uts journal 2023

It has been a warm winter snow cover was minimal if any. We did get lots of rain which was good to a certain extent. We had a few days with single digit weather and a lack of snow cover def contributed to some browning out.

Start of spring has been a cold one but seems like a good warm spell is coming.

I have always been very lazy about putting down pre-emergnt and last year I paid the price on a young reno. I didn't want to make the same mistake.

This is the current look of the lawn on 4/4. See the difference in the

Front KBG



Side TTTF



The difference is even more stark today 6/6. I will add some pictures tomorrow.

Greencast soil temperatures and forsythia is on the verge of blooming on ky property.



I started out and cleaned up the hundreds on sticks from the maple trees.

I then sprayed my preM for the front (7g/M) and side (10g/M). I will be following up the front with a dithiopyr app in a granular fertilizer that i have to reinforce the barrier especially if we get a heavy rainfall. Right now we are scheduled to have some rainfall tonight 0.2" and if it doesn't I will hit it with irrigation since there isn't any in sight for a week at least and we have some 80F days coming up.

I also fertilized my rhododendrons with some dedicated fert (walmart brand on clearance flf $1/bag) that I gotten for them a few years back. Like usual I'm lazy and used to always remember after they started blooming. Did it well before this time.

Tomorrow I will fertilize the hydrangeas with holytone that I bought from Costco and drop some snapshot 2.5TG.

Shortly I will also try to drop some slow release N with a load of K to start preparing the turf for summer stress and spray some kelp.

The difference in grass

Front bluebank kbg
Watered in the prodiamine that I sprayed. L



Side tttF

Great updates.

And I like the plan to use Prodiamine first and then Dimension as a reinforcement, because Prodiamine is less water soluble/more amenable to photo degradation, and dithiopyr is more water soluble/probably less likely to photo degrade as quickly. In fact, I think these differences might explain the differences in how the residuals of the two interact differently with recently-germinated/non-tillered crabgrass (Dimension supposedly having some potential to kill it, even in granular form). I bet also if we looked at the molecule and chemical characteristics, we would see functional groups that might explain these differences...though I haven't done that yet.

LCN has also promoted the Prodiamine early/dithiopyr later strategy for these reasons.

Also, technically, Prodiamine is probably more of a "root pruner" than dithiopyr, all else equal. But I believe some studies show Dithiopyr having a greater negative effect on roots. My explanation for this: the more water soluble compound has more chance to leach into the root zone and affect roots at critical depths. The less soluble AI will tend to stay in the first inch of soil as binding affinity is greater.

@Green thanks for the nod of confidence, I haven't seen the LCN video but I'm going to push some nitrogen to fill up my some spaces. Might just be foliar nitrogen but we will see.

We got 0.4" of rain in 2 hrs. Nothing horrible to be honest. Everything looks better after the rain. Overcast so pictures came out better.

Nice daffodils



this is my favorite variety.



Side (yes the poa T in the middle has been with me for 2 years now.



Front bluebank still trying to wake up. I mowed at 0.9" and lowered to 0.75" but was only cutting off some brown stuff.






Going to try and plant some annuals early this year. Name of the game is supertunias.

Some of my grass is being really slow to wake up, too. Even on the South side, it's not all green yet. I think this is because we had so much rain this Fall and Winter (18-24 in) that the roots died back quite a bit due to the saturated soil, and now they're regrowing, so the grass can't put much effort into topgrowth yet, until root growth reaches a certain level again. I've only mowed those areas once for the most part so far, and barely took anything off on the areas that are still pretty dormant. Additionally, the heat we had this past week will also in theory cause more energy to partition toward root growth...especially if you did not irrigate during it or fertilize just yet (this being a defense mechanism to help the grass prepare for Summer: pre-stress induction or conditioning).

Basically, this is a good thing that's happening now, because of what happened over Winter. I know the grass definitely feels like it's getting firmer underfoot...evidence the root mass is indeed increasing.

Of course, cultivars will vary, too. I think we both have some that are just slow.

Poa really broke through on the sides. Need to decide if it will be gly or sequential tenacity with some drought.

After the fert and a few inches of rain the front and circle area looks much better. Mowed at 0.75".

Front. Will post better pictures tomorrow morning.




Circle area



I edged a few beds and the sod that I got I transplanted in 2 section around a bed that had lots of poa and I glyphosated the crap out of.




I had transplanted a few plugs and they looked dry and weak a week later even with the rain. I drenched them with a 10-10-10 water soluble fert that i use to water my hanging baskets with, they looked better a couple hours later. I think @Green you have tried feeding with miracle gro liquid right?