Nimblewill Control and Lawn Over-seeding Plan - August 2022

Yesterday, I posted about the lawn care breakthrough that I had in properly identifying and diagnosing our lawn with hosting a warm-season bent grass weed called Nimblewill.  In that post, I talked about trying to work my way through a process to both treat the Nimblewill, help some of our other tough spots and overseed the backyard this late Summer/early Fall.

Back in March of this year, I posted my 2022 lawn care schedule and included the idea of a renovation in the back.  Turns out...(if you read yesterday's post on Nimblewill), I don't have Poa and don't need a renovation.  I just need to remove the Nimblewill and overseed.  Here's how I'm approaching the process below.

My plan starts with controlling the Nimblewill through a herbicide application.  Followed by aeration to part of my lawn then overseeding and finally amending parts of the backyard with compost to help improve the conditions.  I touched on some of this in my 2022 lawn schedule post from this Spring.

First week in August:  Apply first application of Tenacity to Nimblewill growth and look for it to turn white.

Week later:  Apply second treatment of tenacity to remaining Nimblewill.  

Mid-August:  If temperatures allow, aerate troublesome spots in backyard in first third of lawn.  And, if time allows the middle section of fine blade monoculture.

Mid-August:  think about detatching part of the lawn that has been trouble.

(According to the Farmer's Almanac, our first frost is going to be October 11th.  The ideal setup is to have the lawn see 60 days of growing time before that.   60 days before Oct 11 is August 12th.  That being tomorrow, it isn't possible.  But, I'm aiming for as soon as possible - during a time when we don't have too much August heat, but enough growing days before the first frost.)

August 20th-27th (or there-abouts):  Seed patches and overseed full lawn.  Apply Tall Fescue seed to entire back lawn and KBG to front and middle sections.   I'm thinking 2 20# bags of Tall Fescue (10K coverage) and 2 7# bags of an elite KBG.

During seeding:  Apply layer of compost and/or lawn soil on top of seed.  

Then water the heck out of the lawn until we get germination.  

Early September:  Feed the lawn for the first time this year. 

November:  Dormant feed the lawn one last time this season.  

The outcome will be seeing a thicker lawn up front that can withstand the high heat of Summer next year and the eradication of the Nimblewill in the back.