Do you scalp your yard in the spring with the reel mower, or do you have to use a rotary mower for that? I'm really intrigued by this. I've always been big on keeping a nice lawn, but that reel cut is on a different planet from mine. I'm moving to a new house in a few weeks; would be a great time to start with a fresh slate. Looking hard at that Cal Trimmer.

I use my reel to scalp down to a quarter inch. Rotaries cannot cut that low. I usually have to cut the grass in two to three passes and the last one in two directions. I use my grass catcher bin so sometimes I can only cut in 40' segments before I have to empty the bin. It is alot of work and alot of bags. So many giant bags I pissed off my garbage guy so bad that he grabbed his junk and shouted Spanish obsenities at the house. Little did he know I had the day off and knew Spanish.

I also core aerate the yard, apply soil amendments, first app of fertilizer, and top dress with compost. The lawn comes back in about 2 to three weeks. However, it does takes twice as long when you grass is still younger than 2 years of being installed.

Your wife will freak out. The grass will look dead, turn red, then sprout green shoots and one day you wake up and boom fairway lawn. Many make the mistake of waiting too long to start cutting after scalping. Raise you cut height a notch. For me that is 3/8" cut height and cut before you think it needs it. The grass almost needs to be trained in that way. It sounds wierd but if you start cutting just as the shoots get to the blade height, they are discouraged from continuing to grow upward and turn along the soil and start spreading and getting more dense.

Thats a crazy amount of clippings. I can imagine your trash guy throwing a fit. I always HATE scalping every year. The small bag my Toro came with lasts maybe 2 rows before I have to stop and empty; it's a beating. Our new place has Tif 419, and it has a noticeably different appearance from the common bermuda I have now. I'm going to have to top dress a good bit to smooth everything out.

Do you ever have to treat with insecticides? Every year if I don't preemptively treat for grubs, I get damage. But I hate that treatment because of the way it kills everything. I wind up with dead worms all over the place. I always wonder if I could be doing anything differently to not have to broadcast that insecticide.

EvenPar, post some updates if you don't mind. I'm interested to hear how you like your CalTrimmer. It would help me make the decision to take the plunge or not.

FiTx - My CalTrimmer seems to be ok so far. Although, it does seem to bog down and stop cutting. I'm not sure if it's because the grass might be too tall/thick, of if the reel adjustment is too tight, or some other reason. But it's like I'm mowing fine then all of a sudden the reel and the roller both stop. I have to raise the roller, back up, then engage the clutch again to get the reel and roller spinning again then lower the roller.

I can mow at 1-5/8" without much problem, but if I get down to 1-1/4 or even 1-1/2", it's starts bogging down more frequent. Every time I mow the grass is brown almost immediately after mowing. In about 4 to 5 days it is nearly green again, but then it's time to mow by then. So back to brown. It's very hot outside all day every day, I try to water a lot but also hesitant in over watering. Seems like to me if I only water an inch per week this grass will burn up in this weather?

It's kind of frustrating, my wife gives me weird looks.

Here's some before and after pics.

Thanks for the update. The thing that concerns me most about going this route is the blade sharpening; having to take my mower to someone yearly for that service as opposed to just clamping a rotary blade in my vice and going to town with a file. And, it seems like you have to mow every 3-4 days as opposed to weekly to avoid scalping the canopy. I am downsizing to a smaller yard, so that mitigates the impact of more frequent mowings. I'm also not scared of small engine maintenance; so that just leaves the whole blade maintenance thing I have to decide if I want to deal with or not.

Don't hesitate to post again, as you get more comfortable with your mower. I still have a few weeks to decide and would love as much input as I can get.

Sometimes having to make double passes makes me think I should have bought the larger 27" instead of the 20".
I'm kind of still figuring it out so it's taking me almost 2 hours when it should take less than 1. But as I mentioned before I have nearly 6000sf of yard and don't mind the exercise.

Consider this, we are going on vacation for 8 days so I'm going to have to hire a lawn crew to come in with their rotary equipment. Not sure what that does to my yard, but I don't think I have a choice. If they don't cut it for me then the grass will be too tall when I get back for my CT

I want to learn and master this myself and will keep trying for now, but If I decide to go back to hiring a regular lawn crew I will give you a deal on my CT207.

Kceovaisnt - Do you have any suggestions for the issues I mentioned in my prior post?

Evenpar. If your mower is bogging down a few things may be happening. You may be running at too low of a throttle and/or you may have a loose clutch. Your mower should be able to scalp your lawn to the crowns without slipping the clutch. It could also be to tight of a reel to bedknife adjustment. Is the reel hard to spin by hand when the unit is off? The reel should freewheel for a second while making a slight grinding sound after a firm spin with the hand. If the reel stops as soon as you release the blade it is way to tight. If you cannot get a good cut using the paper cut test then you may need to backlap. I had my blades too tight at first myself. I am speaking from experience on this. There is no way your grass is too thick. Your yard will be extremely dense once you get it looking right. Right now it is just tall. Are the stolons running along the ground right now or are they shooting straight up? If you are cutting off most of the green growth, that is an indicator of the yard being too tall. Your main goal is to get those stolons to lay down and start spreading laterally. As long as they are vertical, you will be needing to mow often and it will look bad each time you cut. I thought you had scalped already. As in 0.5 inches. That is a good starting point. 1.5 inches is the top of its maintainable range and does not leave you much wiggle room.

For now address the bogging down issue and I would keep cutting your yard back down with the goal of getting to 1 inch. Make as low of a cut while following the cutting no more than 1/3 of blade height off rule. So if your grass is at 1.75", cut it at 1.25", wait two days and cut it at 0.875" and then start cutting it at 1" every three days. This is to train your stolons. If you can put in the work it will pay off. You wont have to cut nearly as often since stolons grow at a faster rate than leaves. Once trained, you will only cut leaf material, no stolons, and your grass will look its best right after you cut.

As for watering, you only need to water frequently while your sod is establishing. If you are watering more than one inch per week, you are hindering the rooting process. Don't over water. The absolute truth is to only water once it starts to show drought stress. Not before. This is the safest way to make sure you are doing it right. You can break the watering session into multiple days throughout the week if it is blazing out there but no more than 1 inch per week is needed. Trust me. You may get localized dry spot but you can treat that with a wetting agent like cheap baby shampoo from a hose end sprayer. Works for me. Do not over water the rest pf your yard for the sake of a few dry spots. Your yard will not die. It will look somewhat rough during the hottest summer days while it is not yet mature but you are doing the right thing.

Be patient man.

FiTxAg04, you do not have to take it in to get serviced every year. The maintenance for the blades involves weekly or bi weekly adjustment of the blade clearance. I do it before every cut and takes a couple of minutes to do.

You will need to backlap the reel and bedknife (one action) once or twice an active growing season. You can do this yourself if you have an electric drill, a .75" socket for said drill, a paint brush, and 120 - 220 grit lapping compound. But it may be a good idea to have a golf course superintendant have on of his mechs show you how. It takes about 20 minutes to lap and then readjust the clearance just like you do every week or so.

You should only take the reel in every 3-5 years depending on you much releif has been taken out of the reel during the backlapping over the course of time to regrind the relief back into each blade. This is refered to as a releif grind or foley grind, not a spin grind. They may do a small spin grind after the foley grind and thats okay, it will give you good results. Just don't get exclusively a spin grind.

There is a learning curve but it is quick.

As for the mowing frequency, There is no difference between reel and rotary but if you have hybrid bemuda, you have to keep it mowed every 3-4 days if you wish to keep it under and inch and 5-7 days if you keep it 1 to 1.5 inches. You also have the option of using PGRs. Plant growth regulators to keep the mowings to once every 7 days for a yard that is 0.5" tall. I use a generic primo maxx called T-PAC E-PRO MEC on domyownlawn website. You can also give a slightly higher dose to precondition it prior to leaving on a long vacation. I left mine for two weeks and it grew less than half an inch and required one cut to get back to the preferred cut height.
If you have hybrid bermuda just get used to mowing it more often than st. Aug. if you are on the fence about a reel mower just understand there is slighlty more tinkering required but the payoff is better looking yards and the lawn care experience as a whole is more forgiving with reels. Rotaries cause too much unintended damage to tight turf. But it can be done. If you prefer rotaries, go ahead. I don't know of anyone that regretted getting a reel after one year of getting familiar with them. I know alot of those who were frustrated after a month but came around quick once their yard started to show results and have never looked back.

I believe the blades are just right, throttle is wide open. That probably means it's the clutch somehow. I can adjust the clutch so tight that I can't pull it to the handle bars, so I loosen a little thinking it's where it needs to be. Mower still stalls/stops. Makes it a real bear to complete each mow. The lower the height adjustment the more likely stop. Mowing at 1.25" or lower is nearly impossible.

Some of the stolons are beginning to lay sideways but most are still vertical. Some of the grass is looking good some is not. Looks like I have a weed problem, they are definitely growing sideways. Do you have a post emergent weed control you can recommend and application recommendation?

I will continue to adjust the throttle cabling to see if that makes a difference. Still brown after every mow.

I took the time to measure the watering in each of my zones so as to get an average of 1" of water. I've been breaking that up 3 times a week, the heat index is well over 100. I can't tell if the brown is drought stress or just results of mowing inefficiencies.

Thanks for al your input

Update: the clutch is fixed. Yes it was slipping, most likely from the very beginning. Mowed the whole yard less than an hour and got a very nice cut! Now we r Rollin'

Glad to hear you have solved the clutch issue and that you can mow without having to invest several hours.

As to your brown spots. If they are the result of drought stress you will see indicators of it. The surrounding green leaves will roll up into tight green tubes. The soil will also be rock hard. You can check for adequate moisture by taking a screw driver sticking it all the way into the soil and pulling it back out after a few seconds. If you cannot easily drive it down, you have LDS or localized dry spot. If the shaft is dry then you need to water this spot more often. You want to see the shaft wet around 4 inches deep. If you have rock hard soil, amendments will fix that over time. Yearly topdressing of screened compost and aerating is a great yearly practice while the yard comes out of dormancy but there are other quicker remedies. I treat my LDS with 8 Oz of cheap walmart baby shampoo, 8 Oz of Shiner Bock, and a teaspoon of unsulphured blackstrap mollasses in a hose end sprayer set to 1:10 mix ratio. I treat every two weeks until its gone. Usually in a month it fades. Feel free tp use that on the entire yard if you start to have lenghty drought conditions before you start to see hard soils.

As for weeds, it depends on the what you have. If they are broadleaf weeds you can treat with Weed B Gone. But I would wait until the temperatures get back into the 80s. 2-4D is the active ingredient that can cause damage at hot temperatures. If they are grassy weeds the you may need to ID them first. Image has products for nutsedge and crabgrass. Once again, read the labels about temperature. There is an awesome post emergent herbicide that I can use to spot treat in any temperature. The hotter the better actually. Its called Celcius WG by Bayer. You can find this on the shelf at a John Deere Landscape or Lesco supply store. Also online. They are expensive at over 100 bucks a bottle, but you will never finish the bottle. You have to get a tank sprayer since it is a water soluble and other additives like a non-ionic surfactant (I use Spreader Sticker), a blue turf mark dye can help, and some sprayable ammonium sulfate as it helps prevent yellowing of surrounding turf. That sprayable ammonium sulfate is also part of my deep green spray treatment a few days before a party. You will find lots of uses for that stuff. I also wait until a week and a half after my monthly fertilizer treatments to spray post emergent herbicides since it makes for a more complete and quicker kill due to the metabolic boost the weeds get from the fertilizer.

Keep at it. It is still early enough in the year for you to see a nice yard by fall. But next year after it comes out of dormancy, if you scalp, aerate, topdress, lime (if needed), fertilize, and start keeping it at under 0.75", it will blow your mind after 5 weeks.

Last evening I mowed at 1". Seems like I'm finally starting to get it down to preferred height. My Cal Trimmer is working great so far. However, grass is still brown after mowing. Hopefully that will change over time if I can keep it at this height.

Now, mowing at such a low height I scalped a lot of areas. I don't force being able to go less than 1". I guess that means the ground needs to be leveled out. I have lots of uneven areas and the mower bounces in those areas due to the dips. When is the best time of year to have a landscape company come out and look at fixing this issue? Do you know how pricey that can be?

Based what I've read from a number of folks over at aroundtheyard, you should probably keep it at 1" or maybe go up a notch or two if you're hitting dirt. You'll want to put down some quick release nitrogen fertilizer to help it recover from the stress of being cut much shorter. Also water it pretty well for the next 2-3 then back off to once or twice a week to get in the routine of deep root watering.

Once it's thick and green, then you can start going shorter again as the grass will be in much better shape and can rebound much quicker.

As far as leveling, no idea how much it would cost. Most guys I've seen do it on their own buying 4-8 cubic yards of sand and spreading it out and leveling it. It's not difficult, just labor intensive.

Ditto on what travelag said. You will not like the price or the results of a professional. You are better off going diy. I agree the labor is rediculous. I would reccomend doing this next year around April or May. For your size lot you will need more along the lines of 10-15 cubic yards of non-bleached, pebble free, builder sand. You want to get your yard growing fast and spreading quiclkly. You scalp the yard down as far as you can. You may have to cut everyother day and work it down using the 1/3 rule I mentioned before. Once the cut height is as low as you can get, fertilize the yard. Then start spreading sand. You can have it delivered via dump truck then using a wheel burrow or small front loader distribute the sand in smaller piles around the yard. Use a grading rake and or push broom to spread it around. You want to just see the tips of the grass poking through. Run sprinklers to water it down. Repeat the spreading again as the sand will run down into the low spots and you will see you need more sand. Once you put down the last application of sand, it is a great idea to pull a leveling drag. There are some examples of diy builds that use a 2x4 frame that you can fit bricks in to weigh it down and chainlink fence to smooth things out. The best results are when these drags are large and towed by a utility tractor. But some hand pulled ones can be made and used. The yard will look like a beach for a week or so. In a month it will be super smooth.

Made it through my first season with my cal trimmer. A friend with a lawn care company is backlapping the reel for me to be ready for the upcoming season and will help with the covering of sand as well. Yard looked pretty good last year but this year I hope to get to the next level. I hired a company to handle fertilizing and weed control emergents. Seems to be working pretty good. My yard did stay green longer into the winter than the neighbors.