This is a general pic taken from across the street after it was mowed at about 3 inches.

Here are some closer shots. You can see that along the street there is a fair amount of crabgrass.

Here is one of the areas of spring seeded TTTF that got taken out by brown patch.

More of the same here.

Here is the old grass as you look towards the street. It was a mix of fine fescue, poa triv, weed and misc. grasses. You can see the border of the good TTTF and the old lawn. The area next to the street was another area of spring seeded tall fescue. It was much better looking, but still had areas of dead grass, as well as thin unhealthy grass.

More of the same as you look towards the driveway. This older section wasn't too visible from the street, but it sure bothered me.

So I glyphosated everything I didn't like. Here are the shots about a week after that:

For some reason I really like how this looks, I guess it reminds me of a golf course.

So I scalped the dead sections, power raked, and core aerated the whole lawn. While I made only one overlapping pass on the nice areas, I made multiple passes on the areas I killed off as well as the brown patch areas. I didn't take any pics of this, but I am sure you can imagine what it looked like. I put down some nice compost on the bare areas, and I manually raked the good grass I had left to remove/breakup the cores and remove dead grass. I then overseeded the good grass, and seeded the bare areas. I used a mix containing 40% Firecracker LS, 30% Faith, and 30% Cochise IV. I topdressed (by hand) with a mix of topsoil and peat moss until I couldn't see the seed. It was a very thin layer, probably 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch. It took me three days to seed the lawn and top dress since it was midweek. The first day was 9/14. Basically I did a third of the lawn every day for three days. I neglected to take pics of that as well. Again it looked basically the same as the glyphosated pics but instead of light brown the areas were dark, almost black. These pics were taken yesterday. It gives a good idea of how it looked after seeding, but of course you can see the seedlings in 2/3rds of the lawn, the last third will probably pop today.

Here's a shot from the street. You can see the progression of seedlings from right to left, as I seeded the area near the driveway first.

Here's the brown patch area. Notice that the phone company removed the old pole (there were two in the previous pics). I laid down some plywood boards for them, thank god that they told me they were coming on Monday, or else they would have ruined a lot of hard work. If it was one week later they would have trampled a lot of young grass. I really dodged a bullet there.

You can see the seedlings, gotta blow off those leaves tonight.

Here is a part that was seeded last, 9/17. You can see the line of the seedlings from the 9/16 seeding.

Here is that narrow patch by the street. This area gets the most sun and heat from the street, so it's no surprise that these seedlings are the greenest and tallest.

So far everything looks good. In hindsight I wish I planted about a week earlier, but I had too much going on at that time, and also I needed to wait out some rainy days. There are two large hickory trees that attract many squirrels that love to tear up all my hard work. My squirrel trapping last year and this year has kept their damage to a minimum (don't worry, they are humanely trapped and let go in an open space woods area). The weather is perfect, seventies in the day, fifties at night, hope it lasts for a month. I will probably update with pics every week or so. I also did a backyard renovation using poa trivialis, which will probably be posted sometime soon. Enjoy.

Thanks for sharing.

RIGHT ON!

And this is the nut! It explains why we renovate in our pursuit.

Best of luck, tiemco !!!

Try going diagonally across your lawn --one way one day, then in the other direction the next day.
Some people, me included, thinks this can help the lawn stand up better to how its mowed.
Besides, the eye is not so much on furrows...doesn't see the lines...I've been doing it this way all my life....and it does seem to look better especially when the lawn is lush.

For that....trees do take a lot of moisture out of the ground and grass and plants pay the price.
Put down some organic material each fall, each spring...this will help the soil accumulate material that will hold onto moisture. This can be done by simply overlaying 1/2 = 1 inch of comopost or topsoil (good topsoil) then letting the grass come up through it.
Do it in spring, when the grass is being encouraged and again in the fall when the grass has no competition and grows on its own initiative.

The bare spots, can be encouraged to fill in by properly fertilizing with the correct type for the type of lawn you have. The lawn should be fed regularly to maintain its growth potential.

The trees sucking the life out of the ground will always be with you--its the nature of the beast.
Remove grass within 2 feet of the trunk...this can cut down on the number of pests hiding in the tree's wood which can affect the ground--and thus the grass. The tree then has less need to steal from the grass.

Keep the fertilizer away from the base of the tree and gardens. Water soluble fertilizer should be watered in prior to fertilizing. Granular type, water after application.

Here's the view from the street:

To the left, looking at the brown patch area near the telephone poles:

The hose bridge!

Here's the front brown patch area by the flowers and driveway:

Here is the area looking towards the sycamore. I have been blowing the leaves as best I could off the new grass onto the old that has been overseeded. Seems like there has been some thinning on the border of the old and the new, which you can kind of see here:

Here's looking at the sycamore from the opposite side:

So it's been 15, 14, and 13 days for the three sections. Some areas are at 3 inches, others are 2 at the most. Most of the difference is probably due to the amount of sun the taller areas get. I am dying to cut the whole yard, (gotta get those leaves off) but I am going to hold off for one more week so that it is all at or above 3 inches, unless any of the areas start laying down, then I will probably selectively mow. The weather forecast for the next week is cool for the next three days, rain for the weekend, but warmer, and then still warm (low 70's) with sun on monday and tuesday. So tuesday will probably be the big day, and of course I will have to take pics after that momentous occassion. See you next week.

what was your top dressing combo of peat moss to topsoil?

And looking left to the area by the telephone pole that was hit hard by brown patch this summer:

Looks pretty good from the far shot, lets look a bit closer. Here's looking at the sycamore from the driveway:

And from the other side:

And looking down towards the street at the border of the old and the new:

You can see the difference in the old and the new. The year old areas are obviously darker and thicker. It hasn't even been a month so I am not worried as the new grass is mostly single blades with no real tillering. I expect more thickening and darker color in the next month as long as the weather cooperates, but I am pretty sure it won't be till next year until the new stuff really hits its stride. Here is a closeup of the new/old border:

Here is the front part near the flower bed that was also hit pretty good by brown patch this summer:

I guess the hard part is pretty much over now, hopefully it will progress nicely till the late fall dormancy ensues. The only thing to worry about is those stupid deer, and the squirrels. Of course this morning one of those forest rats tore up a few small areas right down by the street. I guess he wanted to show everyone his handiwork. If he keeps this up I will show him my .22. Tune in next week for the usual update.

A little closer:

A look at the area near the telephone pole that was wiped out this summer by brown patch:

By the street, another area that was hit hard this summer:

Looking towards the sycamore from the driveway:

Looking towards the street at the boarder of the old and the new:

Looking towards the sycamore from the other side:

You can still see the difference between the old and the new in terms of color and texture. I expect this to remain so until next year. My biggest fear is that the new cultivars will still be markedly different from the old by next year, but only time will tell. The older TTTF is a mix of middle of the pack cultivars, none of them near the top of the NTEP's, unlike the ones I planted this year. I guess the worst case scenario means I have to redo the older sections next year.

How dense did you lay your seed on the newly planted areas? Did you overseed again in the spring?

Soil is rock hard clay, no sand, you literally have to use a sharpened pick axe to dig it up. What I did to prepare was pick axe the whole dirt back yard (about 8" down), then mixed in a truck load of compost (about 30% compost). There were some areas where the grass grew great until the heat kicked in, so I dug those up last week and reseeded (I didn't dig down deep enough so the roots stopped growing).

I water at 5am, and humidity is only like 10% usually, so yeah, no fungal disease worries here! In the peak of summer it gets down to the 80's only, now it gets down to 50's. We freeze overnight in Jan/Feb as well.

I was amazed to see Tall Fescue growing here too (since it's cool season grass), but a lot of lawns here are fescue and that's pretty much all the stores carry. I use the generic Contractor's Mix from Lowes (which is one of the cheaper bags, but I've had great success with it), I'll have to check what cultivars are in the bag and report back.

I also have TTTF..

Just curious? Since there is no curb or sidewalk, do you get traffic running over your lawn on occassion or foot traffic, dogs etc? and what about in the winter...the salt trucks and city trucks ? that would drive me nuts!

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lawns/msg0621330425292.html?1 2

Thanks Robb,
maryland

Thanks for making this thread. I also saw your other thread. Your lawn is looking great! :)