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.