I wanted to update on the latest progress of growing buffalo grass in the back yard.
I kept the watering schedule of 4 times a day until the seeds sprouted. I then dialed the irrigation down to twice a day. After a four weeks it's time to update. This post will be for pictures I've taken on June 27th, and July 8th.
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| Turffalo loving life. UNL Sundancer seedlings beginning to sprout. |
As can be seen the seeds are just now beginning to really show a month after planting. They sprouted two weeks after planting in mid June, but these pictures do more justice to them a month in.
They really aren't doing much other than throwing up a few leaves. Lessons learned at this point. I should have ripped the fescue/Kentucky blue out last fall. Once ripped out I should have laid down Scott's Halt weed preventer.
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| Close up of the UNL Sundancer seedlings. No stolen offshoots yet. |
The reason why is because of spurge! This weed is the devil. It's low lying and growing, just like the buffalo grass. So now they're competing against each other. This weed is a pain because it's prolific, and a pain to rip out of the ground. I've tried hand weeding, and using glyphosate. Alas it seems for every one I kill three pop up in it's place.
Of course there are other weeds, crabgrass, dandelions, ect, but they're not as prolific and easier to control.
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| The beginnings of spurge, and the bane of my lawn. |
The strategy now is to trust in the buffalo grass to be more aggressive than the spurge. I'll keep hand weeding and applying glyphosate to the spurge as carefully as possible.
Spurge is an annual summer weed. This means it should die out with the first freeze at the same time the buffalo grass goes dormant. I'll apply Scott's Halt once the grass is dormant to take out early spring weeds. I'll apply again in the spring to prevent summer weeds before the buffalo grass breaks dormancy.
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| Spurge. This is a horrible weed when establishing a lawn. |
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| Should have used Scott's Halt weed preventer last fall. |
The thing that sucks about spurge is that it co-mingles with the buffalo grass seedlings, and therefore you can't rip it up without ripping up the buffalo grass.
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| What a difference rain, and fertilizer make 10 days after application. |
The day after I took the June 27th pictures of the yard I applied fertilizer to the grass. I used the Hi Yield fertilizer I've mentioned in previous posts. This fertilizer is a mix of nitrogen, iron, and sulfur which is excellent for alkaline soil. Guidance I've read is to apply 2lbs of nitrogen per 1,000 sq ft when establishing buffalo grass. One pound in June, the other pound in late July. I'll let you do the math to figure out how much actual fertilizer needs to be applied when 11% is nitrogen. Algebra is awesome!
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| The Sundancer seedlings throwing out stolens. |
A week and a half after application the yard is significantly greener. The buffalo grass was throwing out runners, and the existing Turffalo was especially lush. Of course the weeds loved it as well. I'm really banking on the buffalo grass crowding out the spurge. Especially when September rolls around and the irrigation is cut off and the buffalo grass will thrive, but the weeds will suffer.
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| I have a feeling this buffalo grass will look awesome come months end. |
So far I'm quite impressed with UNL's Sundancer variety. It is quite a bit greener than even Turfallo, and looks to have shorter "nodes" between the stolen's to establish new plants. I'm looking forward to what July has to offer.
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| The spurge growing. I'm beginning to equate it with the Flood in the Halo series. |
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Spurge is horrible because it grows low amongst the buffalo grass,
therefore making it hard to hand pull without damage. |
The Turffalo is loving life right now. It is quite thick and lush. The pictures shown are after I've cut it down three times this year to an inch and a half. I'm very impressed with it I just didn't want to spend $72 bucks a tray for 72 sprigs when I can spend $16 for a pound worth of seeds.
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| The Turffallo loving life. Very lush and soft. Almost like walking of fur. |
