Quote :

"Why not sod?"

half an acre of sod seems like it would be really expensive

5/14/2014 10:21:57 AM

^yep.

you can still seed bermuda; just have to water it very well. and if you want green... bermuda goes dormant for much of the year here... there are several bermuda yards around me that are still brown; and go dormant again in october. don't seed fescue now. Hell some of my fescue from last fall is now dying from the latest heat wave with no rain

and whatever you do, be sure you get the seed covered with soil (avoid straw, if possible). seed on top of the ground is really good bird food and nothing else.

[Edited on May 14, 2014 at 11:06 AM. Reason : .]

5/14/2014 11:04:40 AM

True...

5/14/2014 11:08:24 AM

^^ yeah, i always cringe when I see newly seeded areas covered with straw. The down side of bare soil over seed is that it dries out really quickly.

I sorta came up with something that's been working for me. This won't really scale to seeding a whole yard or anything, but if i end up with a really large bare spot at the end of a summer it tends to need a bit more than overseeding.

1. get a thatch rake and tear up the soil a bit. get rid of any weeds.
2. throw down enough seed to get a pretty thick amount of new growth. it's kinda trial and error. you don't want too much, but you definitely need more than you'd apply with a spreader.
3. add enough lawn soil on top to make it level with the surrounding ground.
4. take your thatch rake and run it through your established grass. you should have enough dried up, half decomposed thatch to fill up a leaf bag in like 5 minutes.
5. take the dried up thatch and apply it much like you would with straw. this will keep the birds at bay as well as trap moisture in for the new grass.

This has worked really well for me over the years. I even had some success with it this spring, but whether those spots become bare again by July remains to be seen. Took a gamble on being a little further north than NC and that the slightly cooler temps might work to my advantage.

5/14/2014 2:20:45 PM

my next door neighbor always throws straw down...shit blows onto my lawn

5/14/2014 3:08:20 PM

I use my dethatcher, in addition to aerating, to prepare my soil for seeding - almost like slit seeding + aeration. whatever gets seed in the ground instead of on the ground

Though I don't have the luxury of using the collected thatch as a cover material .

[Edited on May 14, 2014 at 3:17 PM. Reason : .]

5/14/2014 3:16:35 PM

peat moss is a nice alternative to staw or topsoil that i've had success with. It's a little easier to spread than topsoil and it retains moisture well.

5/14/2014 3:25:55 PM

Quote :

"and if you want green... bermuda goes dormant for much of the year here... there are several bermuda yards around me that are still brown; and go dormant again in october."

i'm not set on bermuda...i just want something other than weeds that will be green in my yard

out of frustration, i threw down some cheap rye (http://www.lowes.com/pd_93909-303-20021496005571_0__?productId=3047689) in mid-late summer (august, maybe?) last year and it went nuts...it was nice having a green lawn all winter, but now what i assume is the rye is thick shoots/stalks instead of leaves

since it says it's annual, i assume i won't have to worry about it coming back in the fall, so at that point i'll just plant fescue (right?)

is fine fescue preferable to tall fescue in an area that gets partial shade during the day? from what i've read, kentucky 31 has poor shade tolerance, poor drought tolerance, and requires more fertilizer than something like tall or fine fescue...true?

also, what can i plant in the fully shaded parts of my woods?

this place came recommended for finding just about anything you could want: http://www.southernseedsinc.com/

[Edited on May 15, 2014 at 8:16 AM. Reason : .]

5/15/2014 8:13:31 AM

I'd go with a mix of tall and fine if you go the fescue route.

If you're going for just green gound cover, you may want to consider Centipede grass. It's the lowest maintenance turfgrass that is viable here in the Southeast. Slow growing and doesn't need much fertilizer at all. The only catch is it is a warm season grass so it does go dormant in the winter. It doesn't do as well with heavy shade as fescue, but then again not much does.

5/15/2014 8:41:35 AM

^^yes, annual rye will die-out this summer. if you go with fescue, go with a blended mix. I really like fairway green's mix, though I haven't through a summer with it yet (and a few patches are already brown ). Wait until september to seed.

[Edited on May 15, 2014 at 9:46 AM. Reason : .]

5/15/2014 9:45:05 AM

^^^ Here are NCSU's recommended fescue cultivars...for last year at least. - http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/turfgrasses/fescue_tall.aspx#AR005346

and the maintenance calendar - http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/PDFFiles/000017/Tall_Fescue.pdf

Quote :

"Kentucky 31 (K-31), is a coarse bladed, upright tall fescue that usually produces lower density and the lowest quality ratings in the NC field trials."

Quote :

"Many new “turf-type” tall fescues are available at many home and garden centers. Improved fescues tolerate more shade and closer mowing. They have a finer leaf texture, better shoot density, and a darker green color than the old standard Kentucky-31."

Quote :

"also, what can i plant in the fully shaded parts of my woods?"

Not fescue. I can't even get it to grow in a mostly shaded part of my property...even a few hours of light a day isn't enough, regardless of whatever pricey shade mix seed I buy.

Quote :

"i'm not set on bermuda...i just want something other than weeds that will be green in my yard"

But obviously the warm season grasses will be brown in the winter.

5/15/2014 9:50:34 AM

thanks for the advice and links

i feel like there is (or should be) a tried-and-true formula for having year-round grass around here...perennials that are green in the summer (fescue) and in the winter (rye or something)

apparently not, though, or there wouldn't be a 15-page thread about it

5/15/2014 10:00:19 AM

yeh, probably won't get any grass established in full shade. don't waste your money there (and if it's truly in the woods; let it be a natural area (add some pine needles or mulch to start and let nature take over for ground cover).


Fescue is green all year here; assuming the summer isn't too hot & dry (if it's a bad summer, fescue may go brown june-aug, max if it gets no water); other than that chance, fescue is green. Only reason to use rye and fescue is to establish a lawn on bare soil with slopes/runoff. Otherwise, you don't need rye if you get fescue established.

*by go brown, I mean most of the yard; not patches - brown patches (non-fungal) can happen during any warm & dry period, like now, like with areas in my yard.

[Edited on May 15, 2014 at 10:17 AM. Reason : .]

5/15/2014 10:01:57 AM

Yeah I think the problem is we're right in the middle. It's just a little too warm for fescue in the summer, and definitely too cold for warm season grasses in the winter.

Check out "What To Plant" here: http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/PDFFiles/004175/Carolina_Lawns.pdf

I like fescue/bluegrass since it stays green year around...I just have to give it some water when it's really hot.

[Edited on May 15, 2014 at 10:09 AM. Reason : ^^]

5/15/2014 10:08:30 AM

^yep. you won't beat a blended fescue mix (of good quality - even those with bluegrass & rye mixed in) for the piedmont if you want green year-round.

And just because I've been asked this before - if you go warm-season grass, don't even think about st. augustine grass in this area. you need sand + lots of water.

[Edited on May 15, 2014 at 10:21 AM. Reason : .]

5/15/2014 10:21:11 AM

Good thing I didn't get that multh spread out yet.

5/16/2014 1:42:34 PM

you have the ideal environment for a rice paddy

5/16/2014 1:59:48 PM

multh or no multh, I think you have a drainage problem

5/16/2014 2:05:21 PM

More like the creek/drainage ditch behind my house has a problem and routes water through my neighbors yard and into mine when we get significant rain. Gonna try to talk to the city/about taking a look at it.

5/17/2014 11:05:30 AM

Quote :

"if you go warm-season grass, don't even think about st. augustine grass in this area. you need sand + lots of water."

That's not my experience. I've got it in my yard in North Raleigh and it does great. I've got clay and I don't water my lawn.

5/20/2014 9:40:12 PM

^^ Shit bro, are you directly in the floodplain? We studied the topo maps of the area before we bought and ruled out anything right next to a creek.

6/1/2014 12:10:38 PM

Damn!!!! If that shit happens every time you get "significant rain", you're fucked.

6/2/2014 9:30:49 AM

Quote :

"More like the creek/drainage ditch behind my house has a problem and routes water through my neighbors yard and into mine when we get significant rain. Gonna try to talk to the city/about taking a look at it."

Best of luck with this as it may be a regional issue that requires millions of dollars, hundreds of projects, and decades to fix, if that's even possible.

So unless it's something as simple as an undersized pipe or two downstream, I wouldn't count on this going away. And if there isn't structural/building damage on multiple structures that occurs frequently, good luck even getting a pipe replaced.

Is your home/property in the jurisdictional floodplain?

[Edited on June 2, 2014 at 9:48 AM. Reason : .]

6/2/2014 9:47:34 AM

Garden is coming along, got my first jalapeno this morning. The new banana trees are taking root and the fig trees are recovering from being cut back to the ground. Hops are really looking good!

I also split some more banana tree and am experimenting with splitting the hops. I just offloaded 20 banana trees a few weekends ago and now I have 12 more that will be ready soon. I also have 10 hops plants that are slowly getting started.

6/2/2014 4:08:48 PM

Quote :

"Best of luck with this as it may be a regional issue that requires millions of dollars, hundreds of projects, and decades to fix, if that's even possible. So unless it's something as simple as an undersized pipe or two downstream, I wouldn't count on this going away. And if there isn't structural/building damage on multiple structures that occurs frequently, good luck even getting a pipe replaced. Is your home/property in the jurisdictional floodplain?"

The floodplain is further downstream, so basically not much can be done around us to prevent it. Even if they opened up the drainage behind the house or if we built in better drainage on our property, if the floodplain gets backed up there's nowhere else for the water to go. Apparently the property behind us is private property and the county can't figure out who owns it. The last recorded owner was an HOA or something, and there is no HOA for our neighborhood. Need to do more digging.

6/5/2014 2:17:57 PM

went to florida for a week with a beautiful, lush green lawn.

came back to about 50% of it yellowed from dollar spot and brown patch fungus.

threw down about $100 worth of Heritage. crossing my fingers that this staves off the damage.

6/5/2014 2:34:57 PM

^^technically, anything within the 100-yr flood extents is in the floodplain, e.g. maybe your backyard. The floodplain exists all along the stream, not just in several areas. Just because someone decided to build a house in the floodplain doesn't mean it's not there

6/5/2014 5:03:08 PM

I'm getting a decent amount of seedheads with my bermuda. My yard is extremely lush and fast-growing...but the seed-heads take away from the "complete green" look. Do I just need to sharpen the blades of my reel-mower? I know seed-heads are harder to cut. I've had my mower for 4 years and never sharpened it...but it's suppose to be self-sharpening. Thoughts?

6/12/2014 6:41:25 PM

^^ we checked the geological surveys that fema uses. We're not in the 100 yr flood plain, but we're pretty damn close. They're supposed to do another survey soon, so we'll see if that changes.

6/12/2014 11:20:24 PM

i had my woods bulldozed and bush hogged and now the stuff is coming back (which i knew it would, and that's fine)...so now i'm going to poison everything

i'm planning on a shopping spree at agri supply sometime in the next couple of days and want to figure out the best treatment pattern for woody brush, poison ivy, english ivy, etc...thoughts?

i figured i'd use triclopyr (http://www.agrisupply.com/brush-killer-tiger-brand-1-gallon/p/57565/) for the majority of the property, especially around the fencing where the tractor/bobcat couldn't get, but also in the open areas

i'm pretty sure triclopyr will affect trees if you get it on the bark, so i'm hesitant to spray near the mature trees...in which case i was thinking i'd pick up some glyphosate (http://www.agrisupply.com/gly-star-plus-glyphosate-herbicide/p/50281/) for use around them

i suppose my question is more regarding when and how often i should apply herbicide...they're both post-emergence, so now is as good a time as any since everything is growing back, but when should i apply it a second time? can (and should) i spray both over the same area?

also, suggestions for a backpack sprayer? i'm looking at this 4.2-gallon pump since it has a metal nozzle (http://www.agrisupply.com/backpack-sprayer-piston-pump-42-gallon-capacity/p/69028/) but i'll be spraying about 1/3 of an acre i'm wondering if it's large enough or if i'm going to kick myself for not having a powered unit...other options:

15-gallon sprayer that i could put on a garden cart and run off a 12V battery ($90 or about $130 after buying a battery): http://www.agrisupply.com/gallon-lawn-garden-spot-sprayer/p/57383/

5-gallon rechargeable unit on wheels ($150): http://www.agrisupply.com/spot-sprayer-rechargeable/p/82154/

6/17/2014 8:54:13 AM

depending on what's there, you're going to have to risk using brush killer in the entire area. Do that, then get a shit ton of ground cover (mulch is best) and bury that shit under a foot or so - spray anything that comes up through the mulch. It will likely take several years to get everything killed off.

[Edited on June 17, 2014 at 12:17 PM. Reason : .]

6/17/2014 12:16:43 PM

Quote :

"I'm getting a decent amount of seedheads with my bermuda. My yard is extremely lush and fast-growing...but the seed-heads take away from the "complete green" look. Do I just need to sharpen the blades of my reel-mower? I know seed-heads are harder to cut. I've had my mower for 4 years and never sharpened it...but it's suppose to be self-sharpening. Thoughts?"

Our front bermuda is getting the same thing but our back isn't (different varieties). Who knows. I didn't really put much thought into but it is a little annoying because it looks more unkempt in that 1-week window between mowing.

6/17/2014 2:47:20 PM

Any recommendations on places to get decent topsoil (self haul and delivered)? Preferably east Raleigh/Wake County.

8/6/2014 1:31:15 PM

Michael Blake's in Knightdale
Raleigh Yard Waste Landfill sells mulch pretty cheap - got two truckloads one day for $25

8/6/2014 1:34:29 PM

Mulch Masters...it's probably like $15 a yard or something

[Edited on August 6, 2014 at 1:36 PM. Reason : actually $32 : / - http://www.themulchmasters.com/RETAIL_PRICE_LIST.pdf]

8/6/2014 1:35:02 PM

^ooooooooouuuuuuuch.

^^thought about the yardwaste center, but they have mulch and compost only; compost would work if I could really get it worked into my soil... which is an issue (it's like damn concrete). I forgot about micheal blake's, since they're never open when I'm around there. I'll look into them.

8/6/2014 1:42:19 PM

My bermuda grass is starting to brown out again. I treated it for brown spot about a month ago (saw some areas in the back corner that went bad last year). It looked like it was slowly starting to come back, then I mowed it right before our long week of rain, and now it looks worse.

I thought it was going brown because we have had a pretty dry summer, and after the beginning of the summer, I really haven't watered it. So I thought last week would really bring it back to life, but it seems to have only hurt it.

Kind of perplexed. Do I really need to do a soil analysis?? I previously had Centipede that grew awesome for a couple years...it just couldn't hold up to my dog once he got bigger. My Bermuda always starts off really well in the beginning of the summer, but starts to have problems right about this time every year. Is it because I didn't water it during the dry part of the summer? I know I scalped it a bit last year because the setting on my mower was too low, but I fixed that this year.

8/6/2014 1:53:44 PM

Got a fescue lawn that is dealing with some brown patch. I first thought the lawn was going more brown because of the dry climate and the fact that I never water the lawn. My lawn is probably a result of both issues.

Either way, I plan on overseeding next month to try and get things back in line. Would it be pointless to try and overseed as long as the fungus that causes brown patch is still there? I know the fungicides don't really work very effectively so I don't know what's the best course of action to take.

8/6/2014 9:25:59 PM

it's fescue in august. what's it supposed to look like?

8/6/2014 9:32:23 PM

green, if it has enough water.

^^are you sure it is brown patch fungus? If so, I'd go ahead and treat it according to the product's instructions. No sense in wasting money on seeding if you have an active fungus issue. Besides, you have from September-October to seed.

8/7/2014 9:16:15 AM

My fescue looks great right now...it's been a pretty temperate summer and we've got a ton of water lately.

http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/diseases/Brown_Patch.aspx

[Edited on August 7, 2014 at 10:37 AM. Reason : ^ yeah you have a ton of time here]

8/7/2014 10:35:52 AM

^ That link doesn't list Bermuda as able to have Brown Patch...is that correct? I swear I had that shit last year. And this makes it sound almost impossible to avoid it:

Quote :

"but is most severe when low and high temperatures are above 70°F and 90°F, respectively. The turfgrass leaves must be continuously wet for at least 10 to 12 hours for the brown patch fungus to infect. Poor soil drainage, lack of air movement, shade, cloudy weather, dew, over-watering, and watering in late afternoon favor prolonged leaf wetness and increased disease severity"

It makes it sound like if you get a week of rain (like we had last week)...then it's almost a given.

8/7/2014 11:20:27 AM

I'm not up to speed on my turfgrass diseases, but there are very similar looking diseases for bermuda

http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/Turfgrasses/Bermudagrass.aspx#InfoSheet

[Edited on August 7, 2014 at 12:05 PM. Reason : brown patch looks similar to dollar spot]

8/7/2014 12:04:38 PM

Quote :

"thought about the yardwaste center, but they have mulch and compost only; compost would work if I could really get it worked into my soil... which is an issue (it's like damn concrete). "

Last year I rented a decent sized tiller and tilled half my yard. went down a few inches (no more than 6). bought a few bags of stuff (compost/topsoil/soil conditioner etc etc) and tilled that in. the soil was so hard, the tiller initially did not do anything but scrape the grass off the ground surface. I had to take a pick axe and just randomly go around loosening everything up first, then the tiller had something to grab onto and actually churn the soil up.

the remainder of my lawn I aerated. a few weeks after overseeding, there was a clear, distinct line where I stopped with the tiller. come spring, that shit was beautiful.

it's a lot of work (especially if you had/have trees - roots are a real bitch), but man it did the trick.

8/7/2014 12:50:51 PM

aren't you supposed to aerate before overseeding?

8/7/2014 1:21:09 PM

I thought that was understood.

a few weeks after overseedingtilling, aerating, and overseeding, ......

8/7/2014 1:25:17 PM

I think I just ignored the . there

Quote :

"the remainder of my lawn I aerated. a few weeks after overseeding"

8/7/2014 2:06:33 PM

8/7/2014 2:56:22 PM

I'm not sure it's brown patch. I get monthly or bi-monthly treatment from Fairway Green. When they billed me the last time, their notes mentioned that I had brown patch. I would assume that they would know what they're talking about, but it also wouldn't surprise me if they were wrong. I'm taking their word for it since I don't know what to look for.

8/7/2014 10:15:07 PM

I have fairway green in clt and my lawn was staring to brown. They sprayed for brown patch and now with the cool weather and rain it looks awesome. I was skeptical but I think it was worth it if you've already invested in your lawn.

8/10/2014 2:24:55 PM