BC
How to renovate a hydroseed lawn in Central Otago with perennial ryegrass
Like many others on here…. regretting having a Hydro lawn done on my 600 square metre lawn after a new house build in Naseby, Central Otago (70% Perennial Rye grass,25% Fescue,5% Browntop). Topsoil was removed and replaced. Have had a bit of Porina of which I have dealt to. It’s now looking pretty sad. My plan is to spray with NZLA Etho to kill the Fescue & Browntop, I believe it may be a blend of red & Chewings Fine Fescue then scarify and overseed with NZLA Perennial Rye.
Any other helpful hints or suggestions please?
Etho won’t touch the Browntop. You’ll need two applications of Meso, 14 days apart, with NZLA Sticker in the tank. You can include Etho in the tank for both applications as well.
The lawn will look pretty awful for a while, but the combination will take out the Fine Fescue and Browntop and leave you in a much better position to overseed with NZLA Perennial Rye.
Most of the hydroseeders seem to use a very similar blend, and personally I’m not a fan of the rye cultivar they use in it either.
If you’re ultimately aiming for one of our dark ryegrass cultivars, I’d probably just bite the bullet, glyphosate the whole lot and sow fresh seed. It’ll actually give you a quicker turnaround, and you’ll end up with a clean, consistent stand of the cultivar you actually want rather than trying to renovate what’s already there.
The rye in that hydroseed blend is a lighter cultivar, so if you’re happy with the colour of what you’ve already got, you can just remove the Fine Fescue and Browntop and overseed with NZLA Perennial Rye.
@Jonny Hicks Ok thanks. Was planning to overseed with NZLA Perennial Rye. I will order some MESO and sticker as you have suggested. Thanks. If I did decide to start from scratch and glyphosate the entire lawn. Once it’s dead how do I remove the dead grass. Do I scarify then take the soil for the new seed to take? Thanks
Yeah, to be honest, I wouldn’t worry too much about putting a huge amount of effort into it. I’ve glyphosated lawns in the past, waited for everything to die off, given them a good scarify and picked up as much dead material as possible, then seeded and applied the pre-emergents. I’ve had just as good results doing that as going through a full-on renovation process.
But if you’re happy with the lighter colour of the rye that’s already there, I’d probably go with option one and use Etho + Meso. Just bear in mind they’re doing two different jobs. The Etho is there to remove the Fine Fescue from the mix, while the two Meso applications, 14 days apart, are there to remove the Browntop. You need to do both treatments if you want to clean up the existing blend properly.
Once that’s done, you can scarify and overseed with NZLA Perennial Rye.
@Brent Cunningham Yeah, to be honest, I wouldn’t worry too much about putting a huge amount of effort into it. I’ve glyphosated lawns in the past, waited for everything to die off, given them a good scarify and picked up as much dead material as possible, then seeded and applied the pre-emergents. I’ve had just as good results doing that as going through a full-on renovation process.
But if you’re happy with the lighter colour of the rye that’s already there, I’d probably go with option one and use Etho + Meso. Just bear in mind they’re doing two different jobs. The Etho is there to remove the Fine Fescue from the mix, while the two Meso applications, 14 days apart, are there to remove the Browntop. You need to do both treatments if you want to clean up the existing blend properly.
Once that’s done, you can scarify and overseed with NZLA Perennial Rye.
@Jonny Hicks Great advice. Thanks very much!