Seasonal Free Tips

Maintaining Your Lawn Tip 1: Starting a new Lawn or over seeding an existing lawn? Choose the proper type of seed for the area you are seeding and for the desired results. It is typically best to go to a knowledgeable Retailer who understands the seed business to find the best Mix or Blend for your needs. Here are some good rules of thumb when choosing the seed. Use a Mix or Blend instead of a single variety of seed when possible. Using seed that has several different varieties in the Mix spreads out the risk, giving you more chances for success. Get a type of seed that fits your needs... Traffic? Shade? Pets? Wet or dry lawn? All of these play into the correct type of seed to use. Use the full seeding rate that is recommended on the bag, or from the Retailer. Skimping on seed is never the right way to a nice lawn. Plant the seed in a good seed bed, or over seed it with a good Slicer Seeder, available from a local Rental location. Seed to soil contact is a must. Always use a good starter Fertilizer, one that has some slow release Nitrogen and at least some phosphorus and potassium. The higher quality you use, the better start the lawn will get. The type of seed is the number one factor that determines the potential of the lawn. Don't short yourself from the very start. Following are our other tips on maintaining the lawn and how to water a new lawn. Tip 2: Watering a new or newly reseeded lawn. Water is the single biggest factor in what kind of stand of grass you will end up with. The seed is critically important, but without the proper amount of water, the best seed will fail. Follow this simple watering guide when over seeding or seeding a new lawn. Initial Watering The first watering should be heavy, wetting the soil to a depth of 6-8 inches. This will allow developing roots to better penetrate the soil. Daily waterings will also be more effective with a heavy initial watering. Care should be taken not to allow runoff. First 3 Weeks - Daily watering is recommended for the first 3 weeks. The objective is to keep the surface moist. The amount of water applied each time will be small. However, in hot weather, two or three waterings may be necessary. With dew available many mornings, midday is often the best choice if only one watering can be made. You should not saturate the soil in this period, as potential seedling disease problems are lurking. Fourth Week - As the seedlings develop, the surface may be allowed to dry out, but the root zone must still be kept moist. Change from light daily waterings to heavier waterings every other day. Fifth Week - Two heavy waterings to maintain soil moisture for root development and later germinating seedlings. Sixth Week - At this point resume normal watering procedures for your lawn. 1 inch of water each week will provide adequate growing moisture for excellent lawn performance. Tip 3: Mowing your lawn for the best quality lawn in the neighborhood. Believe it or not, your lawn mower blade has a lot to do with the health of your lawn. A dull blade will not cut the grass blade, but rips it apart causing your lawn to lose moisture and to spend energy in recovery instead of healthy growth. Sharpen your mower blades every 5 to 7 mowings. Typically it is a good idea to have two sets of blades so that you can always have a sharp blade ready to go. The easiest way to tell that your blades need to be sharpened is to look at the end of the grass after you mow your lawn. If the ends of the grass seed blade are ripped and white with a rough edge, you need to sharpen the blades. Also, lawn mowing habits can help to improve the quality of your lawn. Most lawns should be mowed at a fairly tall height, about 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch. This height will allow the lawn to shade out young growing weeds and will give the grass seed plant more area to respirate properly, utilizing moisture more efficiently. If you went on vacation and now your lawn resembles a pasture, the best way to bring this back to resemble a lawn is to mow at the highest possible height your mower settings will allow, then come back a day or two later and mow just a bit shorter. Bring the height of the lawn back down gradually to the desired 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch height. Some people think that mowing their lawns at 1 inch is the best way to mow less often. I wonder if those guys ever realized that they still mow as often as their neighbors do, but now they have the ugliest lawn in the neighborhood to show for it. Mowing short is of no advantage in a home lawn environment. For a healthier lawn, mow higher and sharpen those mower blades. Tip 4: Fertilization Tips Lawn fertilization isn't rocket science, but you wouldn't know that if you listen to lawn care companies' advertisements. Lawn fertilization is one of the easiest and most rewarding Do It Yourself projects. Make sure you follow label rates and use a good quality (and clean) broadcast spreader to apply fertilizers. Step 1 For most of the country, April is the time to start your new lawn care program. Start off with a Pre-Emergent Weed Control and Fertilizer combination. This product will wake your lawn up with a good dose of fertilizer and prevent most grassy weeds from becoming a problem later in the year. It is always best to use a slow release or a stabilized release nitrogen source when fertilizing a lawn. Use products containing Sulfur Coated Urea, UFLEXX, UMAXX or nitroform for best results. These slower release nitrogen products spoon feed the lawn so you enjoy the dark green color, without all of the extra mowing. Water this product in as you want to get the pre-emergent down into the soil where it can prevent that nasty crabgrass and other grassy weeds. Step 2 May is normally the time to take care of those pesky broadleaf weeds like dandelions and clover. The two best ways to do this are to apply a Weed and Feed fertilizer, and/or to apply a slow release lawn food and control the weeds with a liquid weed killer. Either way will work-it depends on the time you have and the size of the lawn as to which is the best way-ask a knowledgeable Retailer which way would be best for you. With the Weed and Feed you want to apply it to a moist lawn, as the particles must stick to the leaves of the weeds to be effective. Also if you use a Weed and Feed, do not water it in right away. Give the chemicals about 8-10 hours to get into the weeds before you water the fertilizer in. Again, use a slow release nitrogen source…for better color and better turf health. Step 3 June/July is the time to put on the next dose of fertilizer. This gets the lawn ready for the heat of mid-late summer. Remember, a poorly fed lawn will stress much more in drought and heat than a well fed lawn. Make sure to water this step in as you don't want the fertilizer sitting on top of the lawn in the heat of the day. Step 4 September or October is the time to put your lawn to bed for the Winter. Use a slow release nitrogen source, one that will slowly feed your lawn and not cause aggressive growth going into winter. Ideally, your fertilizer will still be in place in order to help your lawn get a quick start if Spring comes early. This is also a great time to spot spray any broadleaf weeds that got by you in May and June. Follow this basic plan and you will have a much improved lawn, one that you can be proud of. Tip 5: Labeling Mumbo Jumbo Most companies want to put their best foot forward when packaging their products, lawn care products are no exception to this. One way that fertilizer companies 'dress up' their labels is to add micronutrients to their lawn food. In many cases, this micronutrient package is simply label dressing. For example, in the vast majority of the American soil structure, adding Boron to a fertilizer mix does nothing for the lawn. Boron is a necessary nutrient. However, ample amounts of Boron are already in the soil in most cases. Now, if you were trying to grow Cotton in your lawn it would be a different story. Since many fertilizer companies started out as agricultural suppliers, many still hold to the idea that a micronutrient 'package' added to the standard Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium is a requirement. After all, someone in a small corner of Oklahoma might need that Boron. Realistically, a good fertilizer with Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium in some ratio near 4-5 parts Nitrogen to 1 part Phosphorus to 2-4 parts Potassium is all that most lawns will ever need. The most common label dressing is Iron. Now, Iron in a useful amount is a good thing for lawns. If a fertilizer has 2%-2.5% iron that is useful. Iron is associated with chlorophyll production and generally helps other nutrients function better in poor conditions like cold wet weather. However, if a fertilizer product has 0.1% iron or really anything less than 1.5% that is a classic case of label dressing. Don't be fooled by great claims on the bag of fertilizer, look for the proper ratio of NPK and make sure at least part of the Nitrogen source is slow release. Now you can be an educated consumer, spending your Do It Yourself money wisely. Tip 6: Do I need to Lime my lawn? Maybe? Yes? No? I don't know? All of the above might be true. The only true way to know if your lawn needs to have the pH amended is to have the lawn tested. This sounds like a scary arduous task, when in reality it can be a great way to teach your kids some science! The first thing you need to do is to look in the phone book for a local fertilizer plant or your local county extension office. Call these great resources and find out how you can get your soil sent off to a laboratory to get the pH and nutrient values tested. This is especially important if you have had many battles with your lawn and lost all of them-your lawn may be crying out for help. The soil test kit will have instructions on how to pull soil samples and how to process it for the lab. Follow these directions closely as it can affect the results. Once you mail the samples you will get your results in a couple of weeks. I know, it sounds like a long time, but trust me you will be able to handle the excitement. The primary test that you will be looking for is the measure of acidity/alkalinity in the soil, this is called the pH test. If your lawn is low in pH, below 6.0, you will want to apply lime to your lawn. The best sources of lime are pelletized for easy spreading with a standard broadcast lawn spreader. If your lawn is high in pH, above 7.2, you will see a recommendation to apply sulfur (also spelled sulphur in some areas of the country). This is less likely as most home lawns will not be high in pH. The primary reason to check for pH and to get the pH into the proper range is that the acidity or alkalinity of the soil is a primary determining factor, along with temperature and moisture, as to the availability of the other nutrients. For example, in cold, wet weather with a low pH soil, the Phosphorus that the plant utilizes to build a stronger root system is not available to the plant. Even in warmer weather, the pH below 6.0 will greatly reduce the amount of available Phosphorus. Small test kits are available from most hardware stores and garden centers. These tests will do just fine if all you need to test is pH and your lawn is already in good shape. If however, your lawn has won the battles, spend the extra money and get a professional test. It will be fun. Tip 7: What about kids and pets on my lawn? I just sprayed for weeds, any problems? In general, it is best to keep kids and pets off of a recently sprayed lawn for several hours. Some kids will be much more susceptible to the chemicals used to kill weeds or insects and may have allergic reactions several days after the lawn was sprayed. For most kids and pets, the greatest risk is in the first 5 hours. If the lawn has been watered or a rainfall of 1/4 inch or more has showered the lawn as soon as it is dry, you are pretty safe. It is a good idea to keep kids and pets away from the lawn right after it has been sprayed-better to be safe than sorry.