So what didn’t go right and what can we do better?

Some of you might remember that in the spring of 2024 we had a super impressive looking LZ,  a very lush, deep green with almost no weeds at all.  It didn’t look quite as good this year because he had a slower start, so here are some of the things that contributed to that;

– I mentioned above that there were some broken (cracked) main lines we had to fix.  Myself, Owen Morse, Brian Richey, and a few others had to do some major digging in two separate areas with the Back-hoe and repair the large 4 inch main water lines.  This took several weekends to accomplish and several hundred dollars worth of repair parts.  As a consequence, we had the irrigation system shut off for most of February and into March.  At the same time that we had everything shut down, we installed the fertilizer injection tank, a filter, and some new shut-off valves.

– We didn’t have as wet of a winter as we did the previous year (23/24).  When we don’t have a wet winter its pretty important to still have the irrigation system running in the early months of the year to give the ground a good soak.  The over-seeding and fertilizer had a much later start to germination in 2025 than it did in the previous year.

– The later start for the new seed gave the weeds a head start on germination before the grass, that’s not good.  Typically you want the grass to germinate and establish dominance before the weeds rob the available moisture and nutrients in the soil.

– We didn’t use the pre-emergent weed treatment over the entire LZ like we did in the winter of 23/24.  Pre-emergent weed killers treat the area so weed don’t get the chance to start growing in the first place, vs. post-emergent weed killers which is what you spray on weeds that are already there.  We will have a better deployment plan for this winter and spring of 26, similar to what we did in 23/24.

So the goal for 2026 is to keep the LZ alive and green through the entire summer like we did this year, but we want to start with the same great baseline that we had in 24.

– Wet winter or not, the irrigation system is working perfectly and will run through the winter so we won’t have dry conditions in the spring.

– We will be renting a spike aerator in December or January to give the a similar treatment to what we did in December of 23.  Aerating the soil just before we over-seed and fertilize gives us a jump start on healthy germination that kicks off in Feb/March.

– The advanced irrigation controller that was donated to the club by Hunter Industries provides amazing tools for us to monitor and control the watering program.  It’s now connected to the internet so we can monitor performance and make adjustments from our home computers.  We also fixed the flow meter in the system so we know exactly how much water we use overall, and even how much in a particular zone.

– We will deploy the pre-emergent weed control once in the winter and again in the spring.  this will keep the weeds from taking control before the grass germinates.  We will treat existing weeds with post-emergent spray with the back-pack sprayer as needed.

– Our Gopher population is at a minimum due to constant attention by professional pest-control.  We plan to continue funding this effort so that they don’t make a come-back.

– We have a steady plan of fertilizer and nutrient supplements that will will be deployed over the winter via the injection system.