here is from May 5.



These pictures are from today after I cut at 11/16"

https://postimg.cc/image/8xg4izdbd/

Also, broadcast spray Celsius this past Saturday (May 12).

One more note of interest. Last year when I was sodded, I came up about half a pallet short of what I needed. Left a strip several feet wide along the back of my yard between the grass and a landscaped area along the fence. Figured I'd just let it fill in on it's own. With the green-up, you're able to see the progress for the first time really.



Ignore the weeds for now. With no grass back there, it's been weed heaven. Hoping the Celsius will knock it out. But, let's talk about the march of the bermuda. You can see the patch of sand in the middle of the picture. That's an extra bag or two I had from another project that I threw down in a low spot out there a while back. The left edge of that sand abuts to the edge of the sod I installed. You can see that the bermuda has now spread well to the right of the sanded area. Probably a good 3'. I'm expecting that it will probably make it to the border of the landscaped area by the end of this season. Bermuda is amazing stuff.

 

[mrigney]

Watching the Celsius do it's thing is an awesome site. Also cut again today (11/16"); hoping I can make it until Friday morning which is the next time I'll cut (work trip).

May 19