[Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
I have been using a lawn maintenance program prescribed by a local nursery for about eight years and have a healthy lush lawn with few weeds and hardly any crabgrass. It is a year-round program with specific actions from March through November. While I use a different products, the schedule in the PDF at http://www.behnkes.com/pdf/pdf_3.pdf is a good start. Note that there are no products from Preen or Scotts which are way too strong for most lawns and have limited residual value. While it may be easier to buy your supplies at Home Depot or Lowes, you will have a much better looking lawn with less work if you buy higher quality products.
Starting in the fall...
Every 30 days starting in mid-September for three months put down a high quality fertilizer. This will allow time for the nutrients to get down to the roots and will eliminate the guess work of timing this in the spring. You may have snow on the ground through April, so this will help to ensure that the grass starts to grow as soon as the days become warm enough.
Mid-November: put down a high quality broadleaf weed preventer (the best ones contain Portrait or Gallery). Make sure that you get it into all of your beds since lawn weeds have a tendency to migrate there.
March-April: Crabgrass preventer with Dimension and grub preventer with Merit. You need to wait until the ground gets warm to put down Dimension.
May through September: Keep the grass neatly mowed, treat as necessary for lawn disease like fungus and mold. DO NOT FERTILIZE, especially during July and August. Your lawn cannot take the stress and it will just burn out. If your lawn is not as green as you would like, try some 8-2-3 product with 10% iron (Minor Miracle is one brand).
Two last points. First, if you are going to reseed in the fall, do not put down the pre-emergent until spring. Second, if you can get some good compost, top dress your lawn before winter hits. We have several brands of composted sewage sludge (sounds gross but works GREAT) that I put down every 2-3 years. This will help manange your soil's pH.
This may sound like a lot of work, but once you get into it is is pretty easy and costs a lot less than my neighbor's lawn service.
, Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:20:16
, Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:39:40
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
