This time of year, keep the lawn watered and mowed correctly. One of the numbers that you should know is how many square feet of grass you have. It doesn’t have to be down to the inch but should be within 20 square feet. In a couple of weeks it will be time to apply pre-emergent herbicides and that number will save you time and money. Mainly money!
Archive for Lawns – Page 16
Now is the time to start thinking about fall pre emergent herbicides. Just to let you know, pre emergent herbicides can be applied any time. The reason most people apply it in the spring and fall is because that is the time it works best. These herbicides do one thing and one thing only, they kill seeds. The trick is all about timing. We need to apply pre emergent herbicides before the seed starts to germinate. The big question is when is the best time? The rule of thumb is from the first of September to the first of November. The kicker is that seeds don’t care what month it is. All they care about is the presence of soil, air and soil temperature, moisture and a specific amount of sunlight. When the conditions are met, the seed will sprout. You should not apply pre emergent herbicides in the garden when planting seeds.
Pre emergent herbicides are available in both all-natural and synthetic forms. The two products I prefer are Dimension for the grassy weeds and Gallery for the broadleaf weeds. The all-natural alternative is corn gluten meal. It is available in both powder and granulated. The powder activates faster but is a mess to apply. The granulated is slower to activate but is considerably less of a mess. And as always read and follow the label directions.
Since the first of May we’ve been talking a lot about chiggers because most of our customers are talking about chiggers. They (chiggers) were slow getting started this year but have made up for lost time. After talking with our customers some similarities have to come to light. First and foremost, the old wives tails are still alive and well. Applying nail polish to a chigger bite, taking a bath in Lysol and my favorite, chiggers can’t get through blue jeans are still widely thought of as truth. Apparently, Collin County has a lot of new chigger owners that have several things in common. The main thread all these customers have in common, is a similar type of lawn and lawn maintenance. Because of our water situation, many residents have installed native and low maintenance lawn grasses in the last year or two. The low fertilizer requirements of these grasses mean lower water use and less mowing. Low maintenance landscapes are a good thing for homeowners and a great thing for chiggers. Chiggers thrive in an undisturbed environment and love these type of grasses. I have done searches on the internet, trying to gather more information about why we’re seeing an increase in the population of chiggers in our area, but have found nothing to prove or disprove my observations. Is it due to our changing landscapes and dry conditions? Do you have any insight on this issue? Any help on this issue would be appreciated.
The hot and dry weather is here to stay for awhile. Keeping your lawn maintained can be challenging this time of year. Keep lawns watered as the law allows, mow it when required and treat for grub worms if needed. Something to keep an eye out for is a woody plant with a daisy type flower that goes by the name Roadside Aster. It should start showing up in a month or so. They tend to like unmaintained areas in a landscape. If you had Roadside Aster last year in your lawn or landscaping, you will almost certainly have them in the same spot this year, especially if the lawn is in the same shape. The easiest was to prevent this weed is back to basic lawn care, in other words, taking better care your lawn. These weeds will be the first to disappear when you start watering properly and feeding regularly. With the water restrictions in place, that can be a challenge. You can use a broad-leaf pre-emergent herbicide to prevent the seeds from germinating. Broad-leaf post-emergent herbicides such as 2,4-D or the high acidity (20%) vinegars will kill them when they are in the early stages of growth, but once they start to flower, they are very tough. Trying to pull them all by hand is a a daunting task and a back breaker! Using a shovel or a sharp hoe to sever the roots is a better option.
Nobody likes to watch insects eat away at all the hard work they put into their garden. But a balanced garden will always have it’s share of insects. As long as there are more beneficial insects to control the non-beneficial insects, the balance is good. If you find insect damage in your gardens or flowerbeds, the first step toward controlling the problem is to identify the offending pest. The course of action you take will depend on the type of insect you have. Folks will come into the store saying that something is eating their whatever and what do they need to spray? We have products to kill almost everything, but in a garden, it’s important to know what your dealing with before you start spraying everything. When you start treating your garden for a bug, you will kill everything, including both beneficial and non-beneficial insects. Once that balance is disturbed (in most cases) the treatment will need to be continued until harvest. A garden without natural predators means a world of insects gone wild. There’s nothing left to keep pest levels in check.
The first step before you go to war with a bug, is identification of the enemy. For those of us that don’t have a degree in entomology, the search for what is or is not a good bug can be exhausting. There are hundreds of books on this subject or you can click here for help identifying the pests. For natural insect control, try our beneficial nematodes. They cover up to a quarter acre per container and run about $25.
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