Aeration and possible fertilization

I got an offer to have my lawn aerated from what looked like a teenager-father's summer job/business or something. They were aerating my neighbor's lawn who had recently done some overseeding. I was out doing some work at the time and they came over and offered to aerate our lawn. They offered to do the front yard for $25, which was too good of a deal to pass up so I didn't pass it up. Although it's a bit late in the season for aeration (should be done with grass is growing vigorously), I thought the lawn still had enough growing left to do. The boy did a good job.

My memory is fuzzy, but I might have also fertilized again at this time. I can't remember for sure. Wish I had kept track better (what this blog is for) - oh well, life happens.

(Note: this is a back post, posted on 3/3/2012, date of event guesstimated)

Germination!

I looked today and sure enough I saw many young little grasslings sprouting in most of the areas that I put down seed. Sorry, no photos (not much to see anyway unless you're really close)! So that means it took about 1 week since I planted - not bad!

Fertilization

I put down some fertilizer on Sunday. I ended up putting roughly 6lbs of Endure Premium Lawn Food Plus (same as I've used before) on the whole lawn, but with less on the areas where I planted seed. On those areas I put roughly 2 lbs or so of Scott's Starter Fertilizer which I had lying around from previous trials. I watered it all in this morning with a bit of irrigation. I'll be irrigating as much as I need to to keep the soil moist. So far no signs germination!

So, this is what happened earlier this year in the backyard (I believe it was around late June)... As I mentioned I successfully fertilized the backyard back in early May. Despite the fact that we had not had much rain, I had been irrigating 2-3 times a week. I noticed the grass starting to get more yellow again and die off a bit like before, so I thought "hey, maybe it just needs some more fertilization, after all it's been growing pretty vigorously" (however, notably there wasn't that ring of happy grass near the dog's "area"), so I put down some fertilizer. I don't recall how much (probably .75lbs/1000 sq. ft.), but it was some of this stuff:

Espoma Organic Lawn Food

18-8-6 (11% slow release N)

Soon after the lawn began dying off even more, and I was kicking myself. Then, to make matters worse, a few weeks later came the watering ban.

By the end of the summer, the whole backyard was completely brown. I wish I had taken some photos, but you can see the damage after in my previous post.

Needless to say I won't be putting any fertilizer down in the backyard this fall :)

Planting time!

Wow, it has been a while - a whole season in fact!

But you didn't miss much. Here's the summary: drought.

From May 2nd through August 3rd we received a total of 2.06" of rain. Also during this period we had extreme heat with 9 days over 100 degrees and 42 days in the 90s. To make matters worse, on July 13th a watering ban went into effect, prohibiting watering of lawns and limiting watering of plants. Up until that point I was irrigating about 2-3 times per week, but even that wasn't enough to keep the whole lawn green, particularly the areas that got the most sun. This was particularly devastating for the backyard since supia bluegrass doesn't like it dry, and I had just planted the fine fescue earlier in the year (this is why fall is the preferred time to plant).

Since then, however, we have received 13.64" of rain, enough to prompt the lifting of the water ban on September 5th!

But the damage is done. The backyard lawn now looks like it looked back in March, worse actually. Here's a look as of today:

It's not a pretty sight, but I'm hoping for a big comeback like what happened this spring as some of the bluegrass survived. I'm not planning on do any renovations in the backyard for this reason, so we'll see! I must admit that this damage probably wasn't entirely due to the drought - I fertilized it earlier in the season (before the watering ban), which it did not like (whoops)... but I'll save that story for another post.

The front yard fared much better than the back, but not without some damage. Here's a look:

Possible grub damage

Possible grub damage

This patch was killed by leaf rust

As a followup to the fungicide application back in May, it seemed to take care of the problem and I haven't noticed anymore since, which is great! However, it did do a number on the grass it infected and most of it died, so the patch noted above can't be blamed on the drought - it died well before.

The rest of the yard isn't looking too shabby:

As noted, some of the damage might actually have been from grubs. I'm not certain it was necessarily the drought since the majority of the rest of the grass went dormant and survived just fine.

Now what you don't see in these photos is the seed I put down on Thursday in those dead areas. I used the same approach for planting it that I used with the fine fescue in the spring:

1. With a hard-toothed rake, I removed as much of the dead grass as possible, working up the soil beneath as much as possible
2. Then I put down the seed, just eyeballing the amount. I'd say I probably put down about 3 lbs.
3. Next I used a hand-held tiller to work the seed into the top layer of the soil where it was feasible (basically just the most damaged areas where the soil was more exposed)
4. Finally I pat it down and walked over the areas to pack the loosened soil back down (and then 2.79" of heavy rain occurred last night to mat it down even more!)

The seed I used I found at a local nursery:

Endure Execu-Turf Premium Sod Blend

19.90% Midnight Kentucky Bluegrass
19.90% Nu Destiny Kentucky Bluegrass
19.86% Sudden Impact Kentucky Bluegrass
19.84% Beyond Kentucky Bluegrass
19.79% Ruby II Kentucky Bluegrass

I thought it was a good find with some good varieties! We'll see how it does. I noticed that it's the same brand as some good quality fertilizer I've used before.

I will probably put down some fertilizer at some point soon, too, but I haven't figured that out yet (as usual), so I'll save that for another post.

I'll be keeping my eye out for germination!

New boxwood

Sadly, one of the five boxwoods I planted last year didn't make it. And when I say it didn't make it, I really means I just forgot to water it during a dry spell and it died (and thankfully they didn't all die). In any case  I picked up a new one (from the grocery store of all places) to replace it and planted it on May 5th.

Planted
(also note the hydrangeas starting the bloom in the background)

Hopefully he likes his new family (or her...).

Blackspot and rose slugs. Again.

Both the black spot disease and bristly rose slugs are back again this year. The poor rose bushes just can't catch a break.

Diseased leafs

Both black spot and early signs of rose slugs.

What have we here?

Only the hybrid tea rose bush has the black spot disease, but both have the rose slugs. I immediately sprayed the slugs with the same insecticidal soap I used last year and haven't noticed anymore since.

I've also been clipping off and disposing of the leafs infected by the black spot disease, but honestly there's not many more leaves left, so I'm getting concerned. Hopefully it grows more soon. We have, however, been joying many beautiful blooms this year!

Other bulbs

Unlike the tulips, the rest of the bulbs that I planted seemed to do ok (although I never saw the Allium...). These were taken on May 4th:

Blue Bells

Baby Moon Daffodils

Happy!

Second crabgrass preventer application

I put down the second application of the crabgrass preventer on May 12th hoping for some rain that night to work it in. That didn't happen and it wasn't until yesterday that we got some rain and only .10" at that, but I irrigated today so that should do the trick. It also give the grass some more fertilizer which is good. I want it to outgrow the diseases. So far no signs of any crabgrass, so the half application seemed to do the trick.

Changes

Well, life happens and things change and what has changed the most as of late is my amount of free time, which has dwindled down to nearly nothing after the birth of our precious son - it's a wonderful change! What this means for this blog, for anyone who actually still follows it, is that my posts will be few and far between and likely sparse in content. I'm planning to continue trying to post things that I do for my records, but the story-like format will likely cease. We'll see what happens, but I'm already behind as it is.

As it stands right now, we finally got our irrigation system fixed and turned on today, which is good because it has been quite dry lately and the grass was starting to show the stress (footprints stay after walking on it)!

Backyard is doing great and still going strong after fertilizing it a few weeks ago. It's also liking the water I gave it today. The backyard is my new pride and joy - it's simply amazing how much it has filled in so quickly. The supina bluegrass seems to be doing great, and it's so soft to walk on. I love it.

The front yard - not good. The rust just took over and infested the new grass and much of it has died. My hope is that it might spring back, but I don't give it very good odds of that happening. We'll see. I sprayed the rust and powdery mildew with some fungicide today - I hate doing that, but it's that or I watch more of the lawn get killed off. I'll hopefully have a post on this as well. It will have some sad photos. I should have paid more attention to this line in the Purdue leaf rust publication:

On newly seeded stands, apply fungicides at the first sign of disease.

Live and learn...

Fertilization stories

I've got two stories to tell: one of the backyard grass and one of the front yard. I'll start with the front yard.

As mentioned previously the new grass in the front yard just hasn't been growing very quickly and as a result was getting diseased, so I thought perhaps it needed some nitrogen to spur some growth. So several weeks ago (I can't remember the exact date) I put down some fertilizer - .75 lbs N / 1000 sq. ft. on the whole front yard using the Scotts 32-0-4 that I've used several times in the past. I wish it had more phosphorous and potassium in case the grass needed some of those nutrients as well (who knows), but it's what I had in the garage, so I used it. Thus far after several rains, there has been some growth, but not a whole lot. I'm beginning to cut some of it when I mow so that is a good sign, but it wasn't the rapid growth that I was hoping for. At the same time, both diseases have spread, so hopefully the growth will continue and keep the disease at bay. I'm also planning to trim the trees a bit more allow more sunlight to reach those areas - one of these days (hopefully this weekend).

The backyard is a much more successful story. The problem I don't think I have mentioned before, but what I noticed was that the vigorous growth that was occurring seemed to come to a halt. I noticed that the supina bluegrass even started to yellow at the tips and die off some in addition to the lack of growth. But one day I made this observation near the area where we let our dog out to go to the bathroom:

Note the greener, happily growing grass near the edge by the fence. This areas has likely been fertilized by my dog's urine (high in nitrogen)! So I felt pretty confident that the lawn simply needed some fertilizer. I put down a combination of the remaining Scott's fertilizer that I used on the front lawn and the Endure Premium Lawn Food Plus that I used last summer. The scott's is mostly quick-release nitrogen and the Endure is almost 100% slow-release. This took a little bit of calculating, but I put down a little over .75 lbs. N / 1000 sq. ft. The result after a substantial amount of rain over a few days was a complete flip back to the vigorous growth of before! Yay! Here's a look:

This made my day!

The grass I planted earlier this year has also been doing well:

Young fine fescue

I've very happy with the backyard and I have hope for the new grass in the front yard! I'll soon be putting down the second half of the crabgrass preventer application.

New invader

I noticed this grass growing near the edge of our lot in the front yard:

I'm not sure what it is and will need to do some research to see if I can figure it out. It appears to grow close to the ground and more laterally (via stolons?). The color is somewhat grayish green, lighter in color than nearby Kentucky bluegrass.

My initial thinking is that it might be creeping bentgrass, but I'll need to investigate more. I recall seeing some foreign grass in this area last year and I actually tried to kill it with roundup, but I may have missed some if it is in fact the same thing.

Turf problems

What else is new?

So, something isn't quite right. While the rest of the lawn has been greening up quite well, the new Kentucky bluegrass that I planted in the front yard last fall just isn't. It's still very short and hasn't been nearly long enough to mow even though I've mowed the rest of the lawn several times already.

Some shots I took today of the lawn:

New grass (in center)

New grass

Mmm, look at that grass!

Recovering from weeds

New gress

Also, I have noticed some patches of disease.

Up close

This looks a lot like the disease I noticed last year, but contrary to what I thought last year, I'm thinking that it's actually leaf rust. When I rubbed it with my fingers it left an orange coloring. The Purdue publication on the disease says (my emphasis added):

Rust outbreaks are most common in late summer and early fall, although sometimes the disease is active in the early spring (especially on poorly nourished turf). Rust is a disease of slow growing turf, so factors that contribute to poor growth tend to favor rust development. Such factors include summer heat and drought stress, low nitrogen fertility, compaction, and shade.

I can certainly rule out summer head and drought stress. Also:

Maintaining a healthy and vigorous turf stand is the most effective and efficient method of rust control. Since slow growing turf in mid- to late summer is most vulnerable to outbreaks, small amounts of nitrogen fertilizer (0.2-0.5 pound of N per 1,000 square feet) in chronic trouble spots (shaded and possibly compacted areas) will help control the disease. The nitrogen will promote leaf growth and allow for regular mowing, which helps the turf outgrow rust's relatively slow infection cycle.

Additionally, I'm seeing another apparent disease that looks like this:

Up close

I'm thinking that this is likely powdery mildew. Thankfully the Purdue publication on this disease describes it as being more or less harmless:

The disease is rarely responsible for any lasting damage to turf, so its effects are primarily aesthetic.

And:

Powdery mildew occurs most often on slow-growing turf, usually in shaded areas. Pathogen activity is favored by cool, cloudy conditions that prevail in spring and fall. Prolonged periods of dew or wet weather are not needed for disease establishment and spread, although periods of high humidity favor disease development.

So, I'm starting to think that all of the above problems could be caused by malnutrition. Perhaps it needs some fertilizer? I applied some with the crabgrass preventer a few weeks ago, but since I only applied a half "dose", I only ended up applying around about .33 lbs N/1000 sq ft. I think I'll give it a try and put down some fertilizer and see what happens (as usual).