This shall be the grass growth update chain (the dogs so desperately want a yard again) (day 0, planting day, may 4)
Lmao of course (may 6)
To no one’s surprise, nothing yet (may 10) tomorrow is one week from planting but it’s supposed to rain so doing the update today.
Packaging claims there will be grass by two weeks, I have my doubts. If we go by the day it was actually warm and not the day of planting that would be the 21st
(May 14, 10 days)
I went and weeded and in the process found a ton of little sprouts! They’re all safely hidden deeper in the soil so the little sparrows haven’t managed to gobble them up yet. Also found a buttload of worms and an empty baby snail shell so I’m hoping this means my yard is returning to a fruitful state capable of sustaining life (it was straight clay before). Did my best to re-bury the sprouts so the little chubby beepers don’t eat everything but only time will tell
May 15
Half the yard is starting to poke through 👀 the other half I only see sprouts deeper in the soil
May 16
Baby green grass is visible all throughout the yard 👀
May 18
A faint green tinge is visible from a distance!!
May 21
We’re looking like a teen growing their first beard
Some patches are growing absolutely nothing, not sure if the birds ate it or the storms we had made the seeds rot. We’re gonna wait another week or two to see, once the current growth is tall enough to shield the ground a bit I’ll add another layer of seeds to fill the gaps and hope the grass conceals the seeds from the sparrows
May 24 (20 days)
Some patches are filling in and the baby grass is long enough to get little glimmers of morning dew! The left fence line is having a hard time, it’s almost entirely shaded so I’m barely seeing sprouts starting over there. Thankfully we are planning on putting some low light native perennials along the fence line so it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t fill right to the fence but I do need another foot or so to spread over there ideally
May 26
I feel bad updating this every two days but so much growth is happening so fast now I kinda feel like i have to so I apologize for the spam
Looking like a yard!
The fence line is starting to fill in! I was most worried about that since it really looked like nothing was happening but it’s taking off now! A lot of the patches are also filling in quite nicely! I think we’ve finally hit a point where there is more grass than dirt! Exciting! And it’s looking nice and lush!
May 31 (27 days)
Added the stepping stones (with puppy paw prints in them!) which means we tore up a bit of the ground there then redistributed the grass that did grow in to some of the patchier areas. The gaps are still filling in but it is going a lot slower. It’s been crazy hot here and a couple small portions of the grass did dry out and die, a few I was able to quickly deep soak and revive a bit. The fence line is really filled in now, looking pretty much like the rest of the lawn.
It’s supposed to rain this week, if it does I’m going to add an even layer of seed to help the final gaps fill in. Up close you can see that there just isn’t much growth in those spots so they’ll need the extra help. The stepping stones will now need new seed of course as well
June 2 (29 days)
I’m glad I’m taking these picture because in person it feels like a patchy mess making no progress but looking at it it has indeed filled in more, especially around the steps!
Before and after the first mow (June 5)
It’s really filling in around the stepping stones! I was worried after mowing that it would expose a lot of bare spots that were hidden by length but that doesn’t seem to have happened. Still waiting for the second round of seed to start sprouting (should see that next week it’s been 6 days) which will hopefully fill in the gaps!
I will say from mowing over it that the grass that is there is very lush and looking really good. Just need those spots to take 🤞
June 11 (38 days)
There’s definitely still patches but you can see small shoots filling them in. Some of the spots the soil was too thin so I’ve filled them with more which will now be thick enough to support a root system. We’ve started letting the dogs in the yard with restrictions (no zoomies that might tear the sensitive fresh grass out and immediately watering areas they’ve peed in) and so far no spots or major damage.
This will probably be the second to last update, I’m going to wait until all the patches have filled and do one final “it’s done” at that point! Once the second round of seeds have set in the dogs will be totally free to zoom again, probably still watering down whenever they pee though.
