Last year when you topdressed was the time to overseed. Is the damaged grass a fescue or a Kentucky bluegrass? If you have fescue then you might want to overseed and take hit on weeds this coming summer. If you have Kentucky bluegrass then it should fill in for you without any more seed. The time to apply fertilizer in the spring is after you have mowed real grass (not just weeds) for the second time. By then you can be certain you have living roots. If you fertilize before the grass is growing, you are only fertilizing the weeds. Also keep in mind that your grass is coming out of the cold season with a lot of nutrients in the soil ready to go. You should see a hearty flush of new growth whether you fertilize or not. Grass farmers do not like to fertilize in the early spring because they have to mow twice as much. The real time to fertilize in the spring is after the initial flush of growth is over. I always suggest May and particularly Memorial Day because it is an easy day in May to remember. With this in mind, once your grass is growing, you can fertilize your damaged spots but don't go overboard. Then hit it all again on Memorial Day.

I have been doing some research regarding moles. I have a few moles and my father-in-law also has moles that he has been trying to get rid of since last year. From the information I have read here and on the internet is that moles eat mostly earthworms, not grubs. Also, the only two methods of getting rid of them are poison worms and traps. I recently ordered a trap based on the advice I read on this website. Hopefully I will know how it works in the next couple of weeks. I plan to use the trap in my yard and if it is successful I will suggest it to my father-in-law (who is currently using gum to kill the moles). I read that this and other remedies are ineffective. However his neighbor supposedly has used this method to rid his lawn of the moles.

Fuchsia's like to be moist but not wet (and of course you can't let them dry out either). My experience has been that soaking them is not good at all, even when they are not left in standing water. Unfortunately the sympton of root damage from too much water (wilting leaves) looks the same as a plant that needs water. The difference is that a plant with root damage will stay wet longer (because its missing the roots to take up water). It might be too late, (it depends on how wilted they look). If they don't look too bad, first, don't water them again until the top of the soil starts to feel a little dry-ish (but moist underneath). You may want to put them out in some morning sun to help dry them out and transplant to earthen or coco mat containers (I'm assuming they're in plastic). If they look pretty wilted they don't have the roots to support all the foliage. You can try cutting them back pretty strongly (leave about 6 inches). Of course that means the blooms will be gone, but if the plant survives you'll have blooms in about 8 weeks. Just consider it a learning experience. I did the same thing last year. Good Luck, Helen

You may have been reading about issues that golf courses have with fungal infections. They traditionally get an invisible disease that causes the grass to repel water. Water literally sits on top of the grass and evaporates rather than sink into the ground. That fungus is one of the main reasons they use a spike aerator and spray with the Cascade + surfactant product. They do what they can to kill the soil's organic matter to keep the disease out. Otherwise, yes! Feeding with organics absolutely encourages fungi to grow in the soil ecosystem. That is the single most important purpose of organic fertilizer. There are over 100,000 species of fungus, bacteria, micro arthropods, and other classes of microorganisms living in normal soil. Fungus does not equal disease. Some products depend on the consumer to not know that distinction. As reeljake said, there are good fungi (almost all of them) and a few pathogenic fungi. When the beneficial fungi are well fed with organic fertilizer and get plenty of air, they will prevent the outbreak of fungal disease. This is the definition of normal in soil. When food and air are available, as it is in almost all of the Earth's surface, that is normal. It is different in swamps because the water cuts off the air. In that case different microbes grow.