Bestlawn was banned from Gardenweb for something that happened on another forum. She posts regularly on another forum now, but that site can't be in a post here. Unfortunately, I don't know how to read the NTEP stuff to help you pick your cultivars.

If you don't have any grass up yet, any grass that does come up is going to have a tough time this summer. I think I'd still try to get something growing so you don't end up with erosion issues when you get the summer thunderstorms.

I think your timing sounds good. It should be cool enough in NE WI by mid August for a reseeding to succeed.

I appreciate the heads up and the comments on how to proceed. Thanks.

I remember zhoster last year seeded in MI with with Mag-3, but I can't remember if bestlawn recommended that or if he decided that on his own.

No one here has bestlawn's expertise, but if you can't find her we can try to work it out. I know some of us obsessed over our local NTEP rankings last year and have some familiarity with how to use the data.

Take a look at this list (linked below). Which location is closest to your climate? I would guess Madison WI, but maybe something else sounds like a better fit to you?

If Madison is the best of those sites, it looks like it will be pretty easy picking in terms of turfgrass quality - well regarded varieties of compact, compact america, and compact midnight all rank up near the top over the 2001-05 trials. The next thing to do would be to figure out how these plots were managed (mowing height, watering, etc.) how well each did against whatever particular disease problems you might have in your area, and then to see what the latest (06-07) results look like. All of that information is available on the NTEP site, but it can be a little hard to tease out of their clunky presentation.

Here is a link that might be useful: 2001-05 NTEP results

87, if I may, what or who is 'bestlawn'...is that a name of a poster or a company that did work for you.

About the choice that was used...percentages of Kentucky Blue, Ryegrass and Fescue...for your area that is an ideal mixture.
I suggest you do further research into why you wish to use straight Kentucky Blue.....from what I know about that, its not good to just use one blend because of certain characteristics of such grass type.

You certainly wouldn't make a meal of just potatoes, a more balance meal is what we like to fill out with. Same goes for our lawns. Each grass type has benefits the others might be deficient in. One stands up to summer heat and sun better, others stand up to freezes and will go dormant to rest and come back when conditions are better.
Using one blend only might, for a time, look great, but then when hardship comes, the lawn looks dreadful.

Forgive my innocence......what is RU?

When new grass is laid, its a good idea to apply a "starter fertilizer" which helps the grass get off to a good germination start and gives it strength to stand up to what nature might throw at it.
General fertilizer wouldn't be advised until it is up at least 3" and not before a third mowing.
The starter fertilizer is all that the new lawn needs for a time.

While the ground is still being prepared, you now have the opportunity to improve the soil's ability to hold onto moisture. With the topsoil the ground has now, apply a 1/2" layer over it with a good compost or commercial composted cattle manure (or sheep manure) which you buy in bags at the garden centers.
One-half inch doesn't sound like much, but you would be advised to strew another 1/2" each spring and fall for the next 4 or 5 years. Just doing this will greatly advance your lawn's ability to hold moisture and feed the roots which will result in a more lush lawn. This in turn will prevent many a weed from showing up.

bpgreen, I found the website with the person I was looking for.

jeannie7, thanks for the feedback.

bestlawn was a former poster in these forums.

From what I've read, you can grow a 100% KBG lawn with very low risk if you blend different cultivars, each with characteristics complement each other to provide maximum protection again disease, etc...

RU = Round-up, used to kill the current lawn to prep it for the renovation.

This year I'm thinking I'll blend an organic & synthetic program. Use starter fertilizer while establishing the lawn, but also supplement it with organics. Next year I plan to transition to a 100% organic program.

If you do renovate, unless your soil is already optimal for feeding plants (which it won't be after you round it up...) forget about the organics for a year, except maybe over next summer, and only if you just can't help yourself. Seriously look into how much nitrogen a brand new KBG lawn needs, and realize that whatever the NPK equivalents of the organics, they release over at least three years. Beginning in the spring of the year after your fall seeding, you will want to apply six pounds of nitrogen per thousand feet, and that takes some planning to apply properly, as I learned a little late.

That said, your most important feeding will be the last one this fall, around thanksgiving, heavy with synthetic nitrogen. If you do that right you might be able to cut next year's requirements by a pound or so, and if you can, take it out of the early spring. I renovated last year (award, moonlight, bedazzled), and found, starting even six weeks after seeding, that the grass needed more nitrogen than I ever imagined it would.

After the first year (meaning from seeding to the following November) you can cut back and move more gracefully into organics.

Glad you found Bestlawn. For kicks you could look at how the grasses she recommended have performed on that NTEP site to get a sense of why she recommended them.

Good luck!
Paul

Packemup, I appreciate that you would like to go 'organic', but I don't recommend it for a 'brand new' KBG lawn. Maybe in the third year, but not for the year of seedlings, and not for the next two.

KBG is a 'heavy feeder'....that means that it needs more nitrogen than 'normal', whatever 'normal' is. Our fathers put down an application of fertilizer in the fall, and then again in the spring, and called it even. If you do that, you will fail. The KBG will not thrive. You need at least three, and could very well need four, applications of fertilizer. That's a big-first-number fert, like a 20-2-3, or a 24-3-1 (notice how that first number is big?), and the 'organics', like Milorganite, or any other sewage-sludge based fert is a 5-2-0, and I suspect the grains are very close to that: they release nitrogen as they rot (I'm sorry, I meant to say 'naturally decompose'...)and that is not a fast process. It may be 'continuous'...it may be 'won't burn the lawn', and may be 'bad ol' chemical-free', but it is not 'fast'. And you need 'fast'. You need 'powerful' (meaning big-first-number), because it's all about the NITROGEN, baby, the NITROGEN. The first number, of the fertilizer's three numbers.

That's KBG. It's a heavy feeder.

And you have even less that that. You are starting from scratch, and you are growing from seed. You want this KBG to sprout, grow, and then get aggressive, and crowd out undesireable plants, by pushing tillers, rhizones, and SPREAD, BABY, SPREAD, all over that bare ground. If you do not keep up with the nitrogen (it's all about the nitrogen) then other plants will invade that area, because the KBG is not aggressive enough, perhaps just barely hanging on, much less spreading aggressively, and then the whole point of your renovation has failed.

So for your renovation, for your 'new' KBG, you need even MORE NITROGEN than we talked about above for a KBG lawn. Yep, even more.

So plan on using the synthetics for the first three years. You have to figure out a way to get BIG NITROGEN on that lawn, so that the KBG can use it. After that, you can transition to the organics. I don't use the grains, but I do use Milorganite, in the summer. But in spring and fall, I use the big-first-number synthetics, because it's all about the nitrogen. I renovated last fall, and that lawn of mine has just plain absorbed two apps of fert last fall, two apps of fert this spring, and one app of Milorganite. I thought "I am surely killing this lawn" and it's not true: that fert just disappeared, the lawn absorbed it, because KBG is a heavy feeder, and 'new' KBG is a heavier feeder than that. I've got great density, but do not yet have great color. Should I add yet more fert? I'm going to add Milorganite, again, on July 4th, even though I usually don't fertilize, even with milorganite, in July. But that lawn just plain needs the nitrogen. It's taken everything I've thrown at it, and there's not one sign, anywhere, of over fertilization. KBG is a heavy feeder. New KBG needs more than that.

So no, on the 'organics', for the new lawn. You've seen the Rocky movies, with Stallone. That guy is big, powerful, muscular, ugly, and he's going to do some damage, going to do some WORK. This is going to HAPPEN. When he sits down at some restaurant, he wants big, he wants meat, he wants potatos, and he wants LOTS of it. Now. He is never, never, going to say to the waitress "Could I have a dainty little salad?".....that's just not enough food.

With new KBG, it's all about the nitrogen. Lots of it.

Philes, you forgot about the raw egg cocktails before the early morning runs in the beginning of the training... ;-)

I mean, disgusting as that may seem, THAT is exactly what is needed Packemup. Suck down the raw eggs, and then start running.

;-)

Cheers all,
Paul

"That's a big-first-number fert, like a 20-2-3, or a 24-3-1 (notice how that first number is big?), and the 'organics', like Milorganite, or any other sewage-sludge based fert is a 5-2-0"

I'll partially agree and partially take issue with this.

I agree with the post overall, and the emphasis on providing enough nitrogen, especially early on.

But I take issue with the idea that using something with an NPK of 5-2-0 can't give you the N that something with a 20-2-3 can. Those numbers are percentages. If you're going to apply the same amount of 5-2-0 as 20-2-3, then you won't be getting enough N. But if you take into account the fact that those numbers are percentages, then you know that you can get the same amount of N using 5-2-0 as 20-2-3. It just takes 4 times as much

Hey BP, Philes can speak for himself of course, but I think what he had in mind was the idea of adding enough N without adding too much P or K in the absence of a soil test just to simplify the recommendation, since, frankly, very few people actually take the time to get one.

I mean, if you multiply out the amounts of those other elements that are part of the "guaranteed analysis" of milorganite in order to get the right amount of nitrogen, you are also adding huge amounts of those other things, which stick to the soil much longer than nitrogen, and which can lead to many other problems, including, say iron chlorosis.

;-)

Sorry to be fixated on that last thing (!), but I am worried about it in my own lawn, and suspect you may have the same problem. And overapplying fertilizers like Milorganite is one of the ways one can get it.

Best,
Paul

Good point, Paul.

I'm a proponent of using Ammonium Nitrate or Urea if you're using synthetics, because N is pretty transient, but P and K stick around for a while. In many cases, they're not needed, and their overuse leads to pollution.

I no longer use anything but coffee grounds on my lawn, and I'm using them almost as much for the addition of organic matter as for whatever slight fertilizer benefit they have. As I transition to a native lawn, I probably won't even need the coffee grounds.

I'm surprised you'd have iron chlorosis issues. I've had ongoing problems with one tree, but my pH is around 7.5 or so, and the tree is one that is prone to chlorosis. I would think that CT would be an unlikely site for chlorosis to be a concern.

packemup87,
You should also get a soil test done as soon as you can to make sure you know your Ph and what ratio of fertilizers you need. You have a great chance to optimize the soil and should add what it needs now.

The soil test was on my list of "Things to Do" this week. I appreciate the advice on "feeding" the new KBG. I'm sure this won't be the last advice I'll need in this whole renovation process.

Thanks.

Hey BP,

I'm surprised you'd have iron chlorosis issues. I've had ongoing problems with one tree, but my pH is around 7.5 or so, and the tree is one that is prone to chlorosis. I would think that CT would be an unlikely site for chlorosis to be a concern.

I agree, CT is an unlikely site for that. But earlier this year I applied some JG "miracal" to the soil at the extreme rate to counter very low pH, and though I think that will work out fine I wonder about the short term consequences. Also, last year and the year before, after years of neglect, I was fertilizing with a 10-18-10 fertilizer that was recommended to me for apparently no good reason, and which I applied because I didn't know any better. And so I wonder...

I very much need a soil test, but I think, with all of the additions I have made this year, and with all of nitrogen yet to be laid down, and with the grass still spreading, that I should just wait until spring to let it all settle out, and draw my samples then. Maybe then I'll learn that I am far from having that problem.

Best,
Paul

If you want primarily a KBG yard, you'll need to sprout the seed already there or they will invade when you do the KBG planting in the fall.

If you don't want any of it, water it up. And, then don't water. Most places would kill seedlings this time of year without extra irrigation (though mother nature can surprise).

Next choice is then to decide if you want to till your lawn to prepare it. Some do, some don't. Pros and cons either way. If it was me and I had fill dirt added I'd probably till it the first of August.

Then you get to the chem/organic debate. I differ with some above. I don't think it takes three years to have a starter yard ready with organics. Again, just my own personal preference would be to put down a heavy layer of compost and till it in. Level up the yard again. Then, just before seeding (Aug 15 sounds about right in your area, but check that out, all gardening is local) add 40 lbs of alfalfa pellets. It has chemicals in it that stimulate plant growth.

About October I'd follow that up with another 40 lbs per 1000 sq ft of soybean meal. Its higher in Nitrogen than some organic fertilizers. And, again just me, I'd then add 1lb of nitrogen from urea after your first hard freeze.

Next spring start an organic fertilizing program of your choice. The soil will continue to show improvement under an organic program for three years when it hits it max potential (all other things being equal). But, imho, you don't have to wait for it to get to its full potential to start a yard using organics.

And, imho, the approach above, while not as good as it will get later, will be better than using chem fertilizers from the get-go.

Of course, you know how opinions are, everbody has one. ;)

if you haven't found it yet, you can get organic specific lawn care advice here:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/orglawn/

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic lawn care forum

It took me awhile to get back here, but I'd like to point out, to the original poster, that I am corrected, or at least supplemented, by BPGreen and Paulinct. I agree with their posts, as it regards my notes on nitrogen.

My frequent thought is "there are a lot cheaper ways to get nitrogen on a lawn than buying Milorganite".....and I love the stuff. In the fall, BIG first number synthetic fert. WAY lots of nitrogen, w/o buying a ton of Milorganite. But BPGreen and Paul are quite right. And, RCNaylor is right too........it really doesn't matter. My post was directed to my perception that you were not focusing on NITROGEN, NITROGEN, NITROGEN. And then more nitrogen.

Now that we've got that cleared up, put it down however you are comfortable. But you know what that new lawn needs.