Home Lawn Care

The heat is here and those of you with Bermuda yards are probably loving life with all of the rain that we have received this year.  The temperatures have been pretty average so it's been a pretty decent year for Bermuda so far.  During these summer months you want to make sure to fertilize your yard with about 1 pound of nitrogen per 1000 ft2.  The analysis of the fertilizer should be something close to a 25-0-7 (N-P-K). An easy calibrating method would be to look at the number on the bag as a percentage of a lb/Acre.  If you have a 1 Acre yard you need 4 bags of 25-0-0 to get 1 lb of Nitrogen.  Really all you Bermuda people need right now is N, our soils in this area are naturally rich in P.  I like to put out 1 lb of fertility per month when the Bermuda is actively growing with August be the last application.  

If you really love your Bermuda you will aerify it NOW.  Aerifying you yard helps with water infiltration and gas exchange in the soil.  

For you Fescue people.  Now is usually the time that your yard is hating life and you are usually praying that your yard will make it through the next month.  Which is the same mindset that I have most of the time in the summer about my greens.  Some of the things that you can do to make it easier on your Fescue are: Watch out how much water you are using.  When it's hot out too much water is worse than too little water.  Try to only irrigate in the early morning.  As the day goes on and the temperatures rise the moisture level needs to be low, not non-existant but low.  If you are seeing some greying of the plant that is wilt.  It means you need a little more water in that area.  If you see any yellowing that is wet wilt.  It means that that area is getting too much water and in all likelihood is about to die.  There are some specialty fertilizers that you can buy at the lawn care stores to help your Fescue through the summer.  Also, make sure your cutting it at 3.5-4" tall the taller it is the more drought resistant it will be.  

I hope that these are some helpful summer stress tips.

Home Lawn Care

It's definitely turning into Spring.  If you have tried to go to the local Home Depot or Lowe's on the weekend that's proof enough for me.

I decided to try and start putting a couple of home lawn tips on here at important times of the year.  Right now is an important time of year for your home lawn Bermuda or Fescue.

For those of you with a Bermuda yard.  The grass is trying to break dormancy right now.  The main factors that drive this are soil temperature and daylight hours.  with the soil temperatures getting up The weed seeds in the soil will want to germinate.  So its a good Idea to go ahead and get that pre-emergent herbicide out to control the weeds.  The best place to find these products is at your local Co-Op or lawn and garden stores.  Nothing against the big box stores but you can get better products at the specialty stores.

For those of you with Fescue, or cool season grasses at home.  Now is a crucial time of the year.  Now is the time to Aerify and Fertilize your yard.  Just like we aerify our greens around daylight savings time every year, your fescue will love you during the summer if you do this.  If you want justification for aerification please look at my last post.  Your fescue is going to be preforming at its peak here for the next 2 months.  Now is the time to fertilize while the stresses on the plant are low and the efficiency of the plant is high.  You will also need to apply a pre-emergent herbicide to your lawns too so that weeds are kept to a minimum.  If you have any bare spots in the yard that you want to cover now is also a great time to sod fescue.  A lot of people like to seed along with aerification, but I prefer to seed in the fall and sod in the spring.

I hope some of the information is useful to you.  I will try to post more information related to the home lawn as the season continues.

Good Growing!