He was a quiet man. Didn’t get out much. Then, one day, he picked up a garden sprayer and . . .
Not usually a violent man by nature, I killed our front lawn last summer. Although, in all fairness, “lawn” may be too strong a word for it. Although predominantly zoysia, as in 50 percent plus one, crab grass, knotweed, purslane, spurge and wild onions grew throughout, while several prides of dandelions freely roamed their 1,000-square-foot kingdom.
Frankly, the weed whip was getting more of a workout than the mower.
Unable to make any noticeable headway through more conventional methods, I decided to commit an act of mass herbicide and start all over.
I was aided in this effort by my local lawn and garden center. However, I sometimes altered their good advice with a “Well, I don’t see what harm this would do.”
So when all was said and done, my work was critiqued by Chip Toma, supervisor of fields for the NFL. Toma is the well-known son of turf legend George Toma, who has manicured the field for all 32 Super Bowls. Something the two
have done together since Super Bowl XI.
According to Toma, the time to start killing off a lawn is mid- to late summer with the goal of germinating new seed soon enough, in the cool of the fall, to get three good cuttings on it before the first frost.
The herbicide to use goes by brand names like RoundUp or Finale, where the active ingredient–glufosinate-am-
monium–is absorbed through the leaves or blades and goes to work on the root system. The beauty of these solutions is they only kill what they are sprayed on with no residual soil damage.
“Once it hits dirt,” said Toma, “it’s neutralized.” If you had to, you could spray an area in the morning and seed it that afternoon.
After it dries, “it’s safe for kids to walk on, safe to let your pet out on,” said Linda Jones, plant information supervisor for the Chicago Botanic Garden.
The caution is they kill what they are sprayed on. But a line of planks and a windless day were all I needed to avoid killing our neighbor’s lawn as well. (A cardboard line would work equally well.)
Aside from herbicides, “the only organic way to kill a lawn completely,” said Jones, “is to stretch black plastic or a black canvas tarp over it corner to corner in the heat of the summer. It may take two to three weeks, but the heat will kill the seeds.”
The last meal
Ideally, a week or two before spraying, the existing lawn should be properly fed and watered. This last meal of sorts serves to make a lawn ingest the herbicide more deeply. Moreover, a “spreader sticker” added in will help keep the contagion where it is sprayed. And while you do not want anything to wash the active ingredient off before it can be absorbed, you do want to water a day or two after application to wash it further down.
“Whenever you’re going from a zoysia or Bermuda lawn to a turf-type tall fescue or bluegrass-rye grass lawn, if you don’t get a superb kill initially . . . it will eventually come back and start going again,” said Toma.
Similarly, a week later, when the lawn is largely brown, it should be watered again to see more clearly what, if anything, has survived. Whatever has, spray again and wait another week. After which, a power rake will clear away most easily the dead grass. All of which can be composted because the herbicide becomes inert in soil.
After power raking the area, I thought the ground seemed too compact to plant seed. So, I rented a rototiller. This was something I had been specifically advised not to do–“but it had a lot of power, didn’t it?,” said a knowing Toma.
“Yeah, it had power. It was a big machine. It was manly.” And while it manhandled the ground quite nicely, it also dredged up a number of things I’m still working to root out.
“When you rototilled, you brought up all those seeds that were just not bothering anybody,” said Toma. “They could have been laying in the soil for hundreds of years undisturbed.”
Instead, simple watering will soften the ground up sufficiently for seeding.
And at this point, you’re about ready to do so. The last step beforehand is to check your soil pH level. It’s a simple test your local lawn and garden shop can probably do cheaply, if not for free.
“A lot of people fertilize and seed, and fertilize and seed, and they wonder why nothing is happening,” said Toma. “It’s because of the pH. You have to have a perfect pH balance in there. Perfect is 6.6.”
Whatever your soil registers, adding sulfur will bring down a high pH. Adding lime will bring up a low one.
Once your pH is in line, you’re ready to choose seed. Seek the advice of your local lawn and garden adviser about what grows best in your area.
“Kentucky Blue Grass is the most popular type around here,” said Jones, but suggested mixing fescue with Kentucky Blue to reduce the need for maintenance.
Besides seed, you’re going to need a starter fertilizer and something to cover and keep the new seed moist. The most common options are burlap, cellulose mulch and straw. Although burlap covers best, it is pricey. Cellulose mulch is less expensive, does a fine job and some comes already mixed with starter fertilizer. Straw is probably the cheapest option and does the job, but may contain some unwanted seed.
Whatever you use, said Toma, “the important thing is to keep it damp. People have a tendency to make it look like the Colorado River running off of their driveway or hills. You just want to keep it damp.”
If you do, expect to cut your new lawn anywhere from 14 to 21 days after seeding. It’s something Toma believes most people wait too long to do. And “if it’s growing good,” said Toma, three to five days between cuttings should be plenty. “That keeps letting the sunlight in for the seed that didn’t germinate.”
Also, after that first cutting, fertilize again but with a more mature fertilizer. “The starter’s done its job. Now what we want to do is thicken it up, fill it in.”
The next thing you’ll need to do is give your new lawn a winterizing fertilizer somewhere around Thanksgiving to put it to bed until spring.
And really, that’s about it, beyond Toma’s final words of advice: “You’re going to have a beautiful lawn next year at this time. It isn’t going to be like, `Well, I did this in August, so why isn’t it beautiful two months later?’
“Because it takes time for that grass to fill in and mature,” said Toma. “This lawn, you’re going to make it now for next year. This is when it’s being made.”
12 STEPS TO A NEW LAWN
In a nutshell, here are the steps to follow to kill your old lawn and create a new one.
1. Mid-July to mid-August: Feed and water existing lawn, wait a week, spray to kill it.
2. Wait a day or two, water it.
3. Wait a week, water it again.
4. Wait a few days, kill the survivors.
5. Wait a week, rake and grade it.
6. The ground is ready to be seeded and fertilized with a starter mixture.
7. After Step 6, cover and water it.
8. Keep it moist for 14-21 days.
9. Cut it, standard fertilize it, water it, wait 3-5 days.
10. Cut it again, keep watering, wait 3-5 days.
11. Cut it again, keep watering, wait 3-5 days.
12. Winterizer fertilize it to bed until spring.
