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.

Fourth bloom

Our hybrid tea rose bush planted back in April is in bloom yet again. I believe this is the fourth time this summer. Each time I am in awe of their beautiful colors, and am so glad that it's doing well where we planted it.

Eastern Phoebe babies

The Eastern Phoebe babies have grown very quickly and I imagine will soon be leaving the nest. I always freak out the parents when I photograph them...

Baby Eastern Phoebes

It's no wonder they grow so fast (although, at the same time still full of wonder). The parents catch bugs for them all day long. Here's another shot of the mom or dad (not sure how to distinguish them):

And this turned out to be an interesting shot as it started flying just as I took the photo:

Eastern Phoebe in flight

After the rain

I went out a couple days ago and took some macro shots of the hydrangea and rose bush after the rain had stopped.

Grass update

We'll start with the backyard. The grass is growing, but still very slowly and very thin. Fine fescue is so fine. It's hard to see that ever filling in, but we'll see. Here's some shots (there's not a whole lot to see):

Still thin and patchy, but you can see the fine fescue more clearly now.

This area (NW) seems to be getting more green. It used to be mostly dirt.

Now on to the front yard... With each mowing I am more and more impressed with how well the new grass has been filling in. I'm very excited about it. More and more areas are looking really nice and the patchiness continues to diminish, as well as the weeds. There's still the very contrasty tall fescue, but hopefully that will start to die off soon. To my eyes it seems lighter in color so I wonder if it's on it's way to turning yellow/brown (i.e. dying). I'm really excited to see that grass go.

Here's a few shots of the front yard after a fresh cut:

Still thin near the driveway, but slowly getting thicker.

Next to the road still needs some work, but other than that it's looking great.

The contrasting colors is so obvious...

 

One of my favorite spots. Very thick turf. I could use that as a pillow.

  

New grass next to the side walk by the road - getting very thick! Mmm!

I'll end with a couple of shots of a tulip that happened to come up and bloom this year under the oak tree.

Pretty color.

Looking straight down (if you look closely,
you can see a tiny spider on the right side).

Ducks

A duck couple came by for a visit as I was finishing up on Sunday.

I saw some again this morning with 3 little chicks trailing them as I was leaving for work. I don't know if it was the same ones or not.

Pachysandra in bloom

I noticed the pachysandra were blooming and took a few photographs of them.

Cooper's Hawk

I saw a Cooper's Hawk today, at least that's what I think it was (difficult to distinguish from Sharp-shinned Hawk). I've seen them before and this winter we had one eat a dinner in our backyard leaving the feathers and beak behind - we never actually saw the bird, but the clue was that there were no footprints in the snow around it.

Cooper's Hawk.
This cropped photo is the equivalent of a 700mm lens. Unfortunately, it was
taken with a 100mm lens - I sure wish I had a telephoto for these occasions.

Today it was around plenty during the morning and appears to be building a nest in a nearby tree. I watched it as it gathered sticks off the ground and flew them up into the nest. I didn't see it much in the afternoon, but that may have been because we were outside. I was able to get some video, but it didn't turn out too great.

I'll definitely keep watching to see if it ends up nesting there.

In other news, today will be the last warm day for a few weeks. We hit a high of about 73 today and it was beautiful out for the 3rd day in a row, but it's back down into the 30s tonight.

They look like paintbrushes

Here are some macro shots that I took yesterday of some new leaves growing on some small trees in our backyard. The first three are all of the same thing. For scale, it's about the size of my index finger. I thought they looked like paintbrushes :)

Looking down at one.

It's amazing to see!

The plants are starting to come up

I took a look around the garden beds and I noticed that many other plants are starting to grow in addition to the daffodils. Here are a few photos:

Phlox

Astilbe (I think)

The 'Montgomery' Astilbe

Rose bush buds

I believe this is a Crocus (right) next to a tulip (left).

I'm excited!