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ReelWILawn Bewitched, Bluebank, Blue Note KBG Renovation

54K views 305 replies 36 participants last post by  JeffCar26  
#1 · (Edited)
Long time reader, first time poster. I am currently in the process of renovating 6,500 sqft in SE WI to a 100% KBG blend of Bewitched, Bluebank, and Bluenote. The plan is for the entire lawn to be reel mowed. This renovation has been in the plans for over a year and my wife and I have spent pretty much most of our free time since April preparing or completing projects outside which is why it's taken me so long to get everything written down. I plan over the next few days to get caught up with the current situation of the reno but in the meantime I will share and cover everything we did over the course of this season. I hope this can bring at least some value for anyone considering a renovation next year or in the future and learn as I have from the many other members and journals on here. Thanks for reading!

We bought and moved into our new home in April of 2020. Included with the home was a seeded lawn of contractor grade NoMix. With COVID impacting many things at this time, I knew this was going to be temporary. The most important thing for us was not to have a mud yard as we needed a full lawn for our two Great Danes. Over the course of the spring and summer our NoMix came in pretty well and at this time I was maintaining approximately 8,500 sqft of turf.
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Knowing that a full renovation was planned for Fall 2021, I still needed to maintain a halfway decent lawn for a little more than a year. I made the decision to bring in addition topsoil (15 yards) in August 2020 and proceeded to spot level areas and overseed with SeedSuperStore's SS1100 KBG blend and SS9000 Rye blends to help fill in the bare and thin spots. This was a great opportunity to try a few things out as well as start procuring equipment and experiment. If I learned one thing, while spring/summer renovations are possible, it was difficult and needed more attention than fall. Overall, by the end of October of 2020, we had one of the better lawns in our neighborhood.
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Proceeded to spend the rest of the fall and winter months getting ready for our upcoming projects and planning the fall renovation. If all went according to plan the timeline was going to be:

April- garden bed
May- adding additional plantings, buried downspouts, deck project, define new beds/concrete curbing
June- irrigation install, glyphosate lawn mid June
July- add additional topsoil, level, fallow, target seed down July 31st
Aug-Nov - grow in
 
#3 ·
Wile said:
I look forward to following your journey. Pup looks mad like what are you doing to my yard 😂.
Thanks for following along! Yes, the dogs have gotten confused many times over the past year as to when it's ok to be out on the lawn and when they have been banned
 
#4 ·
April 2021 was all about getting back on the lawn after a long winter. We had what seemed like snow cover for the entirety of the winter which caused some snow mold damage like many others in the Midwest. In the meantime, I was getting out there for the first few mows and doing what I could. By the end of April, I had large sections of the lawn starting to look really nice. This was probably the first time I questioned myself, do I really want to kill this?
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Also, built the garden bed for my wife, had it filled and the surrounding area of lawn sectioned off for her gardening
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The other thing we learned last year that moving 15 yards of dirt in in just a wheelbarrow and Gorilla Cart wasn't going to cut it. Based on what we had planned for the year and the future, I purchased a John Deere X354 at the end of April to be used mostly as a utility vehicle. Decided on this model for a couple of reasons. First, I had heard good things about the 4 wheel steering and based on the size of our lot and some tight corners we have I figured this would be useful later on. Second, I was torn about the transmission. I thought I needed the more heavy duty K58 or K57 found on X370/X380's. However, I really wanted the 4 wheel steering and I just could not justify the X384 for the size of my yard and what I was ultimately going to use it for.
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Happy to report that this has been a wonderful machine. We put about 25 hours on it so far, and could not be happier. Our yard is relatively flat and I have been careful to not overload anything I have towed or pulled. So far this has seemed like the correct choice for my needs and property. Now if I lived on a 1/2 acre or more, sure the X384 or really the X500 series would probably be better suited.
 
#5 ·
May 2021 is when some of the projects really started kicking off.

weekend of May 8th & 9th I started to define the bed at the back of our property lines. For this I created what hopefully will be a hedge of boxwoods and arborvitaes. All in total, I dug and planted 14 boxwoods and 9 arborvitaes.
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I also planted another tree in the front yard. Our HOA has a minimum requirement of 3 trees in the front (not sure why with the size of our lots) so I tried to select what would have the least negative impact on the new turf in the long run. I was looking for something that did not grow too tall, not provide too much shade, and did not have an invasive root system. I selected a Tina Crabapple with a average size at maturity to be only 5 feet tall and 6 feet wide. I was able to select this from a local nursery and dig the hole and have it planted just before it it blossomed.
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That following Monday, May 11th all of our downspouts were buried and the contractors arrived to begin construction on our deck. With everyone doing projects, this was difficult to get this squared away let alone get people to talk to and receive initial quotes. Our deck project actually started in October of 2020
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and was completed by end of the week
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Week of May 17th I purchased treated 4x4's, stained them dug two post holes and installed Eley hose reels. Yes, these are expensive, but they are as good as everyone says they are and based on my use so far I don't think I will ever need to buy another hose reel at this property.
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#6 ·
May 26th
another round of leveling all the buried downspouts
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weekend of May 29th & 30th

rented a sod cutter and started removing areas of turf around the house and further define future landscape features
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followed by paver preparation around the deck
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#7 ·
1st week of June 2021

Had 5 tons of 3/4" traffic bond delivered as our base for the pavers and surrounding deck area. With our back yard sloping ever so slightly, about 8 inches from the house to the front most corner of the deck, we had to bring the grade up to make for a smooth transition yet at the same time making sure everything sloped correctly away from the deck and the house. Struggling with absolute perfection made this as mentally challenging as it was physically challenging. During this first week, our contractors arrived and completed our concrete curbing project around the house and our newly defined beds.
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finished moving the rest of the traffic bond, filled the remaining space between the deck and curbing to make a smooth transition from the deck/pavers onto the lawn.
 
#8 ·
June 16th

The day I've been waiting for since last fall. Good bye hoses and above ground sprinklers, hello in ground irrigation :D

This process started in September/October of 2020. I spoke with many different contractors, asked a lot of questions, had a list of expectations, and ultimately received a number of quotes. This ultimately helped compare apples to apples and decide what was the best decision for me. I was honest with myself and realized I would not have the time nor the equipment or experience to do it myself. I did gain a lot of experience on what to look out for and specifically a list of questions to ask. Happy to help anyone who might be deciding to hire out their irrigation install.

Fast forward to now (November 5th 2021) I am still happy with the decision I made and the overall irrigation install. Sure, there were a few things I might have done different or asked for in hindsight but no (or very few) irrigation systems are 100% perfect or efficient. At the end of the day I now have a reliable automatic watering system and just having the ability to water in product with the touch of a button on my phone has been a huge help and a time saver. Having an irrigation system was absolutely critical for this lawn reno

High level specs
Hydrawise Pro HC controller
Total of 7 zones - 5 lawn and 2 drip zones
23 RainBird 5004+PCSAM
1 RainBird 5004+FCSAM
10 Hunter Pro Spray MP Rotators (for the narrow sides of the house)

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#9 · (Edited)
June 19th
sprayed urea at .25lbsN/M
This would be the No Mix's last fertilizing and by the following weekend everything was looking pretty good

June 27th- the day of no return. From here on out we were on the clock and it was non stop reno.
With all the work we had done this spring the yard was not in a good place. One of the reasons for the complete reno is that I felt it was actually going to be a littler easier to completely start over instead of trying to level the yard out again from the irrigation install without smothering the grass and probably multiple seasons of overseeding. But at the end of the day I was never going to be happy with the No Mix and I think many can relate to that.

Anyway, I used the Compare N Save concentrate weed & grass killer (41% glyphosate) for the No Mix kill.

-2.5oz/K
-2.5 oz AMS/K
- 1 tbsp NIS/gallon
-3oz/gallon blue dye

two weeks later I repeated the same process and put the same app down again

be warned, this stuff using the label rate is a very slow kill. It probably took 7-10 days before the lawn started to look a little off. By the time I put the second app down (12-14 days) I started to get a lot of weird looks from the neighbors. All said, it took close to three weeks before there was no longer any green.

Good thing to keep in mind during the renovation is that time can be your friend. We tried to plan for everything and ultimately felt really good about the plan. In hindsight, both my wife and I said we probably could have and should have started even earlier. Where we live in the upper midwest (WI), It's probably better to start early. Things are going to come up or you are going to want to spend more time on other things especially if you are bringing top soil or sand in.
 
#10 ·
Early July 2021
working on a few items while waiting for the NoMix to die.

All the beds around the house filled with landscaping rock
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followed by a scalp and a heavy dethatching in multiple directions
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last but not least many trips with the pull behind aerator. My original plan for aeration did not work out so we came up with plan b. Based on the specs, we targeted around 7% affected surface area. I was busy doing other things so my wife helped drive the tractor around all afternoon each time marking off sections completed along the driving route.
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#12 ·
new to me mower was obtained during this time period. The goal has always been to reel mow the entire lawn and I knew at some point I was going to purchase something, but I was not expecting it to be this summer. I just happened to find this in FB as I was looking for aerators. The price was pretty good, but even better was that this was local to me and it was relatively easy to go and pick up. If it wasn't for that I probably would not have gotten this

specs
2014 JD 220SL
Hours unknown*
11 blade reel

so the story goes, these were purchased new from the dealer by a guy who put in golf greens at his kids' houses and was maintained by a local golf course. It is in pretty good condition and just seemed to not have been used for a while. I'll be sending it to my local JD golf & turf dealer soon to have the reel sharpened and give it a once over since it's there. Overall I have been very happy with it. I am getting by with the 11 blade reel at this point and it does a pretty good job especially if you double cut. My future plan is to replace this with a 220e 7 blade mower. Until then, the addiction is reel ;)

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#13 ·
July 2021

knew we had a lot of leveling work that needed to be done as well as the opportunity to add topsoil back in. Brought in a total of 29 yards of screened top soil. Shipments were brought in loads of 5-8 yards at a time and all of it was loaded and spread by my wife and I via the wheelbarrow, Gorilla Cart, and the X354. If I wasn't committed before, I certainly was now. Took about a week or so to get this done and we were in a good rhythm of hauling topsoil, spreading, rolling, and watering. Goal was to have seed down by the first weekend in August.

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#14 ·
been a little busy the last couple of weeks. I'll try to get this finished and posted.

August 4th - seed down day!

Was originally planning for the last weekend in July, but decided to spend some time to address a few areas and get some last minute details ready. It rained anyway (I should have seen this as some bad foreshadowing). Anyway, the following week, everything was ready and the upcoming weather outlook looked great - sunny, mid 80's....

the great debate - KBG monostand vs blend
Originally, I had thought and planned about doing a monostand of Bewitched; however, after more thought and research I decided to add Bluebank and Blue Note. After more time reviewing the NTEP data from KBG trials in Madison WI, both Bluebank and Blue Note were top performers in my general area. I also wanted a cultivar of A-List approved varieties. The thought of added something that could be sustainable with reduced inputs, more heat tolerant, and decreased water use was something that I became very interested in. While I really liked the idea about uniformity I ultimately played it safe and I personally valued additional disease resistance and the traits that each cultivar brought. I thought about all this over the course of the past year but I ended up with a 3 way blend of compact varieties. With Compact, Compact Midnight, and Compact America covered they should have similar characteristics and blend nicely together. Time will tell and I'll maybe give an update on this after next year's season. With that being said, of course I've questioned myself wondering if I made the right decision. There are tons of lawn journals on here with really outstanding monostands. At the 11th hour I just said, 'hey if a majority of sports fields are blends why not.' I also wanted to do something different. Who knows, maybe my next lawn I will do a monostand. For those trying to decide between a monostand vs a blend, good luck! At the end of the day many of us are using super elite cultivars. With the correct mowing, watering, and fertilizing it should all look pretty good regardless.

Bewitched, Bluebank, and Blue Note were mixed evenly by weight and each cultivar represents about 33%. I ended up spreading 15lbs of my KBG blend over the 6,300 sqft. This came out to 2.38lbs/M as my seeding rate. Why 2.38lbs/M? Just because it was easy to mix everything and that's what it came out to. No reason to really add more than 2.5 or 3lbs. I would recommend, as have others, to stay around the 2lbs/M.
 
#15 ·
As for seed down day, it was a long day.

The previous couple of days I sprayed RGS at 6oz/M & Hydretain at 9oz/M
as mentioned above, my KBG rate was 2.38lbs/M and I spread this in my drop spreader with Milo and a little bit of Kinder Blend Starter from Seed Super Store all mixed together. Knowing I was not going to be walking on the newly seeded area for 3-4 weeks I liked the idea of using slow release/methylene urea as my nitrogen source. I also wanted to make sure there was enough phosphorus and potassium for the new seedlings. Having done a soil test earlier this year, the correct amounts of what my soil needed in terms of phosphorus and potassium was planned for and targeted to be used at seed down and during the grow in. Seed moist was also added to my KBG mix at double the rate .32oz/1lbs.
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Once the seed was down, I rolled it in and sprayed Tenacity at the 6oz/acre rate or .138oz/M

peat moss was also spread over the entire lawn with my peat moss spreader. I also had a number Seed Aide bags that I used throughout the lawn. The plan was that this was to be hand spread near all the irrigation heads and any areas with a little slope. My next door neighbors had sod installed earlier this summer along with hardscape work. The contractor ended up raising their grade a little bit and with no vegetation cover in my lawn, their watering had to run somewhere. Because of this I put down the Seed Aide along the entire property length. But how to evenly spread the Seed Aide? I ended up putting it in my peat moss spreader and it worked pretty good. It might have been a little heavy, but it was even and much easier to do then by hand.
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after all the cover was down, I triggered the irrigation and started to soak the lawn. The dirt was very dry at this point and was drying very quickly. Watching and playing with the irrigation over the next few days, I noticed it probably took at least a full day, maybe two, of watering before all the dirt was completely saturated. I ended up running all the zones 6 times a day but only for 2-3 minutes at a time. Any longer seemed to create an excess of water. This watering schedule worked for me and my application. Best advice is start low, watch, and adjust. The watering schedule will also need to be adjusted based on a number of factors.
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#18 ·
The Washout(s)
up until seed down day on August 4th, pretty much everything went according to plan. Everything from early March to early August went more or less exactly how it was planned with only a few minor setbacks. Checking the long range weather, everything looked good on August 1st. That all changed, +3days from seed down. With little rain the entire summer, we received about 5" in 6 days. Unfortunately, this was not the all day drizzle, but the very heavy 1" in a half hour kind. Luck had been our our side the entire Spring & Summer. Now, with everything planned to near perfection, we got hit with the center of every thunderstorm over the next week
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For the entire week, it was a major storm after another. After the first one on August 7th, there was major damage to the entire seeded area. By the second storm, everything was gone. There was absolutely nothing left. The worst part is the forecast was calling for these type of storms every other day so there was no point in attempting to start over and re do everything. I just had to wait and watch everything washout until it was all done - not to mention wait a day or two after it was all over for the dirt to firm up before I could walk on it.

Aug 7th
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Aug 10th
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What the winds were like in and around the surrounding areas
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Original seed down day was August 4th. It would be +10days (August 14) before I would be able to get back to repairing everything and starting completely over. This was a major set back. Anyone growing KBG knows how important those first couple of week are and I would be playing catch up by about 2 weeks for the rest of the fall.
 
#19 ·
Aw man. I dove right into this journal, kept scrolling and reading, got to the end. Said to myself, "ok, page 2...". No page 2? That's it?! What a cliff hanger! Hope all is well, can't wait to hear more about this reno!

I have a dog and I'm a little weary about spraying glypho to properly nuke my yard. Any advice? How long did you keep 'em off it right after spraying? Did you water it in the next day? Did you fallow? I'm fighting poa, so I'm planning on hitting it a couple times. Thanks!
 
#20 ·
The Lawn Monk said:
Aw man. I dove right into this journal, kept scrolling and reading, got to the end. Said to myself, "ok, page 2...". No page 2? That's it?! What a cliff hanger! Hope all is well, can't wait to hear more about this reno!

I have a dog and I'm a little weary about spraying glypho to properly nuke my yard. Any advice? How long did you keep 'em off it right after spraying? Did you water it in the next day? Did you fallow? I'm fighting poa, so I'm planning on hitting it a couple times. Thanks!
Thanks for reading @The Lawn Monk ! Sorry, the cliff hanger was not meant to be intentional :lol: I was much busier than I thought, but I am planning on getting this journal up to date hopefully by next weekend. I have everything documented and it was a rollercoaster... still is.. (now that's a cliff hanger).

I ended up doing two rounds about 14 days apart and the dogs were not allowed on the lawn for 48 hours after spraying which was probably overkill. I took a quick look at the label this evening, but did not see a restricted entry interval. The label does say that it's completely waterproof after 24 so I used that as the REI and just doubled it to be safe and made sure everything was dry before I opened everything back up. Now what did I do for those 48 hours and during the whole reno? Well, we are pretty lucky. First we live in a developing neighborhood that is almost 100% complete at this point; however, there were still a number of open lots and areas that were not sold or behind on digging schedules. Our neighborhood and developer also greatly prioritize open greenspace. In total, I think there is something like 100 acres of open space to enjoy which includes five miles of walking paths. Our dogs really enjoy walks so they did a majority of their business on those walks. The walking paths are also arranged so that they go through open areas and around the neighborhood - no one's personal property or grass goes right up to the paths. We are also in the process of training our dogs to go to the bathroom on the landscape rocks around our deck area. We specifically made these areas a little larger just for this purpose. As of today, one of the dogs is really good about going there.

Yes, I did fallow, but only for a about a week. In hindsight, I would have liked to fallow for two maybe even three weeks and done as many gly apps as needed. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post, but If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have killed the lawn 2-3 weeks earlier instead of at the end of June. My main problem was after the major washout, I am sure all or most of the Tenacity washed away. I put down Tenacity at the 6 oz/acre rate or .138oz/m and there was no way of telling what, how much, or any tenacity was left. As a result, especially in the area where I had major problems with running water is where I saw the most weed pressure. Once I could start walking on the grass - If I was not mowing, fertilizing, I was hand picking anything that did not look like KBG. The second app of Tenacity did help, but I spent a lot of time hand pulling weeds and there were some very small poa plants in there
 
#22 ·
Thanks for all the info! I'm definitely gonna be doing what you were doing with the double waiting period. I'm always iffy when I spray things down around my fur son, but like you said, just add a little extra time and no worries. I'm gonna be using your advice as a guide this spring/summer. I wanna fallow completely and leave little to chance weed-wise... it would be ignorant to think "leave nothing to chance", especially in lawncare hahah. Thanks again!
 
#23 ·
g-man said:
The REI is 12 hours. I would avoid the dogs walking after any dew just to be super safe.
Thanks for the comment and confirming the the REI. I was looking it up just as I saw your post. We can never be too safe for our four legged friends and avoiding walking on the dew is a good recommendation. This is essentially what we practiced subconsciously.
 
#24 ·
I am in the process of updating everything. Had a busier winter than originally expected. Anyway, this is what I was dealing with 3 days after seed down for a week and a half. As the weather and forecast drastically changed, I just had to wait it out.... for 10 days. Storm #3 on 8/10/21. Looking back now, to come away from this without a mud pit this spring I am pretty happy. More to come soon.

[media]https://youtu.be/NIy_a8xKnP0[/media]
 
#26 ·
jskierko said:
That video definitely triggered my PTSD from my reno last fall, such an anxiety inducing situation!
I feel like I re live this every time it rains. This whole renovation had been planned for close to a year out and until these storms, almost everything went perfect. Even with what I thought was pretty good preparation, there were still something out of my control.

From a supply standpoint, I was pretty good. I had planned for some washout, but was not expecting a week plus of heavy storms that would require me to start pretty much from zero. Now, I had applied a little amount of slow release starter fertilizer, a little Milorganite, and tenacity originally with the first seeding. Most likely, nothing remained; however, there is now way to know what got washout out or exactly how much. Respecting labels, I moved forward with only putting seed down.