Good luck man! Looking forward to watching this. How tough was it to gly your current yard? Looks pretty damn nice as is, but know things will look even better.

 

@jrubb42 I thought it was pretty easy. I used my Chapin 20V backpack sprayer that I haven't used in two years so my walk speed was slightly off compared to my spreadermate, but other than that it was pretty normal. The one exception to that would be holding a piece of cardboard for a border pass.

 

Looks pretty damn nice as is, but know things will look even better.

Thanks! It's currently a nomix and the uneven growth and the lighter appearance of the fine fescue and some other grasses really annoys me and these are the two biggest reasons I am doing the reno.

 

@jrubb42 I thought it was pretty easy. I used my Chapin 20V backpack sprayer that I haven't used in two years so my walk speed was slightly off compared to my spreadermate, but other than that it was pretty normal. The one exception to that would be holding a piece of cardboard for a border pass.

Haha. I guess I meant mentally, killing your grass that you've been working so hard on.

 

@jrubb42 I've backed out in the past from the thought, but I decided early on this year I was going through with it for the reasons listed above so tonight was a breeze mentally. Almost calming to be honest!

 

Good luck with the reno! I'll be following.

KBG will look great!

 

Following closely...
Good luck!

 

I have reserved a dingo+harley rake for 8/1 and will try to flatten out the property and prepare a nice seed bed for seed down that evening or the following day.

My first thought on this, is how many weed seeds could go un-germinated with using a Harley rake the day before seed down? Perhaps tenacity will keep those at bay?

 

I'm not too worried about weeds to be honest. I feel like no matter what I do I will get weeds and it's something I'm comfortable with taking care of down the road once the grass is established.

On the other hand my HOA can be picky and I feel a brown lawn will be less frowned upon than a dirt lot as most of my neighbors have gone dormant recently and they won't know the difference.

 

Mowed the lawn today down to 5/8" and bagged clippings as it's still growing. I want to remove as much material as possible before August. I plan to attempt to get it down to 1/2" before running the Harley rake over it.

I've been capturing an image from one of my cameras every night right around 5P to see the changes and make a crude version of a timelapse.

Images are in order from immediately after gly down through this evening which would be the 4th full day.
















It seems the fine fescue was the first to go with PR following closely behind. The TF and KBG seem to be holding on a bit. Hoping for a good idea of the kill by 7/15 which will be one week since spray. I will target the next spray for next weekend, but will monitor winds and take advantage of the best day for spraying the next round of gly.

EDIT: Added pics for days 5-7

 

Looking forward to see how this turns out! I'm also doing reno this fall with a monostand of Mazama this fall but in MN.

 

Almost all is dead now minus the shadiest parts along the sides of the house and along the back near the foundation. Going to move my next spray up a day or two as I'm watching the weather for the best possible conditions. I edited the above post to include pics of days 5-7 after gly down.

 

Welcome to the Mazama mono crew(is there such a thing?).

I've been only impressed with it so far.

 

Welcome to the Mazama mono crew(is there such a thing?).

I've been only impressed with it so far.

I'm super excited to join the "crew" and can't wait to experience the joy you have this far. At this point I'm feeling like the only thing that worries me is mother nature, other than that I feel confident.

I went to some big box stores the other day to check out some germination blankets for the slopes on the sides of the house and of course they didn't have what it said online and I stumbled upon some Pennington Slopemaster and think I may give that a shot. It's quite a bit cheaper so I may spread it on the whole lawn and give it a shot and a fuzzy feeling for me with my mother nature concerns...I have enough seed to do the whole lawn twice just in case.

Does anyone have experience with using this? Thoughts good or bad?
Pennington Slopemaster

 

Very cool! A fellow Michigander and going mono kbg! Definitely subscribed, curious how this will do in our region.

 

What slope?

 

@g-man my front yard sits higher than the back yard so they sloped it along the side of the house more towards the back. It's enough of a slope that the GM1600 tends to slip if it's not completely dry and in the past when I've seeded these areas I've had issues with the seed moving when watering.

I can get a slope degree measurement and some pics later today if you would like to see them...

 

Oh, ok. I just see a flat front and back.

 

Oh, ok. I just see a flat front and back.

Ah yes, the glamour shots. The sides are rough and I don't give them much attention to be honest. Hoping to change that with this reno.

 

Today the conditions were perfect so I took a break from work and went outside to get the second application of gly+AS down. While still green, the shady areas are just now starting to fade in color and show signs of death. Everything in the sunny areas is pretty toasty and the neighbors are starting to give me nasty looks! :thumbup:

I have the rachio set up to begin watering daily on Saturday to encourage weed growth. This schedule is set to stop a day or two before I get the Harley rake as I want it moist, but not too wet. I also set up my seeding schedules to begin 8/2(will push to 8/3 if I can't get it all done on 8/1). I have 4-5 cycles a day for seeding and have already worked it out with my boss that I will work from home for at least 2 weeks after seed down to monitor the moisture levels and will adapt as needed.

 

Update on progress: I haven't sprayed anymore gly than the 2 apps. I've been fallowing for a couple weeks now and have seen no weeds emerge which got me wondering if my pre-emergent was still holding out. I sprayed .275 oz/M back on March 30. I believe this works out to be the .75lbs/A rate. It was unusually hot this year and I figured it would have wore off by this time. Today marks exactly 4 months since the pre-emergent went down and according to the label that's the time window for control which obviously can be shorter or longer due to weather variables. I'm not too worried overall since I will be running the Harley rake Saturday and chewing up the top 2" or so. I imagine I will have more weed pressure afterwards and a mistake I will learn from should I do this again some day.

On Monday night I grabbed my sunjoe from my buddies place where I have been storing it and raked the yard to remove as much dead material as I could. I'm debating whether or not to run this again 90° to Mondays pattern tomorrow after the yard waste is picked up or just let it ride and see if the Harley rake will ground it up Saturday. I had called 811 and had utilities marked last week and proceeded to pull up the communication lines running to the house. Most of these were .5-1" under the surface and the Harley rake would have destroyed them. They are now 4-6" under the surface. I also redid the front downspout underground drainage I had installed with irrigation a few years back as I was not happy with how they placed it in a low spot creating a pond everytime a decent rain came.

Current state of the lawn:








Plans for this weekend starting tomorrow:
Friday:
1. Power rake 90° to Mondays run? TBD
2. Spread my last bag of Milo from a year or two ago and SOP @ 2lb/M
3. Mark sprinklers with flags

Saturday:
1. Harley rake
2. Add rock to back near foundation to give the pup an area to use as she goes nuclear on the lawn when relieving herself. This will also make maintaining the property easier and allow us to have more plants out back.
3. Seed
4. Roll with GM1600
5. Spray Tenacity + Azoxy (Will use propiconazole after germination has occurred per the label. Azoxy label suggests best time is at seeding)
6. Spread Slopemaster to the slopes on the side of the house at a minimum....depending on how that spreads I will determine if I will do the whole lawn or return the bags to Lowe's.
7. Crack a cold one and water, water, water

I've discussed my renovation in length at work with my boss since April and he has so graciously agreed to let me work from home to monitor moisture levels until I have an established lawn again before I need to report back to the shop. I'm going to start off my watering with 5 minute cycles every few hours and adjust as needed throughout the process.

If the lawn does as well as my test pot I will be extremely thrilled with the Mazama! I am super impressed as I only water this pot once every 3 days, I haven't fertilized at all, and it's been through a couple weeks of 90s and I can only imagine the temperature the roots experienced in the pot must be higher than what they'll experience in the lawn.

 

Good luck, I think you will enjoy the Mazama.

 

@synergy0852

When did you plant your seed in that pot?

I also had an oh sh*t moment on my preM. I put down less, but still nervous in the back of my mind. I do have weeds germination during my fallowing. However with the Harley rake, I'd imagine you are in the clear.

Good luck to you along this very stressful journey. At least it has been for me!!

 

@Slingblade_847 I planted that 5/8 and had first signs of germination on 5/14. I guess that makes it 77 DAG today. It was only a month after germ and we hit 90s for 2-3 weeks and usually we don't hit 90 until late August around here and even then it's only a few days. I honestly thought it would die cooking in that pot which gets full sun all day long.

Not sure why, but I haven't been stressed at all during this. I've been preparing for nearly two years now with work getting in the way and screwing up my plans the last two years so maybe that's why I'm not too stressed. I have a feeling once seed is down is when I will begin to feel the stress as it's out of my hands in a way at that point and t-storm could ruin all the planning and work leading up to it.

 

Good luck. Looking forward to seeing how the Harley rake works out. I might try that next year in my back yard.