Lawn & Weed Control
Daniel Bodziak
4 years ago
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Yardvaark
4 years agojanie kaplan
4 years agoRelated Discussions
Lawn brown up and commercial lawn service
Comments (5)Sorry if my post was snarky, but if you already know everything, why are you asking? Your solution was overseeding multiple times a growing season. That is a bizarre idea. If you do it properly, you should be overseeding at MOST once a year. As for the soil - unless your client wants to move, they just have to work with what they have. Adding organic matter is a good idea in almost all circumstances. It isn't going to help rocks though. General soil conditions usually extend hundreds of miles in every direction, so everyone in the town is likely dealing with similar circumstances but I bet you can find people with nice lawns. You don't need perfect soil to grow grass - (but it certainly makes it easier!) You could set up a lawn to grow with hydroponics if you were willing to continually care for it. As for your take on fertilizer - I have no idea why you think fertilizer only gets to the top half inch of soil. Synthetic fertilizer goes everywhere water goes. Organic fertilizer is incorporated via our soil friends. Neither stays put in the top half inch. For watering, if the soil is so hard that it can't absorb water, then why are you watering for 3 hours? Water for 10 minutes. Wait 10 minutes. Water for 10 minutes. Wait 10 minutes. on and on until you get 1" of water to absorb. If you don't know the run time for that, an empty tuna can is a good measuring stick for 1". If they don't have a sprinkler system, they'll probably need to get a timer for the hose. Nobody wants to be out there all day cutting the sprinkler on and off. You really need to find out what grass is there or at least what is getting overseeded. You need to match the grass type to the environment. Planting a full sun variety in shade etc is a sure way to fail. Also, since you know the soil is shallow and rocky, it doesn't make much sense to select grasses that do best with deep root growth - eg tall fescues. Their drought tolerance is negated unless they have room to grow. Your client will be better off with a variety that goes dormant without water but recovers fast when conditions improve....See Morelawn weed killer for bamboo grove?
Comments (6)Thanks all for the tips on weed control! I'll wait until my boo's have finished shooting and then apply this stuff while the weeds are still small/most sensitive. Speaking of shooting, we have had a REALLY late spring here in WNY. My 'spectabilis' yellow groove just started poking shoots out of the ground and none of my other phyllostachys species (atrovaginata, nigra henon, nuda, and rubromarginata) show any signs of shooting yet. All the other trees and plants are equally behind. We're just starting to get small leaves expanding out of buds here, and some trees aren't even that far along! The evening lows are still below 40 degrees some nights; I feel bad for the farmers as their growing season is starting to get impinged on....See MoreSpringtime Lawn Plan / Weed control, identification and advice
Comments (6)Thanks for providing a photo. The weed grass is the only thing I see from the picture and is what I call 'winter grass'. It is an annual, which means it grows from seed each year. It will die when the hot weather sets in, but only after it scatters it's seeds for next year. In the meantime it will have shaded out what St. Augustine grass there is and it will take a while to fill back in. Plus you will still have the dead clumps to deal with. Pulling it out clump by clump is what I did, but if you don't have the time and inclination to pull it out you can try keeping it mowed very close to keep it from going to seed, but that will not work 100% of the time because it seems the seeds will just grow horizonally below mower height and then they would still have to be pulled. It's a tenacious little bugger to get rid of. Little clumps will keep coming up and going to seed. You really have to keep after it for a couple of years. This coming fall you can spread some pre-emergent weed killer at the proper time, around the end of September I think, and this will help to keep the seeds from germinating, but you'll still have to pull a few clumps as soon as you see them. Now is the time to spread compost and Fertile Garden on Leslie Rd. is the recommended place to get it. They have several compost mixtures for grass. You can talk to them and see what is recommended for your conditions. If you have pretty good soil already you can probably get by with spreading an organic fertilizer such as fifty pounds of soy bean meal per 1000 sq. feet of lawn. Looks like you have the makings there for a beautiful expansive lawn. Hope this give you a few ideas on how to proceed. If you post your pictures and questions on the 'discussions' forum, which is more widely read, you will get some more answers. Scroll around on the link below for 'Turf Grass' for additional information. Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Answers ......See MoreUse of a lawn roller for weed control (pic)
Comments (2)Thank you Diann, I think you'll be surprised by how nice the roller "treatment" makes the mulch look. If you pile on 3" of mulch...(shredded hardwood is my favorite) and run over it with the roller a few times it naturally compacts the mulch and takes all the fluffiness out. I go through a lot of mulch and I know that many weeds will grow right thru that mulch...or on top. The smallest amount of light invites them. It may be premature for me to proclaim that compressing the mulch with the roller will keep the weeds from growing there, but so far I'm optimistic. I'll report back on this later next summer....See MoreDaniel Bodziak
4 years agoYardvaark
4 years agoDaniel Bodziak
4 years agoYardvaark
4 years agodchall_san_antonio
4 years agordaystrom
4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
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