Verticutting

[jason72g]

We are whipping my dad's lawn in to shape. Tif 419. We have excessive vertical growth and will be working on getting the cut height down from 2" to 1". By vertical growth, I mean we have stolons or stems very visible which makes the yard look terrible.

This yard has never been aerated or verticut, it does get treated and fertilized monthly. Watered probably 2" once a week.

What we are hoping to accomplish is, along with the lower cut height, removing some of the thatch and encouraging horizontal growth of the stolons.

Would it be harmful to verticut right now? Temps are 95-100 daily. Is it too late in the season? We should start seeing dormancy around late October, early November.

Thanks,

[jason72g]

Also, we will be top dressing the yard to help with levelness. We are probably going to go with a sandy loam. The logical process, in my mind, would be to verticut, then leve (topdress,) would that be correct?

[Florida Gardener]

Perfect time of year, the Bermuda is growing like crazy. Scalp, verticut, then scalp again, then sand. Like I told you before, you need to scalp with a reel. If you want to cut at 1", you need a reel. You CAN buy a manual one you know...
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[Florida Gardener]

Also, go heavier on the sand since you never sanded and said it is pretty uneven....this may be the only time this year you might topdress so blast the **** out of it.
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