I planted seed a month ago and its barely coming in at this point. Anyone having any luck planting seed this spring? The cool weather and low rainfall is killing me.
OT: Eternal Lawn Care Thread
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Not this year, but have always had poor results with bring seeding- either the problem you are having now, or having it die in the summer heat.
Spring is definitely not ideal, but this is ridiculous. The soil is also much worse than I thought. Lots of works to do here.
My lawn and soil took a beating last year from the excessive rain and our neglecting to turn off the sprinklers. A lot of patches of dead grass and fungus we never had before. Our lawn fertilization company said to give it time after their first two applications and the lawn would grown in and fill the patches, and he was right.
This weekend, I went back and aggressively raked some of the bad dead patches where there was still dead grass, and hopefully the rest will fill in. Our lawn/yard is fairly large, and I was not motivated to do the raking by hand. In years past, I dragged a dethacther behind the lawn tractor, but that did not get the job done. I'll seed any dead patches in the fall, but hopefully there are not many.
Sometimes I think it would be easier to plant wildflowers and sell all the lawn equipment.
I'm in the same boat as you are. My seed is just sitting there. Everything else is greening up around it (what, with the tons of watering I'm giving my lawn) but the seed I did lay down hasn't budged.
I threw seed down last .. hmmm .. May(?) or so, and that took without problem. I'm thinking that the problem I'm having this time around is that it's just been too cold (and the soil temps are too cold) .. or, at least colder than they were last year. But, you couldn't ask for more ideal conditions. The weather where I am has been in the 50's or 60's, there aren't many birds around, I just need that seed to root!
Soil temperature has been a bitch so far this year:
https://www.njweather.org/maps/mapviewer?mapname=soiltemperature_5cm
https://www.njweather.org/maps/mapviewer?mapname=soiltemperature_5cm
Here is a brief and basic article from Rutgers
Here is a good forum on lawns
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aroundtheyard.com
Me too.
Having been watering 2x daily since March.
Scott’s seeds just sitting in the ground..nothing coming up.
I used Youtube a lot, The Lawn Care Nut, Ryan Knorr and GCI Turf are some I watch quite often. Reddit has a lawncare section that is pretty informative. Also lots of good info in this thread alone.
Check out the beginners guide at the top of this reddit page
Lawn was looking spectacular after this past weekend's cut. Then I go out today to see all the Poa Trivialis starting to get leggy 😡
Backyard needs a serious dethatching job too.
Backyard needs a serious dethatching job too.
Poa trivialis is the worst. There is no non-selective herbicide to kill it. Velocity and Proacure work but are not for use other than sod farms and golf courses. Poacure is about $250 for 6 oz. You can dig it up and replace with sod or kill it with roundup but that’s about it. I have a couple dozen patches that have emerged this year. Sucks…
See below.
I should be the poster child of what not to do with Poa.
Whatever @rurichdog does, do NOT spot treat it Roundup like I did. I thought I was careful and had sprayed in a limited area. My lawn looked like it had been firebombed with dinner plate-sized dead spots for most of that season. I have learned to mellow out and listen to my lawn fertilization guy- it's a cool season grass and it will basically recede and go away by the 3rd week of June. At least that is what happened last year.
We are slicing and seeding a customers lawn today in Princeton where its been totally bare under trees probably 300 ft x 100 ft area. He is selling in June and even though I told him sucess may be poor he wants to try anyway. The seed should sit in the slits and we will get some showers tonight so hopefully we get 40% lol.
The problem with triv is that is almost always stands out. It grows faster than other cool season grasses, is lighter in color, and has a different texture. It does recede in the summer but turns brown so it not only stands out in the spring and fall, but also the summer.
By the way, Poa is a genus of grass. Species of Poa include Poa pretensis (Kentucky bluegrass,) Poa annua (annual blue grass) , Poa trivialis (rough stalk blue grass), and many other species. Triv and annua are generally unwanted in a cool season grass lawn of KBG, fescue, perenial rye, etc.
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I am seeing more than normal this year as well. May put a pre-emergent down in the fall or a regiment of tenacity for a few weeks in the fall. I was reading an article that a few of the ball field grounds keepers used the tenacity on their turf grass in the fall and it pretty much eliminated the POA the next spring.
Purchase a Rachio controller for your system and you will not have to worry about shutting the sprinklers off due to excessive rain. It is the best investment that I ever made for the lawn.
Don't get me started on controllers.
I had a Weathermatic that came with our system that was not computer controllable.
I had wanted to do Rachio. I had a friend who had a sprinkler guy come and we got hit like $900 to use a proprietary controller and it took a while to get access to the app to control the sprinklers. We have the control. We just got lazy and failed to shut off/adjust the daily watering. We are on a well, and we generally don't pay attention to the watering. Going forward, we will. The rain sensor function should probably do a better job of holding off on running the sprinklers when there has been a lot of rain.
I’ve had good success fighting Poa annua with tenacity because it is annual. I also always do a late summer pre emergent that helps since Poa annua germinates in late summer or fall. Triv is a perennial so there may be some effectiveness with a pre emergent but I don’t think much.
That is the beauty of the Rachio, there is no rain sensor. It gets all of it's information from the local weather station. It takes into account temp, rain fall, wind, soil type etc
Mine is supposed to do that too, and for the first time, I just looked at some of the settings. I tweaked them to water less at certain temperatures and weather forecasts. Lawn is looking good so far this year, except for the dreaded Poa.
Freeze warning tonight! I don't remember moving to Albany 😀
When this seed finally comes up its going to be 90 degrees the next week.
When this seed finally comes up its going to be 90 degrees the next week.
Do you bother with clover? One poster in this thread said at least microclover is beneficial. Is regular clover considered a weed or is it bad for a lawn?
You do realize the clover is mending your soil and making it healthier. I suggest you read up on it before you decide to eradicate it. Companies that produce broad leaf herbicides are the ones who deemed it a weed. They deemed it a weed because their herbicides killed it and it was bad for business if it was viewed as beneficial.
I've read somewhere that the benefits of a clover lawn isn't realized until the clover is tilled under the soil. Only then is the fixed nitrogen released into the soil. Maybe it was a bunch of bs, I don't know. My backyard is full of clover, violets, dandelions, creeping charlie, and umpteen different varieties of grass...good for the pollinators that are flying around with winter coats on. And the next door neighbor had a crew of trained dung beetles install a vinyl fence along the property line, so whatever seeds were buried I'll be finding all year growing along the fence line. Plus the thatch has gotten embarrassingly bad.
Front yard looks pretty good though. My lilac bush finally bloomed after 5 years.
The clover takes nitrogen out of the air and puts it back in the soil so its helping to fertilize your grass.
The reason people plant microclover vs other varieties is because the leaves are small and it grows low so grass can actually grow through it and you hardly notice it.
For all the Poa fans, this is the worst part of my lawn that took a beating with fungus last year, check out the three beautiful patches of Poa :
Yea, that’s Poa Trivialis. I hate it. Notice how it is taller, brighter green, and a different texture in the spring and fall, then brown in the summer.For all the Poa fans, this is the worst part of my lawn that took a beating with fungus last year, check out the three beautiful patches of Poa :
To each his own. I don’t like it for aesthetic reasons. Take a walk around Augusta or other top golf courses, you won’t see it.
Yes we're in different camps.
I need to do everything as close to organic as possible for the pastures and fruit orchard so kids and animals can play on it and eat it. While you're more into looking for the perfect lawn. I need to make nature work for me while you use chemicals to obtain your goal.
My way is safer, your way is prettier. However, even though we're going in two completely different directions to try and obtain the same goal, at times your knowledge can be very beneficial to me.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I find natural landscapes, full of a diversity of plant, animal, fungal, protozoa, and bacterial species all working together symbiotically to be beautiful. On the other hand, I find a synthetic laden monoculture clinging to life in sterilized dirt to be an eyesore and an environmental disaster.
Keep doing what you're doing and spread the word.
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"NO MOW MAY" A movement that gained traction in the UK is spreading to N. America. Put the mower and trimmer away for the month, save some time and money, and help regenerate the environment. Positive benefits reported....study linked in the article.
https://beecityusa.org/no-mow-may/
https://beecityusa.org/no-mow-may/
Same with me. I put down some fresh soil and seeds in some large patches 2 1/2 weeks ago, watering diligently, and nothing doing. Yesterday and today I'm starting to see some sprouts I think due to the warmer weather the last two days.
I think it has to be the lack of warmth. With the same process I've had germination in 7-10 days, but it's been warmer/sunnier when that happened.
Just watch, those same patches are going to get cooked two weeks from now when it skips right to summer.
🤣 This was exactly my wife's excuse this weekend for not mowing the front yard. She said, "It's No Mow May, I'm saving the bees". I said, "but there's 7 other acres and a fruit orchard for them to play in we're doing our part." She wasn't amused so I dropped the subject.
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