Grass in Colorado (or just Kentucky Bluegrass in general)

Do you have a good starting point for run time? I have been doing 15 minutes per zone, do you think 15 minutes per zone twice a week would be ok, or up the run time?

 

You can see that your neighbor has done something in their yard. The two darker green stripes that run the width of the yard look like overlap to me. Perhaps they were heavy with application of fert and that's where the wheel throw mark is, or their broadcast spreader is dropping heavy right there. A rotary broadcast spreader will throw out about 6 ft swath of fert. You typically want to throw fert out to your previous wheel marks. I run a trim pass with the rotaty to get the boarders of the yard then start a cross hatch. So lets say for example that your bag of fert says to put down using your scotts rotary spreader on a setting of 5, that's a 1 pass drop rate. I set mine to 2.5 and do two passes. One north/south pass across whole yard, and one east/west pass across whole yard and by the time I'm done, the entire bucket is empty. That way I know I get an even coverage across the whole yard and I don't have any heavy spots.

I hastily covered this in that wall of text earlier, so you may have browsed over it but here's a better explanation. Kentucky blue needs 2 inches of water per week, so if you're watering twice a week, you need to put down 1 inch of water for each day you water. I would water twice instead of 3x because I believe in a heavier watering schedule. Your roots may possibly reach down 6 to 12 inches into the soil and you'll want water down to the tips of the roots so this is why I suggest watering twice a week. With that said, to save yourself money in buying rain gauges, get yourself about 4 to 5 red solo cups and cut them down to mini size so now you have like 1/3 of a cup. The final depth should be somewhere in the ballpark of 3 inches deep. Basically, you want about a 1 inch square (or round) dish that you're going to be collecting water at multiple places in your yard. You'll now have yourself about 5 tiny red petri-dishes that you'll go out in your yard at various locations and stick them in the grass where the objective is to collect the water from the sprinklers. Run a full cycle of your sprinklers so that all zones that water your yard run completely. Now go out and look at your cups, measure to make sure they all have 1 inch of water in them. If only some cups may have more water in them it may be due to sprinkler water overlap. Adjust the heads of the sprinkler to get even coverage as best as you can. If all cups are high, run sprinkler zones for less time, and vise versa, if they are all low, run for longer. It'll take some time to dial them all in but you'll see drastic color improvement. I hope this makes sense? Based on what I could see in your pictures, your yard looks like an 'L', I'd put 2 cups on the short leg and scatter 3 cups on the long leg. That way you'll be able to see what your water coverage is.

-J

 

I’ve seen suggestions online for daily watering. I’ll switch my schedule to twice a week for 20 minutes and see if I get better results with that.

 

That makes sense, and I had read it earlier. I guess I was looking for a lazy way out, but I will have to just break out the cups and take some measurements. Thanks again.

 

For what it’s worth, I picked up a new sprinkler control box a couple weeks ago that I can run with my phone. It’s been awesome and can also set automatic delays for frost, rain, etc since it’s WiFi and knows the weather. This has been a huge help for me especially since I can change my watering schedule quickly on my phone and now have to remember to go to the box and adjust.

This is a screenshot of the Orbit bee hive app.

 

If you know the flow of your sprinkler heads you can do easy math too for the time.

 

That is nice, much better than mine. I tried to set up my phone but can't with the box I have. I do have a rain sensor on the side of the house that sends a signal to the box to avoid watering in the rain. I have checked it a few times and it seems to be working.

 

That I don't know, nor would I know how to figure it out. I will just do the cup measurements.

 

Each sprinkler is different, different flow rates, hell, even the same sprinkler might have a different fan installed. This is why it's important to measure. I like the rotating fan type sprinkler heads over the osculating types. Youtube is blocked at work here but based on the quick 3 second preview, this video shows the fan type that I like. Its not the impact type.



Ill view the media when I get to my phone to make sure that it's displaying what I'm talking about. Even different water pressures will effect the watering rates. I wish I had an easy answer for you.

-J

 

I have seen the fan type, some of the ones in my neighborhood use those. Mine isn't, I have the kind that sprays and slowly rotates.

 

I'm sure it's fine. If it's putting water down, it's doing its job. I just like the look of those rotating fan types. I built myself a tower osculating sprinkler out of PVC pipe since I don't have any in-ground sprinklers. They kinda look like:

But they are more of an elevated 'A frame' with garden hose adapters on the bottom with T's and elbows. I originally made 4 because I wanted to string them up and have them all run at the same time but pressure losses through garden hoses wont allow for that. So I make due with 2 and I get good coverage.

Edit: the bases fill up with water so they get fairly heavy when water is running through it.

-J

 

Sorry, its busy up here. Daily watering is needed if you are seeding your lawn. Light watering keeps the seeds damp which helps germinate. If your yard is already established, you want to water the base of the roots so heavier watering less frequently throughout the week will help promote strong healthy roots. Light watering promotes shallow roots that are more susceptible to disease and insect damage. Healthy roots should effectively reach down into the earth at at least 2x the size of the blade of grass. If your lawn is mowed at 3.5, you'll want about 7 inches of roots into the earth. Longer watering will help. You can do something like T-Nex to slow the grass growth down so that it spends more energy growing and developing healthy roots. Yes, it's expensive but the product covers entire golf courses. So one jug should will last you for the rest of the time you're in the house. If you do a PGR, apply with a shot of app of Iron the help the grass out.

-J

 

I remembered seeing this, do you guys find this odd? This is a pic of the house from when it was listed. It almost looks like some of the grass is actually different. The dark sod appears to be where the darker spots showed up in the lawn this year, although dark spots showed up in other places that didn’t have the dark sod also.

 

I did the cup test on a 15 minute run. I got about 1/4” of water. That doesn’t seem good, because to get an inch, you’d figure 1 hour. Then, if I do that for each zone, I’d be running the sprinklers for 7 hours a day, twice a week. I can’t justify that water bill when it looks “good enough” the way I have been doing it.

 

I remember having squares like that when I got my sod last year. This year the grass looks more even aside from some areas... but I think that’s just due to the quality of soil in those areas for my yard.

As for your water... ouch. 7 hours of watering. You have 7 zones for just sprinklers? Yikes!! I have 2 sprinkler zones and I thought I was using a lot of water. In your case, I would leave well enough alone. Maybe aerating will allow the water to get deeper easier so you may not need 2” per week.

I’ll update in a few weeks and see if my running 20 minutes twice a week works well.

 

Here is my whole yard after a year, you can’t tell there was sod anymore. Some areas are a little brown because I cut the grass really short to dry out the mushroom areas. The mushrooms are gone now so I’m hoping that the adjusted watering schedule will work better.

 

There are 7 zones, but 1 is a drip line to some plants. So there are 6 sprinkler zones. I am going to do 2 days a week as suggested earlier, and I’ll run it for 25 minutes per zone. I think that’s better than what I am doing, and only a little more water usage overall.

 

Bluegrass is a cool weather grass. It likes plenty of water in well drained soil. It particularly likes air temps between 60°- 80° and soil temps above above 55°. A lime application in late winter can help neutralize the soil.

Here in the Bluegrass where I live, summers can be tough. Water is a must if Mother Nature is not pissing much.

My lawn is made up of Bluegrass and Fescue

 

That’s what I’m going for, looks great.

 

Thanks. Most people hate yard work. But it's my release. I enjoy unwinding after a long day at work and "yard working". Plus I see my yard as an extension of my house. It's all part of my property. I want to take care of it.