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winter rye grass

14K views 35 replies 13 participants last post by  corey4671 
#1 ·
Does anyone put rye grass seed down for there customers in the winter I have been doing it for 4 years make the lawns look great all winter long.
 
#27 ·
The Kittiwake and the Southcoast are almost the exact same boat. Same mold for the hull. The Kitti has a little more teak on the exterior and the deck plan is slightly different.

Boats are a great and expensive hobby/obsession. I am in fert and chemical sales and hope to make the Kitti my office away from home this Spring.

Kevin
 
#28 · (Edited)
The Kittiwake and the Southcoast are almost the exact same boat. Same mold for the hull. The Kitti has a little more teak on the exterior and the deck plan is slightly different.

Boats are a great and expensive hobby/obsession. I am in fert and chemical sales and hope to make the Kitti my office away from home this Spring.

Kevin
Kevin

Like I said that boat will never be the High performances of the Flying Dutchman Olympic Class One Design. But it does have better performance than most cabin boats. It is a very fine sailing boat and very sea worthy. I wouldn't be afraid to sail it to the Bahamas etc. I started with a Home made wooden Sail Fish off a set of plans. The boat was so heavy it couldn't go to wind. I then jumped a very big giant step to the Dutchman. After sailing the Dutchman for many years I still never mastered it.

PS. My Harbor is so shallow that full keel boats are not popular here. We have Two Identical upscale Sail Boat Canal Neighborhoods in my area. The single lot 80 X 120 Property values differences by a $ 100 K. The reason is the one neighborhood can't get deep draft boats to the Harbor during winter's lower tide levels. Summer boating for Deep Draft Boats is limited to high tide also.

Plantculture

This last spring I purchased a 15 Pound bag of Sahara Bermuda from Wally World for $ 42.00. Thinking I was getting a bargain now that Bermuda Seed is $ 4.00 a Pound. I don't think I got one seed to germinate. That kind of surprised me because it had a Nov of 2010 test date on it and I was planting it in June of 2011. Only thing I can think is Wally World stored the seed over the winter in a bad spot and it got cooked by high temperatures. Freezing would not have hurt it.

..
 
#29 ·
Ric,

Rye is really simple - you will see you are overthinking this after your first application of good seed. You are not looking for year long results so simply broadcasting the seeds over and watering properly to keep the seeds moist and seven days later you will have a rye lawn. During this time of year in our area it does very very well especially once we are below the mid 80's.
Truthfully IMHO rather than trying to fight disease that may come along could prove more expensive than getting another bag of seed and repairing the areas as needed. Remember this lawn is ready in roughly 7 days.
My recommendations would be easy on the N since it is just for a 1 time event. This turf will grow like crazy during this time of year. You will get several inches of growth in a two week period if allowed to go that long. I would inform the owner that to keep it nice and tidy looking he will most likely need weekly mowing.

Last but not least - this turf stain much worse than most of our southern turfs. Clippings on any paved area will stain if stepped on prior to removing or if the mower tire runs over it before they are removed with the blower. This would be a big concern I think you should ensure the owner covers with the bride who I would presume would make a appearance in her white wedding gown - which of course cost a good amount of money - and I can almost assure you especially if the grass is freshly cut, it will stain that dress or any other material that is dragged across it.
 
#30 ·
What was your base turf? how old was the seed? What was the day and night temp when you seeded? How much did you water? Did it get pithium? What soil prep did you do besides verifying?
Water was just what it got from rainfall. Daytime was probably around 65-70 night time mid 40s. Seed was simply broadcasted. Base was mix of bermuda with minimal fescue. Some times I get a great stand others I get nothing. $*%@ grows great in the bed of my truck
 
#31 ·
We are trying something for the first time regarding overseeding with rye. We can only water once a week so we waited until this week to plant the rye. We are going to use Hydretain the moisture manager to see what happens. In years past we had excellant rye when we could water at will and had mowing almost year round. Last year was first year for once a week watering and it took until late February for the yards to cover completely but it did come up nicely. We don't use any anual rye it grows way way tooo fast in the spring
 
#32 ·
We are trying something for the first time regarding overseeding with rye. We can only water once a week so we waited until this week to plant the rye. We are going to use Hydretain the moisture manager to see what happens. In years past we had excellant rye when we could water at will and had mowing almost year round. Last year was first year for once a week watering and it took until late February for the yards to cover completely but it did come up nicely. We don't use any anual rye it grows way way tooo fast in the spring
I'm shaking my head as I write this, Ed. Our water situation here in the Austin area has been extremely critical for the past year, and it's getting even worse as we move into the typically very dry winter months. Lake Travis is at it's 3rd lowest level in history. And there's no TS Hermine in sight.

I think that winter overseeding and weekly irrigation in the winter is totally irresponsible.

TAMU advises people to water once per month in the winter - if no rainfall has occured. That's what I advise my customers every year, and I've never had a problem with dessication. Our clay soils hold water really well, particularly in winter when ET rates are so low.

And besides, it looks plain stupid to have a deep green lawn when everything else is brown.

Wonder why we have such strict watering rules? It's because of practices like these.
 
#33 ·
I'm shaking my head as I write this, Ed. Our water situation here in the Austin area has been extremely critical for the past year, and it's getting even worse as we move into the typically very dry winter months. Lake Travis is at it's 3rd lowest level in history. And there's no TS Hermine in sight.

I think that winter overseeding and weekly irrigation in the winter is totally irresponsible.

TAMU advises people to water once per month in the winter - if no rainfall has occured. That's what I advise my customers every year, and I've never had a problem with dessication. Our clay soils hold water really well, particularly in winter when ET rates are so low.

And besides, it looks plain stupid to have a deep green lawn when everything else is brown.

Wonder why we have such strict watering rules? It's because of practices like these.
I know you and Mr Hess are farther south than me and have warmer temps, but in my area after I get the Rye to germ I sometimes cut the water off to the turf areas and just leave some of the annual color areas on. If we do not get any moisture I may run them once a month but generally I leave them off. Most of them stay pretty nice through this time without much maintenance so I do not feel the Rye is wasteing too much water. The only thing I am thinking I might quite overseeding is the Celebration Bermuda. The newer ones that have this type Bermuba do not seem to overseed worth a darn. I think it is because the way this stuff grows it is so dense that the seed does not have a chance, kind of like St Augustine.
 
#34 ·
I'm shaking my head as I write this, Ed. Our water situation here in the Austin area has been extremely critical for the past year, and it's getting even worse as we move into the typically very dry winter months. Lake Travis is at it's 3rd lowest level in history. And there's no TS Hermine in sight.

I think that winter overseeding and weekly irrigation in the winter is totally irresponsible.

TAMU advises people to water once per month in the winter - if no rainfall has occured. That's what I advise my customers every year, and I've never had a problem with dessication. Our clay soils hold water really well, particularly in winter when ET rates are so low.

And besides, it looks plain stupid to have a deep green lawn when everything else is brown.

Wonder why we have such strict watering rules? It's because of practices like these.
We know the water rules and we are NOT going to water more than the one time allowed a week. One of the owners in our business is a full time irrigator and he has worked on getting all of our systems fixed to the point that there is little water run off. I doubt that there is another irrigator in this city that has done more to reduce water use over the last two years.
Now the lecture comes....I am so pissed off that our city officials and state officials are not doing anything to get us more water. Instead they want us to conserve our way out of the problem. Left to these fools they would let our nice green city go completely brown. TeeBone Pickens could build us a 8ft pipe line over to the Mississippi river and be done with all this dome and gloom about us running out of water. I hope that lake continues to drop and drop and drop maybe somethign will get done.

And if the rule changes so that we can't water at all them we STOP. You might want to take a look at your soil as to whether you stoppign of water now will not harm the bushes and trees. They were under heavy stress and with no rain they could die in the winter. And with no rain all winter the sod probably will die if we get heavy freezes. By the way welcome to lawn site didn't know you was in our area. We didn't plant but four hotel site and only because they insisted.....already lost one last week don't want to lose others.
 
#35 ·
We know the water rules and we are NOT going to water more than the one time allowed a week. One of the owners in our business is a full time irrigator and he has worked on getting all of our systems fixed to the point that there is little water run off. I doubt that there is another irrigator in this city that has done more to reduce water use over the last two years.
Now the lecture comes....I am so pissed off that our city officials and state officials are not doing anything to get us more water. Instead they want us to conserve our way out of the problem. Left to these fools they would let our nice green city go completely brown. TeeBone Pickens could build us a 8ft pipe line over to the Mississippi river and be done with all this dome and gloom about us running out of water. I hope that lake continues to drop and drop and drop maybe somethign will get done.

And if the rule changes so that we can't water at all them we STOP. You might want to take a look at your soil as to whether you stoppign of water now will not harm the bushes and trees. They were under heavy stress and with no rain they could die in the winter. And with no rain all winter the sod probably will die if we get heavy freezes. By the way welcome to lawn site didn't know you was in our area. We didn't plant but four hotel site and only because they insisted.....already lost one last week don't want to lose others.
(sigh) Embarrassing. Just embarrassing.

Just keep wasting water, and blame the city officials because we're running low. And then cop an attitude like that.

Embarrassing.

Good luck, my friend.
 
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