You can buy kits to measure pH at home, or you can have it tested professionally, either by a university extension office, a county agricultural office, or a local nursery or landscaper. But your lawn might need more or less. Pretend you’re a stranger, and look at your lawn. Try pinching a piece between your thumb and finger. How big is the lawn? On the downside, while the mole will die underground, eliminating the need for you to handle and dispose of it, you won't know whether you've killed it. However, if your curiosity runs rampant, or your lawn seems not to flourish no matter what you throw on it, or you have reason to suspect some sort of mineral deficiency, you can test the mineral content of your dirt. Combine Heterorhabditis nematodes (sold in paste-like form) with water and apply to the soil in the spring or fall. Clay soils, being composed of such minute mineral pieces, compacts more quickly than do sandy soils or soils containing plenty of organic material. It grows in moist soil and shade as well as full sun. Each 25 lb bag covers 1500 square feet. Texture focuses on the mineral content, ignoring the organic material. 3. The more you walk on the lawn, the faster the soil compacts. Sandy soils will feel gritty and fall apart even when they’re damp, and you cannot roll out a sausage or ribbon of them, or even squeeze them into a coherent lump in your fist. Fungus must be diagnosed and treated before grass begins to die—a challenge for most homeowners because it's hard to spot or identify. The dirt will settle out in easily visible bands with sand on the bottom, silt above that, and clay on top (see How’s Your Soil Texture?). Use a trowel if necessary. The first attributes (texture, structure and density) determine how easily and freely water and air move through the soil, while its pH and its organic and mineral contents reveal what nutrients the soil contains and how available they are to plants growing in it. However, your ideas about what you want will probably grow and change with time, so keep those initial lists handy for updating. However, chemical insecticides with imidacloprid aren't effective on mature grubs. He has been teaching lawn care classes since the 1970s and has helped thousands of homeowners improve their lawns. So, how deep is your thatch? When it comes to the lawn, less can be more (see Less Lawn More Life). Chronic lawn problems are often about the soil, not the actual grass. If children and pets are playing outside, you deserve to have lush grass and a chemical-free yard. Measure yours by setting empty containers around the lawn, running the sprinklers for 20 minutes, and measuring the depth of the water inside. Most use branching algorithms, so you make a basic choice between two possibilities, which takes you to another page, where you make another choice. What parts are in shade for most of the day? Add a 1/2 inch layer to lawns and gently rake over area. Rebuilding a damaged lawn takes about two years, so figure on investing a fair amount of energy on planning in the early days. Sometimes you have to destroy your lawn in order to save it. In Phoenix, that might mean Bermuda; in Tampa, St. Augustine; in Omaha, buffalo grass; in Albany, Kentucky bluegrass. Sink the prongs of an aerator or garden fork into the soil about 5cm … Density: compaction. Low numbers indicate high acidity; high numbers indicate high alkalinity. Your local cooperative extension or nursery can tell you the best time. Those small beetle larvae live in the soil and feed on lawn roots. Mowing the lawn. If you have a poor lawn, nothing else will really matter. Root Depth. It's important to clear leaves off the grass frequently. Early morning is best. Striking the balance of care needed for a successful lawn takes a bit of research and some practice. Water Daily An oscillating sprinkler works best for getting your lawn started. How much time do you want to spend on your lawn? Also known as creeping Charlie, creeping Jenny, and gill-over-the-ground, ground ivy spreads by seed and by the vining stems that root at each node. Fertilize? Nitrogen in the urine kills the grass in the center, where its concentration is highest, while darkening the grass at the edges. Too Much Shade . Think outside it. What do you want your lawn and garden to look like? What's more, that patch of dead grass is likelier to have been caused by your neighbor's dog than by fungus. Is your main problem the occasional dandelion? If you can’t see them and they’re not going to take over, do they bother you? Both will help minimize fertilizer in the runoff. (Check grass plug! If your poor drainage area is a relatively small one and not too severe, you can lighten the soil by working in lots of organic matter. Tougher, more resilient grasses and better ways to fend off crabgrass and other weeds and pests should make it easier than ever to get a lush, healthy lawn. Reduces compaction and thatch to let air, water and fertilizer down to the roots. A perennial, it spreads as an expanding clump as well as by broken shoots or roots and seeds. An all-natural organic weed and feed for use on lawns. With a sharp, narrow trowel, dig out a “core sample” from your lawn — a grass plug about six inches deep — and look at the root depth. They’ll have moved out to more appealing quarters, deeper down or under a tree. Problem: Persistently thin, patchy grass Solution: Get a soil test. Killing the weeds and surrounding lawn with either glyphosate or glufosinate-ammonium also works, but you'll have to reseed or resod. Not doing everything they were supposed to do was the biggest complaint (12 percent), followed by not showing up when promised (9 percent), and damaging the lawn or other parts of the property and not cleaning up (7 percent for each of those issues). How often do you mow? Check for grubs by cutting into the lawn near the edge of a brown area and lifting the sod. It may start choking out the grass, and it may prevent light rain or watering from reaching the soil where it’s needed. If it’s clover, consider that until the 1950s most grass-seed mixes included clover, which has pretty flowers, stays green all summer, and adds nitrogen to the soil, where grass can use it (see Establishing Clover in Lawns). Adding a few inches of soil to a lawn that hasn’t been seeded is expensive but not impossible. Watering once a week—long enough to apply 1 … Sprinklers that apply ¼-inch of water every 20 minutes must run for 80 minutes to apply 1 inch. Structure, which describes how soil particles (or peds) group or amalgamate, is a critical aspect of soil health, but tests for it generally carry Do Not Try This At Home labels, if only because they’re too complex. “Grass-cycle” your grass clippings. Foot traffic and lawn machinery can compact the soil under your lawn, creating a difficult environment for grass... Reduce thatch Roughly a third of readers reported some problems with their lawn services. Compaction is so common that some parts of your yard probably have compacted earth unless you aerate and add organic matter regularly. Thatch is a … Grass prefers a slightly acidic soil, so a high pH would go a long way towards explaining an unhappy lawn. That means you should probably cut your grass every 5 to 10 days on average, as 76 percent of you do. This powerful, quick-release concentrate builds healthy soil and thick green turf! Turn the sprinklers off at the point of runoff, wait a half-hour for the water to soak in, and then run the sprinklers again. The best fix for getting a healthy lawn is making sure it has a good diet. Watering an overseeded lawn is the exception to the once a week rule. Trapping a mole is the only way to be sure you're rid of it. See Grass Alternatives for more on these. 1. Remember all those movies in which the farmer squats down, picks up a handful of earth, and feels it? Start your renovation by identifying problem areas of your lawn and removing dead or declining patches of turf. Pull out any plants that become established in or near your lawn. Start by mapping your current yard. Aerate? And follow the directions precisely. Teufel’s Compost provides a microbially active source of organic matter, humus and other important soil builders required by turf to thrive. How much time do you spend caring for your lawn and how do you spend it? Drench the soil with a hose-on clay breaker (if your soil is sodic clay). After all, why renovate lawn in areas where in fact you’d rather be growing something else? Mix with … You also need to be on the lookout for other widespread nuisances, like those listed here. Our Landscaping Blog provides the ideas, information and practical experience you need to get the job done right. There’s a more detailed discussion of soil itself in the page on Know Your Lawn; you can go there to get an idea of what precisely humus is, what pH stands for, and so on. To germinate clover seed needs soil temperatures to be at least 7-8 ° C and must be kept moist. Moss prefers acidic soil but will grow in alkaline soil if shade and moisture are favorable. Complete instructions are included, plus a chart of pH and NPK levels on over 100 plants. Mowing high produces stronger, healthier grass with deeper roots and fewer weeds and pest problems. More than 6,000 online subscribers nationwide told us about how they mow, water, and fertilize, and how happy they are with their lawn's looks. Add a 1/2 inch layer to lawns and gently rake over area. What’s your weed tolerance? The latter are "often problematic, "because people put them on and forget about them," says Ali Harivandi, Ph.D., environmental horticulturist at the. Don’t be your own worst enemy here, just be honest. If trees, shrubs, or structures prevent you from regrading the area, use underground drainage pipes or create a sump drain—essentially a hole in the ground with a grate over it. How much water your lawn needs depends on the grass, the soil and the amount of rainfall your lawn gets. In most cases, organic lawn-care practices including the use of compost and other soil amendments as needed should ensure that soil maintains an adequate supply of these. First — and you probably don’t want to hear this — cultivate patience. When it comes to growing and maintaining a thriving landscape, homeowners have a lot of options. Add layers of loose matter to the surface. If you dug that hole, you probably noticed when the going got tough and you started hitting stones or cement-like clay. Only 32 percent of you fertilized as often as you should. The action of removing lawn clippings reduces the … While herbicides with triclopyr or 2,4-D are effective solutions, the EPA considers 2,4-D a possible human carcinogen. The Rapitest Soil Test Kit contains 40 tests (10 each for pH, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) with easy to use tablets. Fertilize northern lawns once in the spring and then two or three more times in the fall, one month apart, with the final application just before the final mowing of the year. Lawns that have not been recently aerated are likely to be compacted, as are those in recently built subdivisions where building and landscaping were done by machine. Instead, look for typical causes such as too much water, improper mowing, and fertilizing at the wrong time of year. This perennial weed tends to thrive in thin lawns with too little fertilizer. Check with your cooperative extension service for the ideal height for your type. Aerating “fluffs up” the soil that’s already there. No matter where you live, a soil test is the best way to know what your lawn needs. You don’t need to know these with great precision (at least not all of them), but you need a ballpark estimate. Is it one of your pet projects, or is it the step-sister to the garden, which you love? While selective herbicides with a combination of 2,4-D, MCPP, and dicamba are effective chemical alternatives, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) considers 2,4-D and MCPP possible human carcinogens. Experts agree: Fungicides are a waste of time and money. Lawn. 2. Instead, apply corn gluten meal, a natural option, in the early spring. How to fix the top 10 lawn problems will provide you with cures for some ailments that might be afflicting your yard, like crabgrass, dandelions, moss, and grubs. If instead of seeing dirt, you see a matted layer of roots and dead stuff, you’re looking at thatch. With the right lawn care products​ ​going organic is easy! Vigorous, adaptable, and fast-growing, crabgrass thrives best in lawns that are underfertilized and mowed too low. It’s impossible to have a really healthy lawn unless you have enough topsoil, that rich top layer that’s the same to soil as cream is to milk. Measure. You’ll only need to water for about 20 … But staying off wet lawns could help delay the inevitable. While pruning most shade trees every three to five years is usually a good idea, pruning too often or too much can damage the tree. Put the collection bag on your mower and then mow the lawn, cutting the grass to just 1½ inches long. Answers to these questions will help you determine your lawn needs. There are three steps to this process: finding out what you’ve got, figuring out what you want, and then planning how to get from the one to the other. Do the weeds grow in dense patches, or are they interspersed in the grass? Readers overwhelmingly chose local companies over regional and national ones, 65 vs. 19 percent. Several options require less water and no mowing — always a plus. Prevents crabgrass, dandelions and many other common weeds. Soil that crumbles at this stage probably has adequate if not stellar structure, but if you keep trying to crumble it and it keeps holding together, it probably has high clay content and poor structure. Avoid spreading fertilizer before a heavy rain, and sweep any fertilizer that ends up on driveways and walkways back into the lawn. Amending the soil adds bulk as well, but it also improves the soil’s structure so that it’s better able to maintain its new, more porous state. Test it yourself using an inexpensive kit or meter, or bring soil samples to a nursery, cooperative extension service, or lab. For moss in low-lying or moist areas, water only when you see signs of too little moisture (when footprints in the grass remain and don't spring back, for instance). Wet, it feels slick or even slippery. Aerating the grass helps your soil to breathe, which improves nutrient absorption. A healthy colony of moss in your lawn means too much shade; acidic, compacted, or wet soil; or too little fertilizer. Small brown spots surrounded by dark green grass is a telltale sign of dog urine. Fill the jar with water, shake vigorously, and leave it overnight. The first two steps can be done in either order, as it really doesn’t matter whether you explore your imagination or your yard first; that’s a matter of temperament, and I’m not ready to take a stand on which is superior. If you find at least five, you’re doing okay. Soil pH, measured on a scale from 0 to 14, is a measure of soil acidity, with 7 being neutral. What's more, both chemicals require multiple applications and must be applied during periods of active growth. For poor drainage, be sure the area is properly graded. Rain runs off or puddles rather than soaking into lawn. Instead of bagging leaves, use your mower to mulch them or add leaves to your compost pile. A better way to do it and improve your lawn is to cut the grass and leave the clippings on the surface of the lawn… Or wait until grass-planting time—usually in the fall—and sow fresh seed after clearing away the dead grass and loosening the soil. Water and fertilize your … Do you rake up the grass after mowing? If you’ve got twenty-five worms or more, you soil qualifies as “rich.” Congratulations! Also keep trees and shrubs properly pruned. Different tactics are successful with these different situations. About 4 of every 10 people in our survey water at the wrong time, and almost half are probably watering too often. With the more uniform watering a watering system can provide, your lawn will grow much better. Roots should extend through all six inches of the core. If it’s where you set your lawn chair to read, almost anything will do. Hand pulling is effective when done consistently for a season or two. But you can test your soil's pH yourself using an inexpensive kit or meter. If water is running off the lawn, the sprinklers are applying water faster than the soil can absorb it. If you do start by assessing, don’t let what’s actually there keep you from seeing what could be. What kind or kinds of grass have you got? The EPA considers the latter two as possible human carcinogens, however. Pros often do it yearly, but every few years is probably fine unless your lawn looks bad. Shallow roots cannot reach as many nutrients as can deep ones and cannot reach water for as long after a rainfall. If more than half is clay, you’ve got a very clayey soil. (Dig to check. Watering once a week—long enough to apply 1 inch of water over the lawn—is the old rule of thumb. Once soil is compacted, water and fertilizer can't reach the lawn's roots, weakening them and allowing weeds to grow. As the third-generation owner of a lawn and garden center, he has been in the lawn care business “forever.” Plus: Is lawn … A barrier of chicken wire that extends 1 foot deep around your yard might help keep them out. Then we spoke with lawn-care experts to learn which practices work best and why. What option you choose will depend on what weeds you’ve got, how much of a hurry you’re in, and a number of other factors. One note of caution: don’t grab a pinch of earth from the yard, throw it in a plastic bag and mail it off with a note asking for a soil analysis. Those spots are most likely to show up during hot and dry weather, when lawns are under greater stress. Obviously, first among these is heavy use, which is why paths are almost always compacted. While glyphosate and glufosinate-ammonium are effective chemical remedies, the EPA considers glyphosate moderately toxic. Easy to use, just place your foot in the stirrup and step down firmly; pull straight up. Summer-long irrigation is a fact of life in the West. Derived from corn gluten meal, bone meal and potassium sulfate, Concern® Weed Prevention Plus (8-2-4) provides a fast green-up and will not burn. 5… One of the best lawn-maintenance savers is less frequent but deeper watering. You'll need to water in cycles. Structure: does it crumble? How does it look, over all? A motion-activated sprinkler system might help discourage droppings, but it won't distinguish between dogs, deliverymen, and welcome guests. Odds are, you'll see those milky-white, worm-like creatures with brown heads and three pairs of legs curled into a C shape. A freshly seeded lawn will need a light watering twice a day. Top-dressing addresses some common lawn problems, … Generally, you'll get more accurate test results and better recommendations from a professional lab. Not only will it be more functional, it may look better, too. Products with dithiopyr, prodiamine, or pendimethalin are typical chemical alternatives. Experts generally agree that if you’ve got over 50% weeds, fighting them is fighting a losing battle. The Smart Yard: 60-Minute Lawn Care (by Jeff Ball and Liz Ball) devotes a chapter to assessment. Thirteen fairly common minerals lead a double life as plant nutrients. Step 2. Keep this up for four days, then switch to a deep watering once a day for the next five days. Type(s). Texture: sand, clay, silt. Silt will feel powdery when dry, and will hold together somewhat if you squeeze a lump or roll it out. For a quicker fix, cut out the dead spot and fill it in with plugs cut from a strip of sod. If they don’t, your grass is not as healthy as it could be. Remember, climate determines not only the type of grass that grows best in your yard but also problems that might beset your lawn. Sometimes it helps to start with the purely imaginary, before you’re brought back to earth by reality. A SAFE alternative to RoundUp® that's trusted by cities and municipalities. "By the time most fungus disease is obvious, the conditions that caused it have passed. Packed earth impedes the movement of air, water, and roots themselves, and the grass suffers. Sort through that soil, looking for earthworms. Check our Web site at www.GreenerChoices.org/lawn-care for more advice. Leaves block sunlight. However, deeper spiking is better, especially with a tool designed to leave holes 10-15cm (4 … Seriously, subsoil performs important functions in the structure of soil, but it’s not what you want near the top. It turns out the grass is not always greener next door: More than 40 percent of you had complaints—neighbors who don't mow their lawns, let their leaves pile up, or let trash, leaves, or other debris blow onto your property. How perfect does the grass have to be to keep you happy? Also, figure out how much sun different sections of your yard gets. Lawn Care Guru. If you can squash but not break it, it has very poor structure. Contains NO sewage sludge or bio-solids. Enlist the help of a friend … Dallisgrass, nimblewill, quackgrass, and tall fescue develop into unsightly patches and clumps. Here are several indicators of compacted soil: A number of things can cause or contribute to soil compaction. Here's PM's brutal but effective strategy: Kill it off, then start fresh. "At least 40 percent of the problems people have with their lawns relate to the type of irrigation they have," says Ali Harivandi, Ph.D., environmental horticulturist at the. You can kill moss with a spray, but unless you change the conditions that encourage it, back it will come. The percentage of nitrogen in a fertilizer is indicated by the first number on the bag, so with a 20-10-10 fertilizer (20 percent nitrogen), you should apply 5 pounds of fertilizer per 1,000 square feet. Don't rely on rain or portable or hose-end sprinklers. Just sticking a shovel into the ground can give you a good idea of how much you have, because there’s usually a clearly visible line dividing topsoil, which is dark, from the lighter subsoil. Maintain a healthy and vigorous lawn so that ground ivy has less chance of gaining a foothold. Loam, at 20% clay, 40% silt, and 40% sand, is generally considered ideal for gardening. Wet leaves are heavy and promote disease. 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