Awesome posts. I feel a lil' better about mine, it looks a little rougher than yours but not much. I was hoping it had to do with the fact that it was such a new lawn.

I can't wait to get a mow in on it and have it growin' again!

Great post egghead.

The weed shot is great. It is really funny to go through this. I'm sure everybody's lawn was practically weed free last fall and then spring time gets here and it's like whoa - where did all this come from. What did I do wrong? I've decided not to treat yet, and see how well the KBG will choke it out. The weed hound has been great where I have a clean shot at only the weed - trying to be careful as to not rip up good young grass. I bet a few cuts, some tillering action and the KBG spreading will eventually choke the weeds out. I'm also fighting some annual bluegrass as well.

Unlike most though, I am experiencing decent top growth throughout. It is definitely uneven as some of the mag3 is slow to wake up. My later seedings which did not get much top growth last fall are slow to wake up as well. However, here in MD we got pummelled with rain last weekend. Combined with daytime highs (finally) consistently near or in the 70's for next few days and the SBM I spread two weekends ago I expect to see some good top growth in the near future. I don't plan to turn on sprinklers until June, so hopefully rainfall is plentiful (deep and infrequent) for the next 6 to 8 weeks.

When they say young KBG requires patience - they ain't lying. First, the fall seeding takes a month then in the spring the weeds that sneak (bulldoze) through the young KBG wreck havoc. But the anticipation is fun, because given all the yard shots on here from previous renovations, you know it is going to be a great lawn in the end.

I grew up on Kentucky Bluegrass lawns in Detroit and over the years I've come to learn how much of a PITA they are to get started. They're like the old fashioned steam-locomotive. Takes a while to get up to full steam but once there, it's a lawn you can love and live on for years.

I only just - three weeks ago - renovated my lawn from a mixture of weeds, bermuda and fescue grasses and it's coming along nicely, very nicely considering the late start it's gotten.

My goal for this spring/summer is to nurse this stand of grass along and to develop a strong, healthy root-system. I already know I'll be overseeding again in the fall to fill in bare spots and to help crowd out winter weeds so that by this time next year, I should have an outstanding sense of curb appeal.

My back yard is another story, but it's going to require professional regrading to be done by someone who knows how to do it while not damaging the root system of the four large pin-oaks (white oak) in my back yard.

My only question, at the moment, is when should I put the "other half" of the nitrogen only fertilizer on my newly formed lawn...

My soil test came back with very high values for potassium and phosphorous and a recommendation to not use those fertilizers for the next two years. As such I put down a "half-dose" of 1.7 lbs per 1000 sq. ft. of 34-0-0 urea but now that I have a lawn that is about 1.5 - 2.0" tall, I'm wondering when should I get the other 1.7 lbs per thou out on the lawn. I don't want to put it out too close to the summer months which are rapidly approaching and I don't know if I should wait all the way until the end of September when temps drop below 90(F) again...

I am in the same boat as everyone else. The slow growth doesn't bother me as much as the spattering of weeds. I despise them. It just highlights to me the importance of my usual winterizer application with weed control which I was not able to do last fall in light of my seeding project.

It really helps to control the braodleaf weeds that go to seed in the late fall and pop up the following spring.

When I can swallow the vomit that refluxes into the back of my throat when I go out there, I'll take some photos.

OK, that's a bit graphic, but not entirely inaccurate. The annua died, leaving behind the most awful looking patches right now. I know it'll fill in. It will. It will. It's just going to take some time...

Thanks for the inspiring post! I wonder how much of some of our slow green-up has to do with missing or mis-timing the last fall fertilization. I'm embarrassed to say that I for one missed mine...

...and I mistimed mine. All things considered, I was a bit later than I should have been.

Just to add a random positive reinforcement here, just this evening an obviously independent but highly motivated local lawncare guy shuffled up to my property while I was sitting on the front porch after dinner, and asked what I planned to do about "all of the crabgrass" in my front lawn. I replied that there is no crabgrass, and that I applied a bunch of Dimension a few weeks ago, but anyway, what I plan to do is nuke the front yard with Roundup next Fall and re-plant with with good seeds. He was only slightly taken aback, but then I said "hey, what, are you a lawn guy? Please check out my back yard! I'll show you what I mean."

So I showed him my weed-infested plot of 2007 Award, Moonlight and Bedazzled, and he actually called it some of the best grass he had seen all year, and commended me for taking an effort in my lawn, then left without even leaving a card.

If this guy, who was looking for my business, just walked away without suggesting any program to me at all, well I am pretty sure that my sorry spring lawn will be looking great next month. Either that, or I appear to be a lunatic at first site, and a potentially very bad customer.... I don't know what's the truth, but I am sticking with the former theory because, well, it makes me feel better. :)

Anyway, I'm sorry for the anecdotal "evidence," but, well, this guy was on a recruiting mission, had his chance, looked at my weed-infested lawn, and said "nice job!" and just moved on. It's a small thing, but I'm feeling pretty good about that....

Whoops, by "site" I meant "sight." I hate when I do that....

"missing or mis-timing the last fall fertilization"

Don't make me laugh at this one. I didn't do mine last year. It went from 60 degrees to snow within a week. I had all I could do winterize my irrigation system in the wet snow.

You can thank synthetic fertilizer for that! They are the one that promoted a lot of of weed growth due to high nitrate level in the soil by synthetic fertilizer. Weeds don't thrive as much when the nitrate level drops to certain level...

Great post, Egghead. You are, as usual, exactly correct.

Lawn season did not start two weeks ago, when the temps first hit sixty. Lawn season may start, and it may not, this weekend, now that the temps have hit sixty for two weeks running (and I have to add "more or less").

Those of us who mowed, or who drove those tractors over the lawn, may have been (again, I have to add 'more or less') losing more to friction damage than we gained from the scouting around.

We have been temporarily blessed, here in mid-Michigan, by a full week w/o rain, and with increasing temps and plenty of sunshine. Because of that, but only because of that, the season is starting, or about to start. More cloudy, or more rain, would have dictated that no, it hasn't started yet.

Yet I confess that I am as guilty as the rest. I am, like you, just like a seven year old, who now fully appreciates Christmas, far more than a five or six year old ever could. And there it is: Christmas advertising, the day after Thanksgiving. Why can't Christmas get here sooner? It just doesn't seem fair......

And, as you know, it will get here. We just have to wait. We have to appreciate the delay, and recognize that it isn't actually something that we've done 'wrong' and that there's nothing for us, at present, to be doing.

We have to be more like fishermen (I'm not one) or poker players (I am one) and let the situation develop, while we are watching, and be ready to toss the bait, yet patient enough not to toss the bait too early.....while knowing, the whole time, that the right opportunity would be here in just a bit.

Let's do that.

We have to be more like fishermen (I'm not one) or poker players (I am one) and let the situation develop, while we are watching, and be ready to toss the bait, yet patient enough not to toss the bait too early.....while knowing, the whole time, that the right opportunity would be here in just a bit.

Yes, know when to hold 'em. And when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away, and know when to run....

Sorry. Long day. With temperatures in the upper seventies for the second week (no rain, but I just irrigated...I had to, it was wilting), I finally have some lawn. Photos this weekend.

Philes, totally agree, except not with the fishing analogy which, me being a fisherman, I feel competent to pronounce upon.

For some fishermen, when you are not catching, it is time to start chumming. You do this only if your goal is catching fish. For recreational fishermen like myself, I think this is the wrong approach, it being so incredibly wasteful.

For other fishermen (like me), the goal of fishing is fishing. Actually catching fish is just a bonus, and something that becomes more and more common with experience. I mean, I have never regretted a day of fishing, even when I have nothing to show for it.

I hope that makes sense. If you're up for it, get a copy of John Hersey's "Blues" from the library. It is enjoyable, but no literary masterpiece, and yet I read it every spring. It doesn't explain what I just said very particularly, but I think the essential point comes through.

Sorry to go so OT, now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Lou,

;-)

Frankly I think there were some other more significant factors at work, but I do appreciate what you are saying, and your spirit!

Best,
Paul