Greetings Best Lawners,

I started a thread over @ the soil forum for my upcoming renovation this year and the andy, the soil master, has already gotten me going with the soil amendments that i need to lay down to get my new lawn going.

so here's a little background. brand-new homeowner here. we just moved in around april and didn't start to do anything with the lawn until around May. I didn't know to lay down any pre-emergent etc. I just saw Scott's 4-step program online and decided to follow it. I dropped Weed-n-feed and sure enough i burnt the grass and weeds kept coming anyway. i started messing around with all kinds of shelf seeds, patchmaster, mats etc. and i wasn't quite happy with what came out and it was inconsistent with the existing lawn which was thinning.

i wanted to figure out how this lawn thing works so i started going through different forums on the net and eventually i ended up here. there is such a wealth of knowledge here and i think that has clarified alot of confusion for me, yet still opened up more and more questions.

originally, i wanted to overseed this fall, but i have come to realize that it wouldn't be very effective, so i decided to do a complete renovation of both the front lawn and the small backyard.

I got a mix of emblem/nuglade/bedazzled coming in tomorrow, and i'll be doing some sample pots tomorrow to check out germination time. i heard emblem can be both fine and medium leafed. nuglade is fine leafed and bedazzled is medium leafed. i figured i won't be able to notice the difference between the leaves and the color should blend in. The aggressiveness of Emblem is really what attracted me the most. I'm tired of the squirrels digging holes and i'm hoping Emblem will reassimilate the holes.

So here's my little tentative plan. Had to make me a little algorithm or else i'll just get all the steps confused and/or forget something. Please help me tweak it if there is anything to make it better:

Soil Prep
1. RU -> Fallow > repeat until nothing else green sprouts - IN PROCESS
2. Spread soil amendments: Mag-i-cal / Milorganite+20 Mules > water in - DONE
3. Scrape Mow / Rake out debris when yellow wilting
4. Level low spots with topsoil while fallowing to germinate any weed seeds in topsoil
5. Spray Nitron A-35

Seeding - Aug. 15
1. Water night before to soften soil underneath
2. Spread starter fert @ Half-bag rate
3. Seed using drop spreader when soil surface is fairly dry
4. Cover with peat moss 1/8 - 1/4th thick by hand
5. Roll medium-heavy
6. Spray Tenacity
7. Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water (following watering sched)
8. Two week mark - drop other half starter fert. and Milorganite; respray Nitron A-35 & molasses


Will post pics once grass and weeds start dying!

xxryu139xx wrote:i wanted to figure out how this lawn thing works so i started going through different forums on the net and eventually i ended up here. there is such a wealth of knowledge here and i think that has clarified alot of confusion for me, yet still opened up more and more questions.

If it's any consolation, every question answered always brings up two to five more new questions. And in a lot of cases, the research is spotty or not done at all yet...

I got a mix of emblem/nuglade/bedazzled coming in tomorrow, and i'll be doing some sample pots tomorrow to check out germination time. i heard emblem can be both fine and medium leafed. nuglade is fine leafed and bedazzled is medium leafed. i figured i won't be able to notice the difference between the leaves and the color should blend in. The aggressiveness of Emblem is really what attracted me the most. I'm tired of the squirrels digging holes and i'm hoping Emblem will reassimilate the holes.

Blading is kind of a personal thing. I don't care that some cultivars are slightly wider, some people do.

So here's my little tentative plan. Had to make me a little algorithm or else i'll just get all the steps confused and/or forget something. Please help me tweak it if there is anything to make it better:

Soil Prep
1. RU -> Fallow > repeat until nothing else green sprouts - IN PROCESS
2. Spread soil amendments: Mag-i-cal / Milorganite+20 Mules > water in - DONE
3. Scrape Mow / Rake out debris when yellow wilting
4. Level low spots with topsoil while fallowing to germinate any weed seeds in topsoil
5. Spray Nitron A-35

If you bag, you may be able to skip the raking.

Seeding - Aug. 15
1. Water night before to soften soil underneath
2. Spread starter fert @ Half-bag rate
3. Seed using drop spreader when soil surface is fairly dry
4. Cover with peat moss 1/8 - 1/4th thick by hand
5. Roll medium-heavy
6. Spray Tupersan
7. Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water, Water (following watering sched)
8. Two week mark - drop other half starter fert. and Milorganite; respray Nitron A-35 & molasses
9. 45th day - Respray Tupersan?

Do i need to respray Tupersan again after 45 days. I'm thinking by that time it will be too cold for weeds to germinate or should i just do it anyway?

Arguable. If soil temperatures are dropping under fifty, you can probably skip it. If not, maybe you want to do it. 90 days out from August 15 is November 15 or so, by which time my grasses are starting to slow for winter.

Will post pics once grass and weeds start dying!

I love the sight of dying crappy lawn in the morning.

U know i've read somewhere that there are winter annual weeds too, i'm not quite sure, but they can grow while the grass is dormant. Would Tupersan or any Pre-emergent be any good for those weeds?

Yes, in some cases it will help. Most winter annuals sprout in fall, stay dormant during winter, and then grow in spring. P. annua is one that will do that (among other things).

For us, nothing much actually sprouts or grows during winter, though. Skunk cabbage might be an exception, but I've never seen it in the lawn.

xxryu139xx wrote:U know i've read somewhere that there are winter annual weeds too, i'm not quite sure, but they can grow while the grass is dormant. Would Tupersan or any Pre-emergent be any good for those weeds?

Tupersan is only labeled for control of crabgrass, foxtail, barnyard grass, and downy brome. It doesn't control poa annua or broadleaf weeds. So fall use, IMO, has a limited benefit considering the cost.

glenforest wrote:

xxryu139xx wrote:U know i've read somewhere that there are winter annual weeds too, i'm not quite sure, but they can grow while the grass is dormant. Would Tupersan or any Pre-emergent be any good for those weeds?

Tupersan is only labeled for control of crabgrass, foxtail, barnyard grass, and downy brome. It doesn't control poa annua or broadleaf weeds. So fall use, IMO, has a limited benefit considering the cost.

that's what i thought... i do have a bunch of crabgrass and while i was spraying RU earlier today i see some seed heads dunno from what weed though

Should i arm myself with a some Dimension too just in case any Poa Annua spawn?

Are you applying Tenacity when, or shortly after the Renovation?

Should I? I was planning on using Tupersan. I looked up Tenacity and it looks like a better choice. Or should i apply it after the seeds sprout?

Will it be overdoing it to use both? I suppose i can return the Tupersan to Lesco and get the Tenacity instead. yeah i guess i'll do that. i hope they take it back, it hasn't been opened yet =)

Tupersan is a nonstarter for Poa Annua.

Dimension may be pushing your luck - by the time you have all the KBG germinated (35 days?) and some buffer, it probably be too late for germinating Poa Annua. Tenacity is probably best.

Both?!?! Calm down. You're not to win a contest of who can use the most chemicals. The idea is to build a relatively-natural place for KBG to grow, not chemical soup.

Ok. I will go get Tenacity.

Hello, sorry don't mean to hijack the thread. xxryu, I'm following almost same schedule as you (will RU next weekend and than aerate and fallow through end of Aug). I'm also debating using tenacity - do you know how long its effective for?

The product is new this year. Nobody knows for sure.

hey,

no problem. tbh ive been reading ur threads too and u have been asking questions that i didnt even know myself to ask. also were both very close to each other and have almost the same reno plans.

i can't believe i just read the whole T-E-N-A-C-I-T-Y thread. lots of information. lots are still very experimental and speculative, but results are very promising. I think i can benefit from it alot using it as a Pre-em and sort of Post-emergent since i am unsure of what kind of grass i do have right now. There are alot of lighter colored grass-type that tend to fall over (Poa T. maybe?) and that have seed heads. God knows if i have Poa Annua too. I sprayed WBG on my lawn around May and that got rid of the more obvious weeds, but they did all come back since i never applied a Pre-emergent for this season.

So in the big thread, they recommend to apply Tenacity as Pre-em at point of initial seeding, then weeks 4, 5, and 6. I guess the idea here is to extend the alleopathic control of Tenacity and allow the seedlings to maximize establishment before they stop growing. So six weeks from august 15 is about October 1.

I think i'll just mix a batch in my 2 gallon pump sprayer since no one has reported a short half-life for Tenacity. Or maybe I'll just do is mix at a per need basis. The situation might arise that i may need to convert the mix to a post-emergent control if any of the other weeds show up. I think the seedlings would be strong enough to handle the stress after October 1.

now my questions is, when applied at week 4, 5, and 6 as a pre-emergent, do the seedlings turn white and get stressed or they are not affected at all? i don't recall neone mentioning it at the big tenacity thread.

I think in one of the previous topics, Andy mentioned to me that its effects are indifferent wheather used at seed time or in the first month. 6 weeks may be late as the weed may have sprouted. I'd rather have it at seed time - since I'm not sure how much hurt will I give to new lawn than the benefits of Tenacity.

yeh thats why u spray at seeding time, then at 4 weeks when u can walk over the sprouts, and then at week 5, and 6. By that time the soil temp i believe should be too cold already for any weeds to sprout. someone correct me if i'm guessing wrong!

I was thinking about grub control. I applied GrubEx around June and I was thinking with the renovation, would this disrupt a "barrier" in the soil or soon-to-be-gone grass? Should I be laying down some sort of control or do a pre-emptive strike to kill grubs just to make sure there no grubs are left?

Found this

grubs

There is potential for early-fall applications of certain insecticides for grub control, but the ideal period for their control is between July and August. There might be some late activity from cutworms, armyworms, or sod webworms, but none of these pests typically becomes a major concern at this time of year.

So does that mean i shouldn't really worry about it?

No worries there. The stuff distributes, so it's no major issue.

thanks morph =)