More Photos!

The lawn is developing quickly this year, although that should be no surprise when temperatures are over 75°. I've included a few bonus photos as well--jonquils, and a purple hyacinth that started to open this morning.  Click on any image to embiggen it.

I fed the roses and Thuja with a few handfuls of alfalfa, but I won't bother with the lawn this year. Growth is already excellent and I had to cut it yesterday.

Alfalfa On The Lawn

I distributed 100 lbs of alfalfa meal on the lawn today, for about 14 pounds per thousand square feet. I usually use a standard of 2.5 - 1 - 2 (NPK) for that, so it adds up to around 0.35 lbs of nitrogen, 0.14 phosphorous, and 0.29 of potassium.

It has the advantage of containing tricontanol (a growth hormone) as well, so the roots will respond to it very well. After some issues with grubs last year, any response I can get on the roots would be very good.

This already has my total organics near 85 pounds per thousand this year. That's quite high.

I also planted a second Double Knockout rose bush as the first one flowered after only a month in the soil and kept flowering until it froze. I added several handfuls of alfalfa meal to the soil--roses love it--and fed the older bush as well.

The First Feed

I did see the question in comments and I'll answer it shortly--I got a bit sidetracked today.

First feeding of the lawn was this morning, on top of a quarter inch of snow (which melted by noon). I used 110 lbs of Mazuri chinchilla food which is primarily alfalfa. Unfortunately, alfalfa pellets are difficult to get around here.

All things considered, it's around 15 lbs per thousand square feet, or around 0.3 lbs of nitrogen. That should be just enough to get the grass started when it comes back.