Here’s a photo of my neighbor’s Poa Trivialis farm invading a section of Midnight II Kentucky Bluegrass. The KBG is much slower growing and darker, even this early in Spring.
 Roughstalk Bluegrass invading a section of Midnight II KBG Luckily, this section of my yard is now isolated from the rest of the property by a new split-rail fence and a mulch bed.
Below you can see another tuft of roughstalk bluegrass growing in the backyard KBG monostand of Midnight II
 Lighter-colored grass like this roughstalk bluegrass invade a monostand of Midnight II KBG
Here’s a weed that I seem to find in my back flowerbeds every year. Canadian thistle is a prickly weed and a tough one to kill. It has deep roots and will bounce back if you leave even the smallest piece of root in the soil.
 Young Canadian Thistle Below you’ll see Canadian thistle one week after an application of roundup. One dose of round up will stun this weed. But it will recover, if you don’t apply a second and, sometimes, even a third application.
 This is Canadian Thistle one week after an application of roundup
Gary requested that I post the complete series of P. annua repair shots in my lawn for reference. My results were not typical; this involved never letting the deep soil go completely dry, and feeding this area at three times my already heavy rate for 2008.
Looking back at my notes, I watered an average of every 3 to 5 days depending on the weather, and applied 450 pounds per thousand equivalent across the entire damaged area to speed repair. I used a mix of Milorganite, soybean meal, and one light dose of alfalfa in early August. I recorded the weather that summer as fairly hot and dry, so spreading was a bit slower than it would be during a more normal year.
 May 7, 2008, just post dying  June 15, 2008, about 5 weeks  July 5, 2008, about 8 weeks  August 12, 2008, about 13 weeks  September 4, 2008, about 16 weeks--plus a robot
The front yard is really starting to wake up now. the color still isn’t quite there. But it is really getting better every day.
 Front yard photo April 10, 2010 The Backyard monostand of Midnight II is really improving. The section where the color seems off still shows the after effect of a late March application of the herbicide Certainty (to deal with Poa Trivialis).
 Monstand of Midnight II Kentucky Bluegrass (April 10, 2010)
This one time I’m posting thumbnails; I don’t often post four photos at once. Click on any image to embiggen!
With the weather accelerating right past April and into July, I now have the flowering Cleveland pear trees, hyacinths, tulips, chionodoxa (early white and mid season blue), and just about everything else all blooming at once. And regrettably, not lasting long and not looking very good when it blooms. April blossoms simply can’t handle the heat.
Here’s a photo of the lawn from this afternoon. It’s fully awake, but seems to be wanting a little more iron:
This is the blooming Cleveland pear. The blossoms opened Monday, and it looks like the tree will finish up tomorrow or Friday:
This parrot tulip isn’t supposed to bloom until mid-May:
This is an Angelique tulip. They’re mid-May bloomers, and generally don’t have the slightly brownish color on the flower rib. It’s blasting a bit in the heat:
I’m trying to transform the garden soil to the same standard (or better) than the lawn soil. So I fed again with another 72 pounds of Milorganite, or 36 pounds per thousand, plus added 16 pounds of starter fertilizer to raise the phosphorus level in the soil. The lawn is stabilized at 20 PPM, the gardens should be identical as they received the same treatment. 40 to 60 PPM would be better for gardens where I ask for a great deal of blooming all season long.
So far, that’s a grand total of 117 pounds of Milorganite per thousand this year. Although extremely high (and it will be struck with 50 pounds of soybean meal Friday), I’m trying to add as much organic food as possible before I mulch next week.
I found a bit of nutsedge on the back flowerbed (adjacent to the farm field). The picture below shows why attempting to pull nutsedge is a futile way to rid your lawn of this weed.
Most likely, you won’t get the actual nut, only the top of the plant. The bad news is leaving the nut in the ground allows it to divide, much as flower bulbs will multiple, if given enough time.
 There are now chemical controls for Nutsedge, but for organic lawncare enthusiasts, you'll need to dig out the tuber, if you want to keep the plant from dividing and taking over your yard.
Every summer I have one small section of my lawn that quickly becomes stressed at the first sign of heat or drought. I decided to do something about it today.
The area is next to my driveway, so I cut a 15-inch wide section of the grass away from that area and began digging. What I found was a lot of concrete rubble and very large stones — enough to fill 1.5, 6-cubic feet wheelbarrows. There was only a few inches of soil on top of all that rubble. Mind you, this is in my heck strip near the street, so that is an awful of of ruble to remove from an area maybe 5-feet by 15-inches.
I backfilled the trench with soil and replaced the sod. I’m looking forward to seeing how the area will hold up this summer.  I removed a few inches of soil and more than 18-inches of buried concrete rubble from the section of my lawn near the driveway
I don’t know if it is because my lawn is getting more established or just this year’s warm spring. But the Kentucky Bluegrass is looking better this year than any one since I renovated in 2005. (At least if you compare it with other early April photos).
Here’s a shot of the front yard. It’s a mix of Midnight II, Moonlight and Bedazzled Kentucky Bluegrass. The darker color isn’t there yet. But I’m simply happy that it’s green!
 This photo shot April 3, 2005 On the other hand, the Midnight II monostand is still just waking up. In another six weeks, it will be much darker than the front yard. But Midnight II is really slow at spring greenup.
 This KBG cultivar gets much darker later in the spring. But is slow to wake up.
The lawn is developing quickly this year, although that should be no surprise when temperatures are over 75°. I’ve included a few bonus photos as well–jonquils, and a purple hyacinth that started to open this morning. Click on any image to embiggen it.
I fed the roses and Thuja with a few handfuls of alfalfa, but I won’t bother with the lawn this year. Growth is already excellent and I had to cut it yesterday.
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