Things don't look much different from my last update, except that the grass seems to be beginning to grow again (not as evident in the photos, but is in real life). What really irks me are the remaining patches of the ugly lighter-color, faster-growing grass. Perhaps this isn't tall fescue and I have misidentified it? I very open to that possibility, but it sure looks like it. Maybe I was too aggressive in thinking it would take only two applications?
In any case, the question now is what to do next? A third application? Pull the rest by hand? Or another option is to use RoundUp. I can't find it now, but when I was researching options a while back, I found a forum post with a rather intriguing solution: take advantage of the fact that tall fescue grows faster and use a sponge to apply RoundUp to it. I like the idea, but wonder how feasible it really is in practice.
One thing I must say, the area that I pulled by hand is looking excellent these days. Perhaps part of the reason is because I haven't applied the growth-stunting herbicide to it, but also there isn't any tall fescue that I can see in it and the Kentucky bluegrass has filled in the patches where I pulled it up - it makes me feel good about the tedious effort I put into that.
At this point, I'm leaning toward giving the grass a rest from the herbicide and perhaps giving the RoundUp on a sponge approach a try. I'm going to give it a week or so and see how things start looking as the herbicide wears off a bit more. Overall I'm very satisfied with how things have turned out, and the lawn is in a much better state now for going forward with my grand plan. There really isn't that much tall fescue left - it is sparse and the larger areas that were causing the obvious color contrasting with the new grass is now dead and that problem appears to be fixed. Perhaps the remaining tall fescue is a variety that the herbicide isn't as effective against, or maybe it's not tall fescue at all! Either way, one way or another I'm going to kill it.
So would you recommend the Certainty route? I have quite a bit of tall fescue in my front yard and I am looking for a good way of getting it under control.
ReplyDeleteHi Ben, That's a good question... It obviously didn't do the job well as I was hoping in 2 applications, but it definitely helped and eliminated plenty (as evidenced by the many bare patches). I really wonder what a third application would have done. The grass that is left could very well be some other type of grass - I'm certainly not expert. But to answer your question, yes, I would recommend it and even though I'm not fully satisfied, our lawn is far better off than before, plus, I have really high standards :) If you're interested in trying it, I'd be happy to share some with you - I have tons of it left.
ReplyDeleteThat would be fantastic! We bought our home as a foreclosure so it wasn't super well maintained when we got it. The last couple of years we have focused on doing interior improvements, but this year we have really focused on the outside and the tall fescue (which I had mistaken for crab grass until I did some research recently) has always driven me crazy! I was looking for ways other then just digging it out (which I attempted but it just grew back after a month or two) that could help me get rid of the stuff! Anyways, I came across your blog (very nice job by the way, I appreciated your detail) and it made me wonder whether or not I should pony up the $100 bucks to buy an herbicide that might or might not solve my problem. Anyways, if you would like to share some, I would be really grateful, I live in Utah so I am not sure how you would want to work that out (and if you don't I totally understand). Maybe we should continue this conversation via email (so its a little more private :-)). Thanks again for your posts!
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