Looking forward to seeing the princess 77 renovation. It was between that and Yukon for me and I went with Yukon for this years renovation. Very impressed you killed it with a 2 gallon sprayer. That's dedication.
Princess77 Lawn Reno Thread!!!!!! and mysterious lawn journey
34
I have been putting this off long enough. It is time to start this renovation thread. As some of you may remember, I started my journey with the St. Aug conundrum tread. I don't know how to make the words hyperlink but there it is. https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1398 I am going to recap some of that stuff(more pictures than anything) and bring everyone up to speed.
I have to give credit where credit is due. This all started with LCN's Lawn Domination video and spiraled out of control from there. I watched every video that he had gathering as much info as I could and treating it as gospel and became obsessed with this art form called "Lawn Striping" (Milo is still my favorite outdoor smell). I will say I do miss some of his older stuff but I am glad to see his success and still watch every Sunday. I will get the "Thrower down" tee and maybe a sticker (don't worry TLF swag too). This is where my wanting to push St. Augustine came from. Now, before I loose too many of yall, I started to come across some other characters in the land of youtube. There was a guy who amazed me with his diamond patterns, red beard and the fact he would film from his neighbors lawn. Another who lived in the middle of the mountains and cattle fields but seemed to have a golf course in the middle of it. Finally, some guy who is obsessed with leveling his lawn and is the envy of every cool season guy this winter(no winterization of mower for him). I quickly found out that you cant make St A look like a golf course. This was my new obsession..........
Before all of this, at my last property, we had to fill and re-level the entire lot (1/4 acre) so there was a lot of research put into how and what to do. About 20 trees were cut, stumps ground and river sand was brought in and good ol' contractor blend was put down for learning purposes. Princess 77 was the wish but we didn't want to cut our teeth on something that was so expensive on land that was super shady and flooded all the time (house is raised). Kept it clean and did a little domination there but nothing crazy. This is now a rental property for us.
Moved last May to the current project house. Where do I even begin?
The house was built in 1983 and not much has changed since then. Some stuff here and there on the inside but this is not a home reno thread (I am currently doing a live in reno inside as well, lots of projects). It is roughly 18K square feet of green space. Most of which has not been maintained for the past 10 years, at least, and there were patches of overgrown shrubs and stumps, etc. The last major "action" the lawn has seen was in 2005 with hurricane Katrina where they had lost some trees. Fast forward a couple of years and the stumps have rotted away and left a very un-level lawn.
We moved in and the first task was to get a legitimate privacy fence up. Cleared all the overgrowth, brush, and about a thousand (maybe 15) azaleas, attached the truck to some prehistoric box woods and gave them a good yank. Removed all the old chain link, non cemented spaced picket and farm style fences.
2 days of stumpgrinding later I had something to work with. The fence goes up and now it is time to get going on landscaping and the lawn. At first I wanted to see if I could get a good strong St. A lawn going and be the envy of all the neighborhood. I quickly realized that my riding mower cut to low for St. A and ended up not helping it out too much. The lawn did get better for what it was. The lawn consisted of some St. A, Centipede, Dollar weed, and a crap ton of nutsedge. This is what I call my garden salad. Did some plugging and did alright but I was longing for that wow factor, something was missing. All hope was lost and I was found questioning the very meaning of what it was to have a nice lawn and I found this site which quickly changed my attitude. To see that people were able to produce golf quality lawns amazed and intrigued me. Being an alpha type personality, only this would do. I life in a community that is very heavy on retired aged individuals, who have time to garden, and is on a lake. I need to show them that us young-un's are up to the task of showing them how its done. I no longer was going to hide behind that tall grass and try and stipe at St. A lawn that was a hodgepodge of crap and going to take FOREVER to fully fill in with out sodding, both front and back. I now had a purpose and direction to go. I like a challenge and being different, that's where seeding Princess77 comes into play. Someone has to do it right? plus I like the ability to overseed, just in case.
I came up with a plan, with some of yalls advice, and started putting it into action around last Sept/Oct. I brought in about 60 yards of just fill (organic muck) to build beds and take care of some of my really low spots. Really wanted to rough some stuff in and get a layout together. To keep it all in place I threw down 100lbs of ARG to dominate in winter and keep my sanity. I was glad to see the success of @Ware during the winter months. This will also go down next year as well, to dominate(of course) and keep the back yard from getting muddy from the dogs running on dormant turf. Plus I just think its fun to do and looks great on Christmas.
We had some drainage issues in the back yard so the wife and I put in some ponds (3 total) attached to some French drains and boy has it helped. I have removed 5 demo bags and a my trucks flat bed full of broken concrete and just crap that we have un-earthed from the back yard. I forgot to take a photo.
I have gone full North Korea and activated the full nuclear option to the entire lawn. Death had to come to my beloved Garden Salad lawn And let me tell you, it takes a long time to spray 18K with a 2 gallon hand cannon. Everything is starting to orange up and I will do another follow up application to the green areas this weekend. Once everything meets its end in about 2 weeks I am going to rake up what I can and roto-till the entire property. Remember, nothing has been done to this lawn so it is like walking on concrete due to years of compaction. A simple core aeration will not do. After that I am going to drag everything out and get a nice and level seedbed. You know what comes next.................. seeds, seeds and seeds with some fert of course. The rest will be history......
To aide in my endeavors I was fortunate enough to win one of the JD 220B's from the weeks turf auction. I can't even explain how excited I am to use that bad boy. I turn wrenches so look out in the equipment treads for some questions I may have.
Thanks again to all the help and advice on this forum. I am a member of many and this is one of the best examples of how forums can assist and educate people. My wife hates you guys and this site because it fuels my obsession and she rolls her eyes at the memes and corny jokes.
Updates to come.............. Keep up the Green Fight!
May last year
Cleaning up crap
Fence work
Fill and bobcat work, with some Halloween action
Winter lawn
Pond building
And finally, before the kill
I have to give credit where credit is due. This all started with LCN's Lawn Domination video and spiraled out of control from there. I watched every video that he had gathering as much info as I could and treating it as gospel and became obsessed with this art form called "Lawn Striping" (Milo is still my favorite outdoor smell). I will say I do miss some of his older stuff but I am glad to see his success and still watch every Sunday. I will get the "Thrower down" tee and maybe a sticker (don't worry TLF swag too). This is where my wanting to push St. Augustine came from. Now, before I loose too many of yall, I started to come across some other characters in the land of youtube. There was a guy who amazed me with his diamond patterns, red beard and the fact he would film from his neighbors lawn. Another who lived in the middle of the mountains and cattle fields but seemed to have a golf course in the middle of it. Finally, some guy who is obsessed with leveling his lawn and is the envy of every cool season guy this winter(no winterization of mower for him). I quickly found out that you cant make St A look like a golf course. This was my new obsession..........
Before all of this, at my last property, we had to fill and re-level the entire lot (1/4 acre) so there was a lot of research put into how and what to do. About 20 trees were cut, stumps ground and river sand was brought in and good ol' contractor blend was put down for learning purposes. Princess 77 was the wish but we didn't want to cut our teeth on something that was so expensive on land that was super shady and flooded all the time (house is raised). Kept it clean and did a little domination there but nothing crazy. This is now a rental property for us.
Moved last May to the current project house. Where do I even begin?
The house was built in 1983 and not much has changed since then. Some stuff here and there on the inside but this is not a home reno thread (I am currently doing a live in reno inside as well, lots of projects). It is roughly 18K square feet of green space. Most of which has not been maintained for the past 10 years, at least, and there were patches of overgrown shrubs and stumps, etc. The last major "action" the lawn has seen was in 2005 with hurricane Katrina where they had lost some trees. Fast forward a couple of years and the stumps have rotted away and left a very un-level lawn.
We moved in and the first task was to get a legitimate privacy fence up. Cleared all the overgrowth, brush, and about a thousand (maybe 15) azaleas, attached the truck to some prehistoric box woods and gave them a good yank. Removed all the old chain link, non cemented spaced picket and farm style fences.
2 days of stumpgrinding later I had something to work with. The fence goes up and now it is time to get going on landscaping and the lawn. At first I wanted to see if I could get a good strong St. A lawn going and be the envy of all the neighborhood. I quickly realized that my riding mower cut to low for St. A and ended up not helping it out too much. The lawn did get better for what it was. The lawn consisted of some St. A, Centipede, Dollar weed, and a crap ton of nutsedge. This is what I call my garden salad. Did some plugging and did alright but I was longing for that wow factor, something was missing. All hope was lost and I was found questioning the very meaning of what it was to have a nice lawn and I found this site which quickly changed my attitude. To see that people were able to produce golf quality lawns amazed and intrigued me. Being an alpha type personality, only this would do. I life in a community that is very heavy on retired aged individuals, who have time to garden, and is on a lake. I need to show them that us young-un's are up to the task of showing them how its done. I no longer was going to hide behind that tall grass and try and stipe at St. A lawn that was a hodgepodge of crap and going to take FOREVER to fully fill in with out sodding, both front and back. I now had a purpose and direction to go. I like a challenge and being different, that's where seeding Princess77 comes into play. Someone has to do it right? plus I like the ability to overseed, just in case.
I came up with a plan, with some of yalls advice, and started putting it into action around last Sept/Oct. I brought in about 60 yards of just fill (organic muck) to build beds and take care of some of my really low spots. Really wanted to rough some stuff in and get a layout together. To keep it all in place I threw down 100lbs of ARG to dominate in winter and keep my sanity. I was glad to see the success of @Ware during the winter months. This will also go down next year as well, to dominate(of course) and keep the back yard from getting muddy from the dogs running on dormant turf. Plus I just think its fun to do and looks great on Christmas.
We had some drainage issues in the back yard so the wife and I put in some ponds (3 total) attached to some French drains and boy has it helped. I have removed 5 demo bags and a my trucks flat bed full of broken concrete and just crap that we have un-earthed from the back yard. I forgot to take a photo.
I have gone full North Korea and activated the full nuclear option to the entire lawn. Death had to come to my beloved Garden Salad lawn And let me tell you, it takes a long time to spray 18K with a 2 gallon hand cannon. Everything is starting to orange up and I will do another follow up application to the green areas this weekend. Once everything meets its end in about 2 weeks I am going to rake up what I can and roto-till the entire property. Remember, nothing has been done to this lawn so it is like walking on concrete due to years of compaction. A simple core aeration will not do. After that I am going to drag everything out and get a nice and level seedbed. You know what comes next.................. seeds, seeds and seeds with some fert of course. The rest will be history......
To aide in my endeavors I was fortunate enough to win one of the JD 220B's from the weeks turf auction. I can't even explain how excited I am to use that bad boy. I turn wrenches so look out in the equipment treads for some questions I may have.
Thanks again to all the help and advice on this forum. I am a member of many and this is one of the best examples of how forums can assist and educate people. My wife hates you guys and this site because it fuels my obsession and she rolls her eyes at the memes and corny jokes.
Updates to come.............. Keep up the Green Fight!
May last year
Cleaning up crap
Fence work
Fill and bobcat work, with some Halloween action
Winter lawn
Pond building
And finally, before the kill
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6
Truck getting some
Missed this one with some overgrowth in the back, before and after
Missed this one with some overgrowth in the back, before and after
2
Flagstone path construction in the front yard
Whew! Bit of a dump on that. I just need to keep it up to date now
Whew! Bit of a dump on that. I just need to keep it up to date now
I think he is..... haha. Need some JD 220B backlapping vids from him though or tips in general.........Redtenchu said:
👍🏻FRD135i said:I think he is..... haha. Need some JD 220B backlapping vids from him though or tips in general.........
1 - 20 of 123 Posts
