Fall fertilization #2

I put down some more fertilizer on the front lawn on Tuesday. It has not yet been watered in. I realized that I was watering some parts of the lawn way too much by watering 5 minutes 3 times a day (I have read that over-watering can actually be more damaging to a lawn than not watering!); one area was getting soft and muddy. So I've been cutting back quite a bit, especially now that the weather has been cooler. I put down about 5 lbs of Scott's (32-0-4), which comes out to 1 lb/1000 sq. ft.

Because I always forget how to calculate how much to apply, here's the formula I used:

x = r / (n / 100) * s / 1000
(or, simplified: x = r / n * s / 10)

Where:

• x = the amount of fertilizer to apply (in pounds); this is what the formula is calculating
• r = the desired Nitrogen fertilization rate (in lbs / 1000 sq. ft.)
• n = the portion of Nitrogen in the fertilizer (the first number in the sequence found on the bag, e.g. "32-0-4")
• s = the size of the lawn being fertilized (in sq. ft.)

So, for this application:

r = 1

n = 32

s = 1600

Enter those values in the formula:

x = 1 / 32 * 1600 / 10

x = 5 lbs.

And presto, it yields the number of pounds to apply. Now all you need is a scale.

(Note that this is for granular fertilizer. You can also use this calculator, and there are probably others out there as well).

(Another side-note for myself: when putting down this amount of fertilizer, even at the lowest rate on the spreader, I'm only able to make one pass over the lawn, so it has to be done carefully in order to be dispensed evenly)

I'm attempting to follow the advice given in the Purdue Turfgrass Science publication "Fertilizing Established Lawns (AY-22-W)" (download) this year, which says this (among lots of other great information about fertilizing):

When Should You Fertilize?

The cool-season grasses (such as bluegrasses, fescues, and ryegrasses) will benefit most when you apply the majority of N fertilizer from late summer through autumn (Figure 4). This promotes summer recovery, enhances shoot density, maximizes green color, and prepares the turf for winter, all without a growth surge.

Apply less N during the spring growth flush, and then apply little to none during summer except where you frequently water and/or regularly remove clippings during mowing.

When you apply N fertilizer during the spring, use slow-release fertilizers to minimize excess growth. To promote maximum density during late summer and early fall (late August through early November), you should apply up to 1 pound of N per 1,000 square feet each month. From early October until early December, apply primarily water-soluble N fertilizers at slightly lower rates (such as 0.5 to 0.75 pound per 1,000 square feet) about every three weeks.

So my next fertilization will be sometime around mid-October.

Lawn surgery

Hot off the heels of the last application of Tenacity, since most of the creeping bentgrass is now dead (or at least appears to be dead) I didn't want to waste any time since this is the ideal time (for central Indiana) to plant grass seed. But before I did, I wanted to make sure that it's ok to plant so soon after spraying. I found an FAQ page with these questions and answers:

On which grasses has Tenacity been tested for use at or prior to seeding?
Tenacity is safe for use at or prior to seeding on Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, and centipedegrass. Application at seeding can be made to fine fescue only if it is less than 20% of a seed mixture.

What are some of the unique benefits of Tenacity herbicide?
Tenacity has pre- and post-emergence activity on 46 dicot and monocot weed species. It can selectively control perennial monocots such as bentgrass and nimblewill and annuals such as crabgrass and goosegrass in many turfgrass species. Tenacity can be applied at the seeding to prevent weed germination and allow the turfgrass species to establish without weed competition.

I remember reading that, but I had to double check because it just seemed so counter-intuitive seeing as it turns mature Kentucky bluegrass tip white, so you'd think that young grass would be even weaker and more susceptible. Apparently not, which is fine by me!

I went ahead with planting some seed on Monday (9/2).

For this project I ended up using up a bunch of remaining stuff I had on the garage from previous years: some Scott's starter fertilizer, a bit of GreenView Grass Seed Accelerator (left over from this project), and hesitantly/fearfully the seed I used for last years reseeding. The other stuff should be fine, but the seed had a sell by date of 4/13 and of course is over a year old. I did a search online regarding the use of expired seed and the (completely unofficial) general consensus I gathered is that most of the seed should be fine as long as it was stored properly (e.g. not exposed to moisture), but to expect germination rates to be be lower (more so the older it is). As I often tend to do, I decided to take the risk, but put down more seed than I normally would to hopefully compensate. If 25% of the seed germinates, I'll be happy. We shall see.

Also "reused" in this project was the dead carcasses of the dead creeping bentgrass in lieu of straw or some other mulch, because I 1) didn't have enough of the Greenview Grass Seed Accelerator left, 2) didn't have any other mulch, and 3) was lazy and didn't feel like going to the store and buying any (I firmly believe that laziness is a prime fuel for creativity). In most places the bentgrass was pretty thick, so it just makes sense to me to use it, plus it made the project easier and cheaper - win, win... maybe?

So I used my manual tiller to loosen up the soil underneath the dead bentgrass and the pulled it back to reveal the soil below as seen in the following photos:

After this, I generously dispensed some seed into the soil using a handheld spreader, and then added some starter fertilizer also using the handheld spreader. Then I mixed it all up a bit into the top layer of the soil, covered it back up with the dead bentgrass clumps, and finally matted it down a bit by walking on a board I laid over top of each area. After which, the finished product looked like this (not much different than before!):

In some areas where there was more soil exposed, I put down
some of the GreenView Grass Seed Accelerator

In addition to the bentgrass areas, I also seeded some other areas that seemed to have died this summer (apparently I didn't irrigate enough!).

North side of the driveway (after tilling)

By the road (after tilling).

By the road (after seeding).

Closer shot of the previous.

As usual, I now anxiously await germination - which I hope does in fact happen! In the meantime I'll be irrigating to keep the soil moist.

I just can't seem to go a year without reseeding - maybe next year!

I'll report back upon germination, or lack thereof.

Front yard fertilization

I put down 6.8 lbs of Espoma Organic Lawn Food on the front lawn on Sunday, which equates to about .75 lbs/1000 sq. ft. N. I intended to do this quite a while ago because we had gotten a lot of rain earlier in the summer, but all things gardening have taken a back seat these days; I do what I can. Lately it has been quite dry, so I've been irrigating a bit.

Creeping bentgrass... confirmed?

So I did some sleuthing and to the best of my grass identification skills (which admittedly are extremely poor), I believe I have successfully identified the front lawn turf invader to be creeping bentgrass. It has really grown quite a bit since a year ago and continues to spread. Something must be done. But before I get to that, here's how I went about identifying it.

I went off of my initial guess made last year as a starting point and searched for how to identify creeping bentgrass. This led me to this very useful and informative site from North Carolina State University's TurfFiles which has a profile page for creeping bentgrass describing it's various plant characteristics, including photos.

This led me out into the lawn with my macro lens to see if I could gets some photos of these key plant parts to help identify it and hopefully confirm or deny the identity by comparing with this site.
I was only able to get photos of some of parts as I didn't have much time. However, after inspecting the plant a bit and the photos compared with the TurfFiles photos it already looked like a match to me, but I'll get to that in a sec.

I also remembered a handy tool for identifying grass that I had tinkered with from Purdue University in the past. This tool helps to narrow down an identification based on some of the plant characteristics: vernation, ligule, auricles, leaf tip, leaf surface, mid-rib, collar, growth, and seedhead. I'm certainly still learning about these little plant details (never would have guessed that there'd be so many parts to grass), but I found the tufgrass identification guide linked from the tool to be a good introduction. Using this tool, I entered the characteristics that I was the most certain about (and by certain, I mean not at all certain):

1. Membranous ligule
2. Absent Auricles
3. Pointed leaf tip

At this point the tool had already filtered the possible contenders with a 100% match to just two: creeping bentgrass and colonial bentgrass. Additionally, I entered the leaf surface as ridged, but this didn't change anything as they both have that as well (and it turns out all but growth habit are the same between the two). Here are my photos that show these things:

A bit of a plant that I pulled

Shows the logn membranous ligule (the white
part) and the lack of auricles

After pulling back the blade

Rotated and even closer.

The blade tip pointed (the boat-shaped tip of a blade of kentucky bluegrass can
also be seen to the right)

So, the next step is to discern between colonial and creeping bentgrass. The nice thing about the tool is that you can view photographs of each of the parts for each specific type of grass, in addition to more specific information about it. It further states that colonial bentgrass has a short membranous ligule, while creeping bentgrass has a long ligule, with photos showing each. So even without knowing anything else other than these 3 or 4 attributes, the long ligule distinguishes the two.

But there's more. For colonial bentgrass it states:

"Technically possesses rhizomes and stolons they are generally absent and this species assumes a bunch-type growth habit."

 And creeping bentgrass:

"Bluish-green color, very fine leaf texture, tall membranous ligule, tolerates close 1/2 inch. Leaves may appear slightly rough along the edges, strongly stoloniferous."

So furthermore the two can be distinguished by their growth habits. One of the first things I noticed about the grass when I saw it was how it appeared to grow "horizontally" (likely via stolons, but I've yet to confirm this). It doesn't sound like colonial bentgrass would grow like this.

So there you have it: a positive identification... ?

Assuming so (and I feel confidently enough), the next step is to take action; and Tenacity herbicide sounds like the best available option. More to come.

Front lawn update

The front lawn is really doing great. I've very satisfied with it and feel great about all the work I've put into it over the last few years.

Here are some photos:

Today I transplanted some grass growing into of the garden beds to some small bare spots in the lawn.

My one last (for now) issue is the patches of mysterious evil grass #3 (#1 being orchardgrass, #2 being tall fescue). You can see them clearly in the following photos as the lighter green patches:

I don't have an ID on this grass yet, but one possibility is creeping bentgrass. I took some closer photos last year.

I was thinking that I'd just spray it with Roundup and replant this fall. However, I was doing some searching and if it is in fact creeping bentgrass, I found that there is a selective herbicide (active ingredient mesotrione) that supposedly will kill it without harming kentucky bluegrass (among other turf grasses)! One product based on it is called Tenacity which it seems people are having good results with for killing bentgrass. But it also kills a number of other weeds including crabgrass! It's rather expensive (about $75 for an 8 oz bottle of concentrate) as these chemicals seem to be, however, if that means I wouldn't need to do pre-emergent crabgrass prevention every year, it could be just as cost effective if not cheaper to go this route.

However, I'm getting ahead of myself. The first step is to ID it. This is not my forte, but I'll try my best. Here's some information I found on how to ID it. I'll report back.

Front lawn fertilization

I put down some fertilizer this week. We've had a bunch of rain this spring (15" since April 1) and it's about time to put down the second half of the crabgrass preventer (~60 days ago, April 15). I put down the rest of the bag of Endure Crabgrass Preventer Plus I had, which came out to be about 3.8 lbs. Since we've had so much rain, I added an additional 1.2 lbs of Scotts 32-0-4 (5.7% slow release N). In some places the lawn wasn't looking as green, and there are some greener spots where I presume dogs had peed (this has worked before!). In hindsight, the 7.8  lbs total of crabgrass preventer was quite a bit more than I had put down in the past: 3.5 lbs for the entire application - whoops! I guess my own blog has failed me. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be a problem. So far I've not seen any crabgrass. Total nitrogen comes out to about 0.7 lbs/1000 sq ft. So far it hasn't rained enough to water it in, but we're forecast to get some this weekend.

Front Lawn Update

Quick update on the front lawn. I think it's doing great. I'll let the photos show, but I'll note that the Ortho Weed B Gon seems have mostly taken care of the (possible) chickweed - it has taken several weeks, but slowly but surely the grass took over. And the 2011 grass finally greened up - guess it's just slower? It certainly seems significantly darker green than the surrounding kentucky blue grass... All in all I'm really happy with it! It's quite lush and thick in many more places than I remember and I see no tall fescue (however, I will mention that I pulled a good amount back around the first mowing from the north side of the lawn). I'd say the lawn looks the best it ever has since we moved in!

This area finally greened up!

Some patchiness, but generally pretty dense!

This has been the slowest to green up, and some areas still
aren't growing too much for some reason. Also the area of
lighter green is where I pulled the tall fescue from.

Freshly edged!

Note the striking difference in color despite both being kentucky
blue grass. Oh well, can't have everything!

Fairly patchy here. Recovering from the drought and weeds.

I think all my work has finally starting to pay off! Wish there wasn't the two color tones, but I'd rather that then have tall fescue and orchardgrass!

Actually I'm not so sure

That should be the new title of this blog.

I went out to take a closer look at the weed that has infested our lawn and I'm not so sure that it is prostrate knotweed. The flowering in particular seems different. Here are some photos:

Mystery weed - chickweed?

In any case I sprayed it with Ortho Weed B Gon Max (I bought it in concentrate because it was on sale).

I'll have to see if I can figure out what it really is. In the mean time I'll see if the weed killer can do the job.

First Mowing

Lawns have greened up quickly in the last week or so with the warmer weather. So I got out and mowed for the first time of the season yesterday. Although most of the lawn didn't need it yet, I mowed the front lawn anyway to mulch up some leaves from the oak that fall and gather on the lawn during the winter.

Here are some photos of the front yard (after mowing):

Most of this grass didn't need mowing

Lots of weeds

Note the patch of the dubbed "new invader" on the left (patch of lighter colored grass).

Not much growth here

Overall, not looking too great. Lots of weeds again due to thinned turf. And it seems like the new grass planted in the fall of 2011 is again being slow to green up. This lead to the fungus problems last year. I'm not about to let that happen again, so I decided to be more proactive this year and applied a generous portion of fertilizer along with a pre-emergent crabgrass application (which also contains fertilizer). I ended up putting down about 4 lbs of Endure Crabgrass Preventer Plus and about 6 lbs of Espoma Organic Lawn Food which in total comes to roughly 1.15 lbs N/1000 sq. ft. (0.475 from the Endure and 0.675 from the Espoma). I applied more liberally to the younger grass. In addition the Espoma also contains some Phosphate and Potash (8% and 6% respectively). Lots of rain is in the forecast, so we shall see how this turns out.

On to the backyard:

Still a sad sight in the backyard considering how nice it was last spring and early summer, but I have hope that I can get it back, even if I have to plant more seed this fall. It's knowing when to fertilize that's the tricky part.

In other news...

The phlox is sprouting:

I trimmed back the hydrangea tree again:

The hybrid tea rose bush is growing:

The hydrangea bushes are growing:

The Sedums are sprouting:

And it appears that the Boxwoods are doing just fine after last years drought as I see new growth on most of them (and flowering on some):

The second from the right is the most iffy.

I guess I haven't mentioned this before, but I lost one Holly bush due to the drought last summer (despite watering them). It's visible in the last two photos above (the middle Holly in the upper right of both photos). I'll have to replace it this year. I don't think I lost anything else due to the drought, thankfully.

That's all for now.