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Rejuvinating a weedy lawn
MBK
Member Posts: 2,918 ✭✭✭
Some folks moved in a mile from me. Home was a foreclosure.
They want a lawn. I cut the 90% weedy growth today.
Would you
1) Pin Harrow and seed?
2) Spray with 2-4-D and seed
3) Spray, Harrow and seed
4) Roto-till, harrow to smooth and seed?
5) After growth is about 2 inches high and having been cut once or twice, spray weeds with 2-4-D.
They want a lawn. I cut the 90% weedy growth today.
Would you
1) Pin Harrow and seed?
2) Spray with 2-4-D and seed
3) Spray, Harrow and seed
4) Roto-till, harrow to smooth and seed?
5) After growth is about 2 inches high and having been cut once or twice, spray weeds with 2-4-D.
Comments
Have to think, though, that you're getting mighty late in the year to plant grass seed. It doesn't sprout much at all above 80 degrees.
I would use the best seed money can buy. The industry really has come a heck of a long way and the new seed really does produce one heck of a tough, drought resistant lawn.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
The following process for KILL, TILL, FILL and SOD will work on St. Augustine, Bermuda and Zoysias.
KILL ? The area that needs a transplant most likely has been overcome by weeds and unwanted wild Bermuda grass. So my advice is to first square off the area, marking it with rope or string or whatever you can find. Then spray it with a non-selective herbicide that will kill everything in the square. (Non-selective herbicides are products like Finale, Killzall, Eraser and Roundup. There will not be any residual in the soil from these herbicides.) Wait for the death and destruction to happen ... in most cases, the grass will be dead within a week. And this leads us to the next step ...
TILL ? If you have a small area, use a steel-tined rake; if you are replacing an entire yard, you'll need a motorized tiller. In either case you will work the dead grass and weeds into and out of the soil ... plus you'll be beneficially loosening the soil at the same time. After tilling, it is normally an easy task to rake the dead grasses and weeds from the loosened soil. This leads us to the next step.
FILL ? Even though you have loosened the soil somewhat, a re-sodding project will have a better chance of succeeding if there is a fresh layer of soil on which the roots can set up shop. Topsoil is good for this situation, as well as specially designed soils from soil yards. I am an advocate of one in particular known as Fortified Top Soil from Living Earth Technology. In any case, you should till or rake the new topsoil in with the slightly loosened soil. Finally, you need to make sure there are no low areas and that there is a camber (or ever-so-slight drainage curve) so rain will go to the sides and drain toward the street.
SOD ? This is the back-breaking part, but it is the easiest in the sense that there is little to do but lay the sod where you want it. You must water it in and keep it well-watered for two to three weeks after transplanting. The continual water helps break down the muddy clay in which the grass was grown. Once it melts away, the roots will set up shop much quicker. It is not always necessary to fertilize immediately following a re-sod, but putting down granular iron a week after the consistent watering will help keep it green.
I would leave it as is and just mow it. Green is green, green is good, spraying poisons on your lawn does not make any sense to me. Dandelions, crab grass, chickweed, and all the others make for a fine drought resistant bug resistant green area if kept mowed.
Thank goodness you do not live in my neighborhood...
Weeds are like STDs. They spread.
Grass will grow when the ground is cool and weeds wait until it warms up so grass can get a head start on crowding them out.
Keep it mowed and watered and overseed this fall if needed.
Tilling and reseeding is another approach if you've got a lot of unwanted perennials/other grasses in there already.
Remember that "Roundup" (glyphosphate) is a translocating herbicide that travels to the roots of grasses and kills them from there -- a process that takes some time. 2,4-D kills broad-leaf plants by stimulating them to grow improperly so you need good growing weather for a good kill.
Use both if you're going to kill the existing plants to till and reseed.
Mlincoln: We will be a while to get to 80. It was 32 last night with snow for two days. Plus snow last week too.
Good Lord, man, are you up there north of the arctic circle!?! It was 92 degrees here today!
IE
Western Colorado
quote:Originally posted by MBK
Mlincoln: We will be a while to get to 80. It was 32 last night with snow for two days. Plus snow last week too.
Good Lord, man, are you up there north of the arctic circle!?! It was 92 degrees here today!
You left out "fricken".....anything over 90 automatically gets a fricken added to it, so it was "fricken 92" today. (UGH....it was a sweaty mess here too.)