Lawn Tips (Merrifield: rent, townhouse, buy)

[indie05]

Just bought a new house and am feeling clueless about Lawncare. It is full of weeds too... Can't really afford a gardner... Any ideas?

[normie]

Merrifield Garden Center holds free seminars on Saturdays. Several are on lawn care. They have a lot of lawn care information online, and the help desk will also give you a ton of advice. You do not have to be a customer to get advice.
Merrifield Garden Center

[indie05]

I checked out their site...It's pretty cool.Thnx.. But they are located a wasys off from me I think. Still useful though!

[jmking]

You can start with a lawnmower and a weedwacker. And don't skimp, buy good tools to do the job correctly and quickly so not to kill yourself. For example, when I bought my house I had just sold my townhouse and only had a electric lawnmower to mow a half acre and boy was that a chore never to be repeated.

[Caladium]

Also, there are a lot of knowledgeable people who contribute to the Garden Forum right here on city-data. I believe there have even been some threads about lawns in the mid-atlantic area.

[statecollege]

Here's a good website with garden forums for future reference; go to the lawn link after you register.

At this point I would not do much except cut your lawn/weeds. Summer is not a good time to establish a new lawn. If you have more than 60 percent weeds, you will likely have to kill everything off starting in early Aug with a product like "Roundup." Generally, I don't like to use herbicides or insecticides for environmental reasons, but you are in a difficult situation and don't have much choice at this point. After the first application, if live weeds and grass remain, do a second application. By late Aug/early Sep, after everything is dead, rent a rototiller and turn over the soil in the entire yard. It would be good to amend the soil in the process with an organically rich product like compost or manure sold in bags or loam delivered in bulk to your driveway. Some garden lime pellets added is probably necessary to bring the ph to around 7.0, because soil in our area tends to be clayey and on the acid side. A soil test can determine exactly what you need to add if you want to be positive. Rake your amended soil as smooth as possible, removing stones and other debris in the process. You are now ready to seed. Buy a fine-to-medium blade fescue grass seed for appearance. Distribute the seed with a spreader and water lightly morning and evening until the seed germinates--usually about 2 weeks. Skip as appropriate when rain occurs. I cannot understate the importance of this watering routine; you have too much invested at this stage to risk failure. After germination, reduce watering to once a day for a couple weeks or so. After about a month and with the advent of cooler weather, your lawn will begin to materialize. When the blades are about 3 inches long, you can begin to mow. Fertilize with a slow release, organic fertilizer. I normally fertilize in the fall only--early and late. In late Mar your lawn will begin to come alive much thicker than you last left it. From here on maintain as follows:
- Do not over water. You want the roots to grow deep, not reach for water near the surface. These deep roots will get you through dry spells without wasting water (and money). In dry spells, your lawn needs only one soaking a week. Put an empty can on the lawn and when an inch of water is deposited from your sprinkler, you have enough.
- Normally do not cut below 2 1/2-3 inches high, Shorter grass height allows the hot summer sun to heat and dry the soil faster and it exposes weed seeds to the sun, thereby encouraging germination.
- Never cut more than 1/3 the length of the grass blades in a single cutting. I believe this is less of a shock to the lawn and preserves moisture in the blades.
- Overseed every early fall (and water to germination).
- To keep weeds away, I pluck any by hand by the roots if possible or spot spray with "Weed-be-Gone" or the like, which kills weeds but not grass. After a while you will find that you will have few weeds without mass application of herbicide.

I have followed this routine religiously for 2 decades and have a thick, dark green, weedless lawn that requires watering only in droughts. I have stopped using a power mower and have "greened" my lawn cutting with a hand mower, which is more therapeutic than the noisy, fume-spewing power mower. Admittedly, to do this your lawn has to be relatively small, fairly level, and free of debris. Remember: some of what you put on your lawn finds its way into our waterways and the gas you burn in a power mower adds to air pollution, so use sparingly if possible. Good luck.

[Nancy in Nokomis]

Great tips statecollege - I agree - most people cut their lawn too low and also the soil around here seems to need a lot of lyme.
I love cutting the lawn - great exercise!

[HEATHER72]

Pay attention to the weather. Don't spend hours running the sprinkler if there's a 80% chance of rain that night. Also best to cut the grass right before it rains too. I see too many neighbors cutting the grass when it's still wet.

It's taken us 2.5 years to get a perfect lawn, so it doesn't happen over night. I saw the biggest difference this year when we put down starter fertilizer in the spring... yes starter fertilizer. We had asked a neighbor what he did to make his lawn look so good and that's what he used. We just now put down turf builder with iron when the lawn was looking a little yellow, well yellow to my eye.

Another tip... if your lawn is well watered and it looks dry and you keep watering, it's most likely grubs.

We didn't put down a weed control fertilizer this year... we have no weeds any way. But last year I used Weed Be Gone to get rid of the little bit of dandelions, crab grass and clover in the lawn.

[normie]

The most important tip, IMO, is don't fertilize in August or if it's still really hot in September. Wait until it cools down a little. Lawns get really stressed out during heat waves, and at that point the fertilizer hurts them rather than helps them.

If you'd like, feel free to post questions throughout the summer like "is it ok to fertilize yet". I'm sure people will share what they're doing, and then all you have to do is follow along. You can also call Merrified Garden Center with basic questions like that, they are very good about helping people.

[normie]

Originally Posted by HEATHER72

It's taken us 2.5 years to get a perfect lawn, so it doesn't happen over night.

A very good point. It took us several years, as well. And don't worry too much if your lawn gets stressed during a heat wave. That's normal.