Tips for a Beautiful Lawn
by Michael J. McGroarty
A beautiful lawn does not come without
some effort. Depending upon what type of soil you have, the amount of
effort will vary. For instance when raising trees and shrubs, sandy or
a gravel base soil is great. Landscape plants like well drained
soiled. A lawn on the other hand is different. Lawn grasses grow
constantly throughout the growing season, and need an ample supply of
both nutrients and water. Regular watering and fertilization is
required to keep a lawn beautiful.
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If you’re lucky enough to have a lawn that
was originally planted in good rich topsoil, you won’t have to work
near as hard as somebody like me, who has a lawn that is planted in
sandy gravel. The soil at our house has little nutritional value, nor
does it have the ability to retain any amount of moisture. By mid May my
lawn starts drying out. It is very difficult for us to keep our lawn
looking nice.
Lawns are one area where a little clay in
the soil is a good thing. Or course standing water is not good, but
having soil that has the ability to retain some moisture is helpful. If
you happen to be installing a new lawn, this is something to consider.
Add lots of organic matter before you install your new lawn if you have
sand or gravel.
Because most lawn grasses grow so
vigorously, they need additional amounts of nutrients added in order to
stay looking nice. Just use one of the four step programs offered by the
fertilizer companies. Most of these programs also include weed control
along with the fertilizer. Here in the north we basically have two
concerns with weeds in our lawns.
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Crabgrass can be a problem, and I do
consider it a weed. In order to control crabgrass you must use a
pre-emergent herbicide that will prevent the crabgrass seeds from
germinating. In order for this herbicide to be effective you must apply
it early in the spring while the soil temperature is still below 45°
F.
Broadleaf weeds such as Dandelions are
another problem, although fairly easy to control with a broadleaf weed
control. Most broadleaf herbicides are mixed in with the fertilizers,
and must be applied when the grass and weeds are damp. The wet foilage
will cause the herbicide to stick to the weed, giving the herbicide time
to be absorbed by the weed. Once absorbed the herbicide translocates
through the weed plant and kills it completely.
These types of herbicides are
considered “selective” since they seem to know the difference
between a grass plant and a weed. That’s why they only kill the
broadleaf weeds and not the grass itself.
However, many people have different kinds
of thick bladed grass in their lawn such as quack grass, this stuff is
on the ugly side, and can really detract from a lawn. The problem is, it
is still in the grass family, and “selective” herbicides leave it
alone because it is a card carry member of the grass family. So what’s
a person to do?
In order to get rid of these thick bladed
grasses you must use a “non-selective” herbicide, and
“non-selective” herbicides don’t care who they kill. Well, at
least that’s true in the plant kingdom. When you use a
“non-selective” herbicide you must understand that everything that
you spray is going to die, but it really is the only effective way to
rid your lawn of thick bladed grasses. This type of treatment is
effective if you have isolated areas that contain wide bladed grasses.
You’ll have to spray all the grass in the area, then reseed with good
quality grass seed. My herbicide of choice for this type of spraying is
RoundUp®. It is believed that RoundUp® does not have any residual
effect, which means that it does not linger in the soil. That means that
the new grass seed or the young grass plants will not be affected by the
herbicide.
Being a non-selective herbicide you must
be careful when spraying, making sure that the spray does not drift onto
other plants or lawn areas that you do not want to kill. To keep the
spray from drifting adjust the nozzle so that the spray pattern is
narrow with larger spray droplets. You do not want a fine atomized spray
if there is danger of spray drift. It also helps to keep the pressure in
the sprayer as low as possible. Pump the sprayer a minimum number of
times, to keep the pressure low. You just want enough pressure to
deliver the spray. Buy a sprayer just for herbicides and mark it as
such. You never want to spray plants with a sprayer that has been used
for herbicides.
Once you have sprayed the area you want
to kill, wait three days before doing anything else. After a period of
three days the grasses that you sprayed may not look any different, but
if they have been properly sprayed, they will die. It takes three days
for the herbicide to translocate throughout the entire plant, then the
plants will die. So even though the weeds and grass plants look fine,
you can start digging and chopping and not worry about them growing
back.
If you happen to be installing a new
lawn, make sure you spray all the weeds and thick bladed grasses before
you start. Once you have the lawn installed, you sure don’t want to go
through all the trouble of killing areas of your lawn and reseeding. If
you make sure that all of these undesirables have been killed before you
start, you’ll be way ahead of the game.
When selecting grass seed, you should
always use a blend that is recommend for your area. Here in the north a
popular blend contains fine bladed perennial rye grass, fescue, and blue
grass. Keep in mind that it takes blue grass seeds 28 days to germinate,
while most perennial rye grasses germinate in 5 or 6 days, so you never
want to plant a lawn that is 100% Kentucky blue grass. Before the blue
grass seeds have a chance to germinate, every kind of weed imaginable
will already be actively growing in your lawn. With a blend, the faster
germinating grasses come up quick, and act as a nurse crop for the
slower germinating seeds. Having a blend also gives you some protection
in case some new pest comes along that attacks certain types of
grasses.
People often ask if they have to have
their lawn hydro-seeded in order for it to be nice. The answer is no.
Hydro-seed is not some kind of magic formula. It is nothing more than a
fancy way to apply grass seed. A hyrdo-seeder is just a machine that
mixes water, grass seed, fertilizer and mulch into a slurry that is
sprayed onto your lawn. The ingredients are exactly the same that you
would use if you seed by hand, with the exception of the mulch. And
contrary to popular belief, hydro mulch is no better than good old
fashioned straw. In my opinion straw is a much better mulch. The primary
advantage to hydro-seed is that the grass seed is thoroughly soaked
before it is applied, which assures germination. That’s a huge
advantage if your seeding along a freeway where it is not practical to
wet the seed after it has been applied. At your house, it really
doesn’t mean much. Hand seed works just fine.
With either method, you still have to
water just as much once the seeding is done. Many people are lead to
believe that hydro-seed doesn’t have to be watered as much as hand
seed. This is a huge misconception. If you fail to water hydro-seed once
it is applied, it will still germinate and little tiny grass plants will
appear. But just a few hours without water on a hot day, and those
little tiny grass plants will wither and die. This is a big problem
because once the seed has germinated, it is spent. All the water in the
world will not make that spent seed produce another grass plant. Hydro
seed has it’s benefits, but for the residential lawn it’s not all
that important.
Why do I claim that straw is a better
mulch than hydro-mulch? Think about how the hydro-mulch is applied. It
is mixed with the seed, fertilizer and water as a slurry, and sprayed on
the lawn. The mulch has not been applied over top of the seed which is
how mulch is supposed to be applied, it is all mixed together. Some of
the seeds are under the mulch, and some of the seeds are on top of the
mulch. Mulch can’t do much good when the seeds are resting up on top
of it. They might as well be sun bathing!
Now think about the process of hand
seeding. The seed is spread on the soil, then you should take a push
broom and drag it backwards over top of the seeded area. This applies a
very thin layer of soil over most of the seeds. Then you spread the
straw over top of the soil. The pieces of straw are scattered in all
directions, with many of them criss-crossing each other. Remember the
movie, “Honey I shrunk the Kids”? This is what it’s like to be a
grass seed under a mulch of straw. As the sun works it’s way across
the sky the grass seeds actually receive filtered sunlight. Enough sun
to warm the seeds so they grow, but also enough shade to protect the
tender young grass plants. As the grass plants grow, they also raise the
mulch with them to a degree, providing additional shade for the seeds
that haven’t germinated yet. The shade that straw mulch provides also
helps to retain the moisture around the seeds.
Another trait of hydro-seed is that as
the slurry dries, it becomes a blanket over the lawn. In the event of a
heavy rainfall, running water tends to get under this blanket and carry
it away, leaving big areas with no seed at all. With hand seeding, each
seed is independent, and they fall between the nicks and crannies of the
soil. In the event of heavy rain, the running water must be severe
enough to wash the soil away before the seeds can be moved. I’ve
installed hundreds of lawns using both techniques, for the difference in
cost I’ll take the hand seeded lawn any day.
If you have questions for Mike McGroarty
visit his website, http://www.freeplants.com
and post them on the message board where you can learn lots of gardening
tips and communicate with other gardeners. While at his website you can
learn how to start your own profitable backyard nursery. If you would
like a copy of Mike’s booklet, “The Secret of Growing Landscape
Plants from Scratch”, send $4.00 to: Garden Secrets, P.O. Box 338,
Perry, Ohio 44081
Copyright
2001 Michael J. McGroarty
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