wxman,

This is exciting! It looks to be coming along great. Did you give it a good pre-plant app of fertilizer?

Here's a suggestion that would make your mowing a lot easier. Build an ornamtental bed with smooth curvy edges across the back of the house, incorporating the AC units and window well. Never having to mow into sharp corners is a big timesaver.

A.J.

auteck --

I don't know how I got that much. I just scalped my lawn, power dethatched it, raked up the clippings, then spread 1.5" of topsoil over the entire backyard (I didn't want to use roundup because I'm not a chemical fan), seeded the bentgrass with a drop spreader and watered it in 3x a day for the last week. The topsoil I had delivered smelled like "farm" so maybe it was very fertile?

ajer16--

The planting bed is a good idea and I actually thought of that beforehand. I put it upon my "condo neighbor" to take care of that cost and labor since I did the cost of the yard overhaul. I just seeded all the way to the house for now in case it takes him years to fulfill his commitment. And I didn't use any starter fertilizer. The topsoil I had delivered seemed to be really fertile and smelled like "farm" so I didn't want to overdose the seeds right from the start. I plan on dropping milorganite over the entire thing in a few weeks.

Next weekend if it looks walkable, I want to hit all the bare spots with more seed and hopefully by labor day it looks like a lush bentgrass lawn!

Good luck with your Penncross lawn.
Two years ago took the big leap and killed my 5,000 blue/rye/fine fescue front lawn, removed a tree, installed a sprinkler system, and planted 100% SR 7200 Velvet Bentgrass.
I just love the lawn, but I have to admit, it has been a challenge.
As for your concern about volunteer grass in the bentgrass; I got a little, even though I used Round-up twice and covered the entire lawn with fresh topsoil. I believe it is poa supina, a shade tolerant cool season grass I planted for several years in the shade of my former Norway maple tree. Actually, there is just a small amount of it in the lawn, and since I mow every day, it looks almost like bentgrass from the street. I plan to leave it alone until I am completely satisfied with the remainder of the lawn....which may be never.
Good luck with your bentgrass. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I enjoy mine.
Here is a picture of the 2 year old lawn and my ancient greens mower in Buffalo, NY.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:109604}}

Holy cow Lawnfreak, tell us more!

I've thought long and hard for a couple years about planting either T-1 creeping bent or SR7200 velvet, but so far have chickened out. I've also planted some supina, and except for the color, find it to be a good grass.

What have been the biggest challenges with the velvet? What, if anything, do you do to keep thatch from getting out of hand? Any disease issues?

A.J.

How often do you verticut?
Do you use any fungicides?

Wow...those were quick posts. In the time it took me to double cut my bentgrass lawn and edge it, 2 posts appeared.

As for cultivar selection, I chose SR7200 velvet bent based its relative high resistance to dollar spot according to the most recently completed NTEP trial. Dollar spot is probably the number one bentgrass problem on golf courses in Buffalo.

Since the initial seeding I have reseeded with L-93, A-1, and T-1, at different times (by way of disclosure, I am the owner and operator of SeedSuperStore.com, so seed availability is not a problem).

I like the SR7200. A neighbor lady once told me it "looked like velvet". That made my day. It has a beautiful light to medium green color (compared to bluegrass) and the texture just cries out for bare feet.

Having said that, if I had it to do over again, I would plant a blend of all 4 of the above bentgrasses. I have noticed the pure 7200 patches sometimes get diseased when another cultivar seems to be resistant (you can tell the color difference between the original 7200 and the newer bents).

I mow at a true 1/2 inch with my old Toro floating head greens mower. The mechanic at a nearby country club maintains the mower for me, so I know the height of cut is exact. I am trying to maintain a close cut fairway not a putting green, although my neighbors think it is a green.
The lawn is exactly 2 years old so thatch hasn't been a problem yet. I mow it at least 5 times a week, in at least 2 directions. When I'm really bored, I cut it 4 ways. I just love to operate that greens mower!

I water every night at 4 am, for 5 minutes.

I'm thinking of bringing in someone to core aerate in early September. I have a pallet of kiln dried sand that I could broadcast over the area, along with some T-1 seed, which has been very successful on the country club.

Disease has been a big problem both years. At first, I planned to take a hands off approach and let the SR 7200 fend for itself. That was a serious error in judgment. I lost 20% of the lawn to a devastating May outbreak of snow mold (yes, snow mold in May in Buffalo!).

Since that mistake, I have been more aggressive on the chemical front. I walk the lawn every morning, coffee cup in hand, looking for stress. If I see any, I apply a preventative dose of granular Clearys 3336 or Bayleton with my Lesco professional spreader set at 8.

Despite that, I just got whacked with a disease that took out about 10% of my bent and even some of the suspected poa supina. Today I plan to spike aerate the dead areas and overseed with a 5:1 mix of sand and T-1.

In late November I treated the lawn with Lebanon pro-turf PCNB snow mold control at the recommended rate. It worked great, and my lawn was as green as can be one week after the snow melted, 6 weeks ahead of my neighbors.

I fertilize monthly with a high Nitrogen Lesco golf course fertilizer with a very high % slow release at about 1/2 lb. of actual N/1,000 sq ft.

Thats about it. My conclusion is bentgrass is not for the fainthearted. But if you have a decent mower and quite a bit of time on your hands, you can't get a more spectacular lawn.

Here is another picture of the bentgrass with a small area of my drought stressed bluegrass side lawn visible in the foreground.

Drew Kinder
Lawnfreak1

lawnfreak,

Based on my above pictures, would you say my bentgrass will spread and cover the bare areas on its own, or will I have to work up the soil and reseed each and every bare area?

Wxman:
The answer is yes. If the Pencross stays healthy and you fertilize, it will fill in eventually without reseeding.
The problem I ran into was trying to reseed small areas after most of the lawn was growing vigorously. When I stopped mowing and turned on the sprinkler system 3 times a day to germinate the new seed, I developed disease in the established lawn. I think I would have been better off being more patient and waiting for the bentgrass to fill in on its own.
I noticed some shade in one of your photos. That could be a problem. As I'm sure you know, bent hates shade.
Good luck with your lawn.

Drew

lawnfreak,

A few more questions.... how long did you wait after seeding to mow it for the first time? I have a reel mower I will be mowing it with at 0.625". Now that its been up for 4 days or so, should I back off on the watering to 2x a day and then wean it to 1x a day? What kind of weaning schedule did you use?

Also as for the shade, the lawn is in full sun from 10:30 am to 4 pm or so... then it slowly gets shaded as the shadow from the house creeps towards the trees.

Did you have any disease problems or anticipate any between say.. Oct 1 thru Apr 1? I realize that could be a tough one to answer since I think yall are buried in snow during those times.

and do you know of any place I could purchase a small qty of bayleton or clearys3336 and by small qty, I mean for small residential yard?

Thanks for the thorough response, Drew. I had a sneaking suspicion who you were.

A.J.

Wx: As for the first mowing, I believe I waited until I was sure there was no more germination possible...which was at least 3 weeks. Then I backed off the watering. After the ground firmed up, I mowed at 1/2 inch.
A Golf Course Superintendent once told me that new bentgrass doesn't really spread until after it is mowed.

I pretty much water according to what my eyes tell me. Too much water is a guarantee of disease. You will be able to locate the low spots in your lawn....they get sick early and often.

Too little water kills the bentgrass. You will find the gaps in your sprinkler system...the grass will be dead. In my case it was along the curb, where my system just didn't deliver enough water. The problem is that you can't just put more time on the program, because the remainder of the lawn gets water logged and sick.

Quirky: As for Fall/Winter disease the first growing season.....I do not remember any disease in the fall. I treated with PCNB in late November for snow mold prevention. In Buffalo, the golf courses treat putting greens for snow mold, and they would treat the bentgrass fairways if they could afford it. High cut bent (above 1/2 inch) will generally survive snow mold, but it looks awful in early spring. My disease problems began in earnest the following May and summer.

As far as a source of Clearys 3336 and Bayleton, I get mine at Lesco; I believe in a 30 lb bag. I wouldn't worry about buying too much, even for a small lawn. You will use it soon enough....especially at the curative rate, which I like to think of as the "OMG, my lawn is dying" rate.

Drew

Thanks for answering all those questions, drew. I appreciate you spending all this time telling us about your lawn.

Last Oct I planted my lawn. 15 days from planting it was ready for it's first mowing. Those scam artist who put those tv commercials for instant lawn seed should put this in their mix because then it really would be instant lawn.
Anyway to tell you the truth I didn't do that much to it. I felt like it was responding well to the level of care I cave my bermuda. To the untrained eye, it looked pretty much identical to bermuda as well only the residental bermuda sod is brown for most of the year here and is a lot of work for such a short period of glory. There was a lot of talk of trying bentgrass here last fall so I gave it a last minute whirl and I was rewarded with the highest quality lawn I ever had.

It was truly problem free for 8 solid months. Then about a third of it turned brown. Although it looked like fungus I assumed it was due to the heat of the pavement as it was similar situation to what you describe with the sprinkler not reaching to well. We also don't have spring here, it goes directly from winter to summer and this spring was really unbelievable heat in the 90's so it was a shock to the system.

In july it was starting to look better when temps got back to normal (80's) on then we got socked with a terrible drought which we still are in. It just does not rain here, ever. So I watered it often since the roots went only about 3" deep but I watered it a lot longer than 5 minutes.
I mowed 3 times a week between half an inch to 5/8" and watered only when when we went longer than a week with no rain. I fertilized monthly with scotts turfbuilder. (I believe in using what is readily available to homeowners for demonstration purposes) The quality couldn't be beat for 8 months of the year. My goal was 9 months of decent but I take 8 months of amazing.
I suspect had I not taken car of it to replace with a-1 the remainder of the penncross I had would have died in the past week's heat wave which was record setting highs in the low 100's for our area all day long and warm at night. Not a single drop of rain has fallen here in practically 3 weeks.
I only had about 200sf of it and this year my whole front lawn will be a-1. Hopefully I will get at least another 8 great months from it. If not I guess I will swtich to something else. Nobody has been able to give me a basic care calendar for creeping bent so I really wasn't sure if it was even going to make it through the fall and winter.

Update --

Tonight when I got home the backyard was kind of dry on top (the sprinklers are going off at 6 am and 12 pm for 15 mins.. and then if it looks dry in the evening I've been giving it a shot of water to carry it over to the morning). So I went to the hardware store and bought 60 lbs of milorganite. I mixed in 5 lbs of penncross bentgrass seed with the 60 lbs of milorganite and evenly broadcasted it across the yard. Then I proceeded to water it in for 10 minutes with the sprinkers to mush up and milorganite and make soil/seed contact. In 3-5 days I will hopefully have tons more bentgrass filling in the gaps. Then I plan to mow for the first time on August 25th @ 0.625" and maintain that.

:)

Quirky: Congratulations. I didn't think it was possible to keep bentgrass alive in 100% heat without constant syringing, a'la Southern Hills in Tulsa this weekend.

I have my hands full dealing with mid-80 temp's in Buffalo.

Wxman: I hope your reseeding works well. I have to admit, I have not been very successful at it.

I tried making a divot mix of 5 parts dried sand and 1 part seed, spreading it to cover the bald spots completely and then hand watering for 10 days. The results were marginal at best. I think I actually did more damage than good, as my diviot mix smothered everything. Had I waited, some of the bentgrass in the affected area would have grown back on its own and eventually filled in the area.

This weekend I hand aerated some dead spots with a spike aerator I bought on Ebay. Then I drop spread a light coating of the same divot mix over the area and started spot watering. I'll let you know if I get any germination.

I'm not going to put down any more SR7200 seed. I want as much diversity as I can get in the lawn to protect against as many diseases as possible.

By the way, I neglected to mention in my previous posts my insect infestation.....North American and European Sand Fly larvae. I treated the lawn on July 15 this year with Merit insecticide (from Lesco) at the recommended rate, even though I had no signs of any turf damage or insect activity. Fortunately, a crop scout who is on retainer at the golf course about 1/4 mile away warned me that sand flies were in the area.

The morning after I treated, there were literally thousands of dying larvae on my lawn. I mowed, and the next day half again as many new dead larvae appeared.

I hate to think what shape my bentgrass roots would be in if I hadn't killed the little devils.

Drew

100 degree temps are anything but normal here. What is strange is I actually have a small spot that I didn't kill off just to see if it would survive the whole time with no irrigation and don't ask me how but it is still green. Even if it died in august though, 1 month is not that long to go without lawn, that's what I'm saying. People worry about their cool season lawn dying here after 10 or 11 months of reliable service yet they don't seem to understand the warm season alternative is green for many months less.

If I can't get bent to work as long as last year then I guess I'll just switch over to bluegrass or something else I can cut real short.

Day 11 update! Here are the pics:

{{gwi:109613}}

{{gwi:109614}}

{{gwi:109615}}

The dirt circles are areas I reseeded fully on Saturday since not much at all grew in those areas from the original seeding. They are just starting to sprout today with new grass. Can't tell from the pics though. On Monday of this week I mixed 60 lbs of milorganite and 5 lbs of bentgrass seed and spread that over the entire lawn. Should see germination results from that this weekend I'm thinking.

I'm wondering if its getting to be time for my first mowing. I don't want to hamper the seeds I put down on Monday though, so maybe its better to wait til the 25th like I originally planned? Although by then I'm sure my grass will be higher than 1.25" which would make mowing down to .75" hard to observe the 1/3rd rule. What action should I take guys?

Side note: This morning I noticed a "garbage-like" smell which seemed to be coming from the lawn. Is this from the milorganite? I can't tell if its from that or just some distant smell wafting my way. I hope it goes away soon!

wxman81, I can't believe you have that much grass in 11 days!! You are inspiring me to seed this area reserved for TurfStar PR with A-4 Bentgrass...

Wow, looks incredible for 11 days. Almost as fast as PR...

Awesome. I think the smell is from the Milorganite. I use it once in the past and it smelled kind of like garbage, too. It's good stuff for the lawn though.

Wait on your first mowing, let the newly emerged seedling mature a little bit.

Keep it going!

There's even more today.. :)

if you use strawblanket it would be even faster. You wont believe your eyes

quirky, what kind of strawblanket? I've used straw from Home Depot in the past, but it's never weed free and it germinates into some wild looking grass.

I have a few spot around the yard that need to be reseeded dued to grub damage, and I would like to add some sort of blanket but because of the irregular shape patches I haven't been able to find any thing that can be shaped according to the site.

Let me know, thanks.

Question --

How long do I let the ground dry out before I mow it so I don't leave tire ruts from the mower or footprints from myself? Would it be a good idea to rent a roller beforehand and roll the whole thing to firm it up and smooth it out a little? Its getting to the point where I should mow it soon I think

I'm really thinking I should roll it before I attempt to mow for the first time to firm it up and prevent the mower from rutting the whole lawn. A walk behind 270 lb roller that I rent from Ace Hardware would do the trick?

Auteck- They are synthetic blankets rolled up in the seed aisle. They're made by Dupont or one of those big scary companies. They are not real straw and thus no seeds. When I used it for bent grass I never intended on letting the grass grow through the blanket as is the norm with other types of grass. Instead a week or so after germination that blanket was bulging out because of all the bent grasslings bursting with joy to be in my yard. Then I folded them up and put them in a box in my attic or somewhere to use another time.

Here's what it looks like
Not cheap but you can't beat the results.

Now, wxman........
I am not an expert on the bentgrass subject. Only kept it for a year. But last time around I didn't mow right away. I kept the grass at around 1.5-2" for a few weeks then used the manual reel mower which is light and easy going on the new grasslings. Then I got too ambitious and used a big heavy mechanical reel mower and did major damage to it so I stopped and put it away.
So to answer your q, I would not put anything heavy on that and I especially wouldn't roll the new grasslings, that will squash them to death. Just be patient and let it get established. It doesn't take that long, maybe about 60 days or so before you can really give it what you got with heavy mowers and traffic.

Today is day 21 since I seeded. I mowed with my reel mower at 0.75" and fertilized with milorganite. Question for you all ... when should I put down a high nitrogen fertilizer? I was thinking the middle to end of September? Wondering if I should do one more round of milorganite in two weeks and then a high nitrogen fertilizer like turf builder two weeks after that. Then winterizer around Halloween.

Here are some pictures:

{{gwi:109616}}

{{gwi:109617}}

{{gwi:109618}}

I'm expecting a kick ass fairway-like lawn next spring!

August 31 ... Day 27 since seeding. Mowed and watered again today. Here are some pics:

{{gwi:109619}}

{{gwi:109620}}

{{gwi:109621}}

I'm really beginning to love this lawn!

Very nice work Wxman. Your Penncross bent looks great!

Day 39 pictures and update!

Mowed the lawn again tonight using my reel mower. Height is still 0.75". Mowing is still every third day. I plan on putting down Scott's turf builder on September 22, and Scott's winterizer around October 31. This Saturday I will probably spend the morning pulling every weed out of the grass since I don't think you can spray Weed-B-Gon on bentgrass. Here are the pictures from tonight after the mowing.

{{gwi:109623}}

{{gwi:109625}}/a>

Enjoyed a game of Blongoball on my new lawn tonight! ;)

That's some lawn you have there, congratulations! Great to be able to use it now I'm sure. Um, what's Blongoball?

Day 51 picture update. Applied turf builder fertilizer on Friday and watered in. Spot treated weeds on Sunday. Still mowing at 0.75" with the reel mower.

Standard shot:

{{gwi:87578}}

Angle towards the house:

{{gwi:87575}}

Golf ball on turf:

{{gwi:109628}}

Closeup of golf ball on turf (camera isn't that great with closeups... tends to blanch out light colors):

{{gwi:109629}}

What do you all think?

Holy cow! You must be very pleased!

Beautiful lawn you have there. Makes me want to get out the 9 iron...

Just saw your question about blongoball. This is what it is.

{{gwi:109630}}

I was thinking about posting an inquiry to you, wxman, wondering how the bent was doing. It looks great! Makes me wish I had taken the bentgrass plunge instead planting the ubiquitous KBG. Are you getting any scalping at that HOC? If not, you must have done a great job leveling the seedbed.

This past June we rented a tent,table, chairs and such for a child's graduation party. That mess of stuff came with a blongoball set. It was a big hit!

A.J.

I just seeded my bent (a-4) on sunday in 90+ degree weather. I hope I can get good germination like last year but I'm not getting my hopes up with this terrible weather. Downright natural disaster coupled with heat related deaths and 3 rain showers in the past 3 and a half months. The bent section is covered with curlex straw blankey.

quirky,

What do you think of my Penncross bent?

wxman81, you definately have a green thumb! That looks like sod from a farm. I love the dark green color of it. It almost looks like KBG mowed short...

Keep the pictures coming, thanks.

quirky, please post some pictures of your A4 project as well, thanks.

I seeded my front and backyard over a week ago. The seeds germinated in 5 days! On Sunday, the seedling saw their first 90 plus degree temperatures, and today was no exeption. The heat wave continues... Check this out, it's 85 degrees F. right now in Chicago!!!

Crazy, just crazy mother nature...

I'll be posting pictures shortly.

wxman, it looks great from what I can tell. I think adding the topsoil probably helped you a bunch where skipping this step in certain areas might spell disaster. I am seeding into very dense dead (or so I'd like to believe) bermuda. For you this is about the time the grass really becomes a lot more durable and you could probably use a mechanical reel mower if you were so inclined. I do see some marks in there which could be improved by adjustment or shapening your blade but could be impssible to entireley eliminate on such dense grass like this.

Just out of curiosity, what did you use to spread the seed? Your grass doesn't look too thick or too thin, just right.

We call Blongoball down here in Cincinnati, Hillbilly Golf. I never seen it sold in a box. We just make set out of pvc and drill own golf balls. Nice job on the yard renovations.

quirky,

I used a drop spreader in 2 directions 90 degrees to each other. I agree about the topsoil... it was worth the $145. Its so much easier for seed/soil contact and I didn't have to bother renting a slit seeder and hoping and praying I got seed/soil contact through a mat of dead grass. Also by dumping 1.5" to 2" of topsoil, I was able to skip the roundup step.

As for the reel mower, I think I'll be sticking with the manual reel mower for now... the mechanical ones look expensive, and I can run my manual one over the entire backyard (2800 sq ft) in about 30 mins. As for minimalizing lines, I cut the grass one direction, and then 3 days later I cut it 90 degrees to the previous direction.... they're still there a little bit, but like you said with turf as dense as carpet, its hard to eliminate all of them. The blades are sharp... I did the paper cut test... shears it off perfectly.

ajer16,

Just saw your message.... no I'm not getting any scalping mowing at 0.75". The lawn is almost level.... gentle sloping in certain areas, but no drastic ups and downs.

Day 76 pictures.... with my new Canon digital camera!!!

{{gwi:81471}}

{{gwi:82444}}

{{gwi:81473}}

{{gwi:81472}}

I will be putting down winterizer next weekend I think.

wxman81, WOW You did a great job!! Full coverage, nice and thick, it does not get any better that that! The new camera seems to do a nice job too.

I will be putting down winterizer next weekend I think.

Is October when you are done mowing for the year in WI? I know that if you do the Winterizer as late as possible, it helps more towards next Spring.

That is one sweet "lawn" you've put together. You're an inspiration.

Simply gorgeous.

wxman, give us an update of your bentgrass lawn with some new pictures!

Thanks.

Auteck:

wxman ended up RU'ing the bent and renovated with a KBG blend.
http://lawnsmarts.com/viewtopic.php?t=4408&highlight=

"Gary, I enjoyed the bentgrass thoroughly, but it was just too finicky/thatchy/etc. It was fine until the summer heat kicked in during July and then it fizzled and seemed to die overnight. I think I might have gave it too much fertilizer in the spring, which led to high thatch, which led to water not getting to the roots properly, because it looked like it died of dry spot. I'm glad the trial/experiment is over, though, and will enjoy this taller, easier to maintain lawn."

Nice lawn! does anyone know where to get a reel mower? what would happen if you let the bentgrass grow to 2 inches?

Oh Man! I live in SE Michigan and while it's too late this year, you have me all fired up about doing a glysophate nuke on my KBG next spring and putting down some bentgrass. Also, I love your part of the country. Have had the privilege to play Blackwolf Run (both courses), but haven't made it back to do Whistling Straits. I do have that on my bucket list though.

Not sure you knew about, or even need this yet, but there is a special herbicide (trimec flavor) just for bentgrass. All that time and money you've put into your lawn, no sense burning it up with some generic weed killer. I'll put the link down below for you. Plus I noticed all kinds of bentgrass seed, in various small poundages. I noticed that there are not too many places to buy bentgrass seed in small quantities. Do you think that means bentgrass for residences are not that popular? I would think with all the golfing fools out there that they would entertain the idea of a bentgrass lawn. Interesting.

Again, fantastic lawn, look forward to more pictures!

Todd

liqcentral: Look at the dates. This is a 3 year old post, LOL!

Also look where I said to Auteck that wxman killed it all and went with a regular lawn ... and for good reasons.

This makes me think you are just out hoeing for that link you posted.