backedgeapproaching

I was out working in the yard Sunday and acorns were dive bombing in the woods..nonstop all day.

I had layover at BWI yesterday and flying in every lawn looked like Lava's..looked like it hadn't rained in months.  

Congrats many on first frost/freeze..some of these spots I would guess already had them. Solid 25F at SLK.

2 minutes ago, dryslot said:

I hope today's frost killed mine like Johns, I'm done with mowing.

Well, I recall a post or two today about a never ending death ridge...keep those blades sharp

Seriously though, if your lawn has more crabgrass than actual grass, then this frost will certainly help with no mowing, frost kills all crabgrass.  If your yard is mostly grass, and not weeds, you will be still be mowing.

1 hour ago, Lava Rock said:

Well I'd say last year's hydroseeding was nearly a complete failure. Seems we're right back to where we started, less money. I've sent some soils samples out for testing including other areas of the property which also didn't grow well. I think the rock garden idea suggested for this pic is probably the best option and we'll tackle that in Spring.

At this point, I would agree and say scrap the grass idea for that area. Rock gardens, perennials beds, conifers etc. It does look like a pretty big area, so probably a big project.

35.4F here patchy frost on grass above 1K....pretty heavy frost  in lower elevation spots near 650-800ft where there may have been some 32-33F in cold pockets.

Low of 54F and high so far of 61F currently, massive 7F swing.  Thick OVC all day.

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

You mean 2011-12 not 09-10 right?  

2015-16 was a complete and utter disaster up here.  153” at the ski area, with the next lowest amount being like 240” in the past 25 years.  It just crushed what we thought were the “bad winters” by like 75”+.

There are no cocorahs or CO-OPs in Bennington, VT, but I honestly think they had 6-10" for the whole 15-16 winter.(think 10" might be pushing it) Watching radars and webcams for the few events there were, with some bad luck and normal screw jobs I seriously think they had single digits. Even being in a snow hole, they are still at 700-800ft in SVT, so just absurd to be that low.

Posted before, but this was xmas morning 2015 here...looks ready for a mow.

Yea agree--seems like it could be a really good season.  Been a summer of lots of cool nights and sunny days--at least here in VT. If that continues through Sept, should setup nicely.

Last season was lacking IMO compared the previous few years. Aug/Sept dews/rain were a bad combo I guess

6 hours ago, Lava Rock said:

As I'm pulling some of our dead and dormant grass away with my hand I see a lot of little pieces of what look like sawdust

I honestly don't know how there isn't one spec of green in there..not even a little weed of anything, or some new grass tillering after recent rains. 

Your soil test doesn't seem that bad, is it perfect soil, no.  But you should be able to grow a decent lawn even with how it is. Low pH and Low Organic Matter, but that wouldn't strictly result in what you are seeing.  I did a soil test a few weeks ago, and have some major deficiencies, yet grass is thick and green.

If you are going to overseed, do it soon like Gene said.  Oct is definitely pretty late for you location for seeding.  If your established grass does bounce back, make sure to hit it with few Fall fertilizer apps.

Had 1.18"...nice vegetation soaker.

Last year Labor Day was heavy swimming...was Upper 80's almost 90 here.

3 hours ago, Lava Rock said:

Lawn looks terrible. Matted in places. Recent rain seems to be helping a little, but otherwise just garbage. I cut the "lawn" today. More like cutting a field.

That's insane man, I was actually thinking of posting in here to see if your lawn rebounded with some rain, lowering sun angle and longer/cooler nights.

That looks like mid July in KS/OK/TX after 95-100F for a weeks on end. Not sure even what to say..hopefully it comes around in the next few weeks.

31 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

SW ALB County is a real good spot.  Only 15 minutes from where I grew up but 1,000-1,300ft elevations border the valley and since it’s literally a cliff they get pretty decent upslope on E/NE flow.  

Bern/Knox/Westerlo area.  Very close to ALB but above 1,000ft.  Rensselaerville in Albany County is actually more like 2,000ft in elevation.  The funny thing in ALB County is you either live at like 200ft or 1000+.  Theres very little in between.  Just valley, cliff, highlands.

Regardless of where you are, once you get closer to 2kft, your weather excitement increases exponentially.

Anywhere around ALB would be an increase from Fairfield County I would think.

40 minutes west of ALB got crushed after that early March 2018 storm...looks like 3ft-ish--near Cobbleskill NY...Deform delight I would assume rotted for a bit over this area

2 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Ha yup.  CSTAR research I think?  Inspired by the mid-level banding Mecca of ALB.  Funny how much that regime changed just after he published that paper.  Weather mocking him.  

ALY mentions CSTAR research all the time in their cold season AFD's

21 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Am I losing my mind or did Mt Snow and some other SVT mtns have one of their snowiest winters ever within the past few winters?

17-18 was the snowiest winter ever here locally in the valley...I had about 140" and the Cocorahs guy at 1800' near me in Landgrove had about 200". Peru VT COOP was top 5 I think. Past 3 winters solidly above average.

Of course 15-16 was all time least snowiest..by a good margin, especially at elevation spots. So some stinkers too.

19 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Don't move to S VT, if you drew a triangle from Pittsfield MA to Stratton and over to the Monadnocks it has been, relatively speaking, wrt other parts of NE, a snow desert the past 10-15 years.

When we moved to Greenfield in 2007 I was so excited to be close to the N Berkshires and ski areas like Mt Snow and Stratton.  Let's just say my expectations have been tempered considerably.  I don't really care if it snows imby as long as I can drive an hour to fresh tracks but those days have been a bit more limited than I would have imagined.

Savoy has been calling your name for a number of years it seems...even if they are in your Bermuda snow triangle 

19 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

That’s way over-sold in that area... from growing up there we did just fine in synoptic events, and a few times a winter you’d get good squalls coming down the Mohawk Valley from the Lakes.  Sure there is once in a while some downslope event (but none really stand out to me growing up).

Its the snow preservation that’s the stand out compared to like an ORH.  I mean ALB is a 60-65” average... pretty standard for that latitude of I-90.  It’s not great but it’s not like every event dries up.  ALB does real well in interior coastal storms.

Elevation rises pretty quickly to 400-500ft+ on the eastern side of Troy too. A little further east of Troy and your somewhat close to the Rensselaer plateau which is sneaky decent upslope spot. 

I drive through there frequently going to ALB airport for work--You can see some differences in snowpack at times going from Troy(or just east of there) down into Albany.  Is it the retention of Tamaracks backyard, no. 

14 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

If it was E/NE flow firehose off the Atlantic, DDH could've been rain despite over 2" of QPF.  My guess is given that they would be downsloped (that doesn't mean a sharp QPF drop off necessarily, but temperatures will respond) and see a lot of "white rain"... big wet flakes that despite the rates still can't truly accumulate besides a wet slop.

So goes life on the western slopes during many winter synoptic setups

16 minutes ago, dendrite said:

They reported snow during that winter so it very well may have been just rain. Saw a few 12-20" totals perusing around the forms and a 21.6" in S. Londonderry.

Yea, noticed a few 15-20" reports on the eastern slopes in SVT--Readsboro, Londonderry--like you said.

Though think RUT had 7" I think when I looked earlier today.

8 hours ago, dendrite said:

Was checking out the COOP forms from the April 12-13, 1933 event up here. What a doozy.

Franklin 35"
Newport 31"
Wolfeboro 26"
Fitzwilliam 24"
Hanover 23"
Keene 21"
Plymouth 20"
Glencliff 20"

That was a RA to SN blue bomb too. Wish we had the charts.

Bennington VT COOP reported 2.06" of rain..ouch. 

Maybe they had some snow and it wasnt reported?? who knows with some of those old COOP reports/forms.

3 hours ago, amarshall said:

My yearly disease is back. This was all reseeded last year.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 

I remember you posting about that..guess some pathogen in the soil is there waiting for the right conditions to show up.  That's a pretty big section taken out.

1 hour ago, Lava Rock said:

Well the crabgrass invasion continues to spread. I sprayed a couple nights ago with a post emergent, but not sure how well it will work. Not excited about putting that crap on the lawn, but I need to stop it somehow. Will need to hand seed/reseed the entire area next month. This is the last effort. No more money, no more "I want to have a decent lawn", my wife says just let it go and let it do what it wants.

 

If the crabgrass plants are really mature, then the post emergent may not totally kill them. May stunt them and discolor, but not totally kill.   I guess you will find out in a few days.  Is there any grass there? I know its an evil word and don't shoot the messenger-- but probably RoundUp/Glyphosate would have been a better option IF its only crabgrass.  You were putting down chemicals anyway.

Also, reed the bottle on whatever you already put down, sometimes there is a waiting period on reseeding.

1-2" locally here in SVT valleys--looks like some 2-3" spots near DDH/Woodford VT. Nothing remotely severe looking at my cam.

Another line forming in CNY now.

Some impressive skies 2 nights ago after that line of storms went through. Storms have been totally meh this summer, they seems to fall apart once out of Hudson, Mohawk valley. I dont want severe, just the rain really.

Rainbow to the east, purple/orange haze to the west and a little mid slope fog bank. The sky was crazy, reminded of the wildfire skies a bit out in CA in 2003ish when I was out there.

3 hours ago, Lava Rock said:

If I kill crabgrass with roundup, hotwater or otherwise, with the intention of reseeding, I assume I will have to dig out the dead crabgrass first? Other than doing this by hand, what other methods to physically remove the crabgrass are avail for large areas?

You don't necessarily need to remove it...if you kill it and then scalp it down pretty much low as possible it can make a good seed bed to hold the seed in.  If its soooo thick that you need to remove it, then maybe you should.  Those crabgrass roots get thick and dense...try to pull one plant out and see how much soil comes up with the roots, it will be a good amount. 

1 hour ago, dendrite said:

I'll have to find the site where I got mine from.

How quick do those plugs spread in a season?  He is going to need A LOT of plugs to get any type of coverage.

I know nothing about Zoysia, but at this point for Lava, I wouldn't eliminate anything. Seems like something low input is needed there.