The Grass Project III: The rest

I have been known to do some [unscientific] gardening experiments in my day. My approach to the experiments are simple: try it and see what happens. And also: if it fails, try something else. Well, here I am for some more fun. You just can't predict what I'm going to do next.

The Front Yard

My first foray into "lawn improvement" was definitely unconventional and experimental, littered with mistakes and shortcuts, but if you take a look at the lawn today, it's much improved and I'm fairly satisfied. I would call that a success in my book. However, the road to get there was rather long and difficult and I wouldn't prefer to do that over again. The problem I have to deal with now is that that project only replaced a portion of our front lawn leaving the rest in stark contrast. I tried to address the primary problem with the remaining grass (tall fescue) this spring and early summer with Certainty herbicide, but this didn't completely remedy the problem (although it was still a big improvement). And as mentioned, I have pulled quite a bit of the remaining tall fescue by hand. I'd say now that perhaps 1/5 of the lawn remains with a high population of tall fescue. Here is how the front lawn is looking as of yesterday (after a fresh mowing followed by bit of rain):

Other side of the driveway

The kentucky bluegrass is starting to green back up after going dormant during the heat wave (including 23 days in a row of 90+ degrees) since we've finally had some rain and the temps have cooled down.

Here's an image showing the three different "zones":

Green = new grass planted last fall
Orange = old grass w/remaining tall fescue pulled by hand
Red = old grass with remaining tall fescue

Other side of the driveway

And now my plan for each area...

The Green Zone...
This is the area I tore up last year and reseeded. This grass is doing fairly well and should hopefully recover from the heat and drought conditions we've had since the end of June. This area I merely plan to aerate and overseed.

The Orange Zone...
This is the original grass now mostly tall fescue free. There is some remaining undesirable grass, but I should be able to manage it by pulling or perhaps another round of Certainty if it comes to that. This grass is much more thinned out than the green zone and even has some completely grass-less patches. I plan on aerating this zone as well and perhaps tilling the soil a bit of more bare areas.

The Red Zone...
This is the bad zone - the areas that still have a fairly high population of undesirable grass, as well as being thin and patchy. There isn't much kentucky bluegrass to be found here. I plan to essentially reseed these areas with the first step being killing the existing grass, which I started this afternoon by spraying with Roundup. The next step is either aerate the living crap out of those areas or... till it all up. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm starting to think that this is the way to go for these areas. The main reasons are:

1. Since this area will be mostly dead, I don't know if aerating will be enough. The Purdue guide says that aerating is only really an option when the soil isn't compacted and although I don't exactly know how to tell that, I would be surprised if it wasn't.
2. Last year I didn't do the first step of killing the grass, so I had to sift through it all and pull it out which is what took FOREVER; this time I'd just leave the dead grass in.
3. Last year I started out manually tilling by hand before finally renting a power tiller; this time I'd start out with the power tiller.

However, one con with this that after tilling the soil is supposed to be allowed to settle for a week or two with rain or irrigation - this adds time and I'm already getting behind...

So, what to do? I don't know. As usual, I'll play it by ear and keep you guessing. Of course, if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. For now, I'll see how long it takes for the Roundup to kick in.

The Backyard

First of all, why is "front yard" two words, but "backyard" one?? That bugs me a bit. But what also bugs me is our backyard, literally. Earlier this spring, I tried planting some shade tolerant seed, and well, it flopped. It was "experimental" in that I didn't follow the suggested seeding guide very well. I didn't do much soil preparation other than some raking of the very top surface and I think this was the primary culprit. What happened is that early on before germination some very heavy rain occurred and since the soil under the thin layer of raking was more compacted, this allowed the seeds to be washed away or moved due to puddling. In addition, this compaction may have made it difficult for the seeds to grow deeper into the soil (of course, please keep in mind that I just said above that I don't know how to tell if it's compacted, so take all of this with a grain of salt). Furthermore, there are other struggles back there such as competition with the trees, both for light and water. And, the hot and dry weather that we've had likely only exacerbated the other problems.

Here's how it's looking as of yesterday:

Unfortunately, it really doesn't look much different from before I planted the new seed. So... naturally I'll be trying again. I think this time I'll try aerating with perhaps some additional soil preparation in the more bare areas. Also, I'll be trimming back the tress to let as much light in as possible.

Seed for both the front and backyard is in route. I'll have a post on that soon.