Sunday, July 22, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Fall Aeration Do's and Dont's
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Thursday, July 19, 2012
Grass Types!
Types of Grasses found in America
Very few turf-type grasses currently growing in America are native to our land. Buffalograss is probably the most common native turfgrass that has been adapted to be grown as a lawn and then only in special circumstances.
Most turfgrasses were brought to this country and then adapted through selective breeding and cross-breeding to provide us with the grasses that we are most familiar with today.
There are a multitude of grass varieties, brands but there are basically only 2 grass types: Cool Season type grasses and Warm Season type grasses. Each grass type is suited primarily for one or the other seasons. There is also a narrow band that crosses the country called the Transitional Zone where some grass types for either the Cool Season or Warm Season can be grown, but that doesn't mean all of them will grow in this narrow zone.
Best Cool Season Grasses
On average, these climates have cold winters and warm to hot summers. Usually they also have regular intervals of rain throughout the summer months, but grasses will tolerate some extended periods of draught by going dormant. Typical cool season grass types include:
Typical Transition Zone Grasses
There is a “transition zone” between northern and southern turfgrass regions, which follows the lower elevations of Virginia and North Carolina west through West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas and includes parts of southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. In this transition zone, neither Warm Season nor Cool Season type grasses are uniformly successful. However, several of the Cool Season type grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass and tall fescue, do well across Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and Missouri. Tall fescue is the best choice in Tennessee, North Carolina, northern Georgia, northern Alabama and the Texas panhandle. In the lower elevations of these latter states Warm Season grasses do well too. Typical grass types suitable for the Transition Zone include:
Warm Season Type Grasses
In some ways, growing and maintaining a good-looking lawn in the South is more involved than for northern homeowners. Choosing a grass type is trickier; many turf grass varieties do much better when started as plugs or sod than from seed, as is usually done with Cool Season turf-type grasses. Good soil is critically important for growing a low maintenance lawn in this region. Most all Warm Season grass types will turn brown when cooler temperatures arrive. Some southern gardeners seed their existing lawns with ryegrass each fall to maintain green color during the winter months. This is called “winter overseeding.”
Maintaining ideal growing conditions for your particular grass type is critical, otherwise unwanted grass varieties will start popping up and will be extremely difficult to remove. For example, St. Augustine grass being invaded by Bermuda and vice versa.
Typical Warm Season grass types include:
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Planting a Outdoor Herb Garden.
Although, exact requirements vary by plant, here are some general guidelines about herb gardens.
Before you decide where to put your herb garden, figure out how much sunlight the plants you want to grow need. Most herbs enjoy sun.
Determine the size of your garden by deciding how many herbs you want to grow -- usually a dozen or so will give you great variety -- and how much space they need.
Actually map out your garden on paper. This will help you with your planning.
Choose a site that receives at least six hours of direct sunlight each day and is large enough to meet the needs of your herbs. (Or consider several different plots if necessary.
Locate your herb garden on soil that drains well or improve the drainage by adding organic matter (compost, peat moss, composted manures). You can also use raised beds.
Group herbs according to their requirements. Place herbs that require lots of sun with like herbs and group shade loving plants together.
Drainage is also important. Most herbs do best in well draining soil. Only a few -- such as mint, angelica and lovage -- love fairly moist soils.
Watch out for too much of a good thing with fertilizer. Overfertilizing your herbs will cause more growth, but will decrease the concentration ofessential oils and will make your bushy herbs prolific, but less flavorful.
To prepare your planting beds, dig down 10 to 12 inches and turn the soil over. You can do this with a spade or a garden fork. If you have it, add organic matter so that it gets down to the root level of the plants. Remove any large clumps and stones that you happen to find. Finish the preparation of your garden by leveling it with a rake.
Figure out the best way to propagate herbs. Some don't transplant well and should be directly seeded. Others do better when propagated as cuttings. Good luck and happy gardening.
Before you decide where to put your herb garden, figure out how much sunlight the plants you want to grow need. Most herbs enjoy sun.
Determine the size of your garden by deciding how many herbs you want to grow -- usually a dozen or so will give you great variety -- and how much space they need.
Actually map out your garden on paper. This will help you with your planning.
Choose a site that receives at least six hours of direct sunlight each day and is large enough to meet the needs of your herbs. (Or consider several different plots if necessary.
Locate your herb garden on soil that drains well or improve the drainage by adding organic matter (compost, peat moss, composted manures). You can also use raised beds.
Group herbs according to their requirements. Place herbs that require lots of sun with like herbs and group shade loving plants together.
Drainage is also important. Most herbs do best in well draining soil. Only a few -- such as mint, angelica and lovage -- love fairly moist soils.
Watch out for too much of a good thing with fertilizer. Overfertilizing your herbs will cause more growth, but will decrease the concentration ofessential oils and will make your bushy herbs prolific, but less flavorful.
To prepare your planting beds, dig down 10 to 12 inches and turn the soil over. You can do this with a spade or a garden fork. If you have it, add organic matter so that it gets down to the root level of the plants. Remove any large clumps and stones that you happen to find. Finish the preparation of your garden by leveling it with a rake.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
The Summer Lawn Care Tips!
The summer season brings about glorious days of warm weather and outdoor activities that keep us outside of hours upon hours at a time. For some, most of those hours during these months are used to maintaining a healthy landscape around their homes.
While some homeowners know exactly what their lawn needs on a daily basis, most will find that they have issues keeping their grass healthy and, in turn, will be looking at a very barren dry lawn by the time fall rolls around.
Below are some tips and procedures that can assist any homeowner in making their lawn healthy throughout the hot summer seasons.
• Mowing the Lawn
A healthy lawn does not necessarily mean that it has to be short. When cutting into your lawn, the blades need to be set as high as possible. The length of grass, preferably high, provides numerous amounts of benefits towards keeping the soil healthy and productive.
Tall blades of grass are able to obtain more light during peak sun hours and, in turn, will use this energy to produce and provide more nutrients to the roots and surrounding soil. Taller blades will also provide shade that allows for the soil surrounding each blade of grass to maintain moisture throughout the dry heat of most summer days.
• Grass Clippings
The waste produced in regards to your mowing should not be considered waste. The clippings that you produce during your mowing time should be redistributed across the lawn.
There are certain mowers that do not collect clippings in bags but rather just cut and allow for the shredded lawn to fall back into the grass and the soil. These cut blades of grass will be able to supply the soil with an added supply of nutrients as well as additional shade to further along the growth of a healthy lawn.
• Fertilization
Fertilization at both the beginning of the spring season as well as at the end of the fall season is vital to your grass maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Most organic fertilizers used in the spring allow for the soil to be kick started with an abundance of nutrients to inhibit growth at a more rapid pace. On the opposite side of the spectrum, most winterizing fertilizers allow for the soil to capture nutrients and store there to maintain a healthy landscape during the harsh snow and inclement weather of the winter.
• Seeding
Any patches of lawn that do not seem to grow properly needs to be seeded accordingly. Patience is the key in this situation because some homeowners tend to seed barren lawn patches more than once which in turn will cause the soil to be overworked.
Seeding once and maintaining a proper water schedule on those parts will show some improvements in the days and weeks to come.
• Weeding
Weeds are a nuisance to any lawn across the country. There has to be a conscious effort to walk your lawn on an every other day basis to find any instance of weeds and remove as soon as possible. This will allow you to catch newly formed weeds before they have a chance to grow roots and stake a claim in the soil of your lawn.
• Watering
Hydration is essential to the growth and nutrition of your lawn. The entire landscape surrounding your home needs to have at least an inch of water on a weekly basis. This inch of water can come from rain or can come from manual irrigation through your water hose.
The main keys to remember when it comes to manual hydration are to water as early as possible as well as not to over-saturate your lawn.
All watering must be done in the early morning hours so that the soil can absorb all moisture before any sun and or heat has a chance to dry it up. The watering must be measured, through the use of a coffee can as an example, to make sure that you do not over water the lawn and cause the soil to become infertile due to too much moisture.
• Clean Slate
The landscape of your home should remain clean at all times and seasons, especially in the fall. Leaves and debris will find its way to the ground from surrounding trees and will cause havoc to the soil if not cleaned. If there is no clean-up, the leaves will remain on the ground through the winter months and, in turn, cause an unsafe setup of nutrients and bugs to inhabit the soil and delay growth in the spring months.
Selecting the right Soil.
Planting a new lawn is like any good adventure: preparation and planning are
key. No matter which planting method you plan to use, you need to prepare the
area thoroughly to banish weeds and make sure soil won't immediately crust over
or compact into lumpy ruts.The most important step — and one that many gardeners skip — is testing the
pH of your soil. Do-it-yourself test kids are available from nurseries and
catalogs, or you can take advantage of the testing offered by your state's
designated agricultural university. "It might seem like a hassle, but testing
your soil will save you from pouring money into the ground".
Start by stripping the area of all weeds, including roots, even if that means taking off the top six inches. Then rototill to a depth of at least six inches to loosen compaction and improve drainage. It's extremely important to add loam and compost to enrich the soil; many experts suggest mixing equal parts of loam, sand and your original topsoil. You're best off in the long run if you incorporate a slight slope to facilitate drainage and prevent pooling. Finally, use a roller to pack down the soil, then grade the area with a metal rake. Be as thorough as you can — remember, once you've put your seed or sod down, you can't go back and regrade.
Start by stripping the area of all weeds, including roots, even if that means taking off the top six inches. Then rototill to a depth of at least six inches to loosen compaction and improve drainage. It's extremely important to add loam and compost to enrich the soil; many experts suggest mixing equal parts of loam, sand and your original topsoil. You're best off in the long run if you incorporate a slight slope to facilitate drainage and prevent pooling. Finally, use a roller to pack down the soil, then grade the area with a metal rake. Be as thorough as you can — remember, once you've put your seed or sod down, you can't go back and regrade.
Seed and Fertilizer
No question but rolling out a carpet of sod is the quickest way to a beautiful
lawn. But sod can get expensive, especially if your lawn is going to cover a
large area. The alternative is seeding the area yourself, either by hand or with
a method called hydroseeding, which has recently become quite popular. Long used
by farmers to sow large fields, hydroseeding solves one of the main problems of
hand seeding: even dispersal of seeds. The grass seed — a mix of varieties
blended for your climate and the type of use your lawn will get — is mixed into
a pulp made from virgin wood fibers, fertilizer and binding agents.
Give ur Lawn a Haircut!
When it comes to sharing lawn secrets, the first one on many garden experts'
lips is mowing height. "Most people mow their lawns way too short, which
stresses out the grass. The secret is do less, not more: "I'm a great believer in benign neglect. Raising the mower to the highest possible notch so you're mowing only the top
third of the grass when you cut. Taller grass promotes better root development, as well as shading the ground so it doesn't dry out as fast. An added benefit:
the taller grass blocks the sun that weed seeds require to germinate. And don't
believe for a moment that leaving grass taller is going to mean mowing more often. There's a big misunderstanding that a lot of people have that if they cut it shorter, they won't have to mow it as often. "But that's absolutely false; it renews itself so fast that it doesn't save you
any time."
Monday, July 16, 2012
Lawn Care Tip #4 Weed Control
An important component of a summer lawn care program is weed control. Quality weed control starts with an inspection of your turf in order to spot unwanted growth early on. You should use two basic types of lawn treatment for weed control in your landscape: pre-emergence weed control treatments and post-emergence treatments. Your lawn specialist will develop a program that addresses your personal preferences and integrates carefully targeted treatments for weeds such as crabgrass and other problems in your lawn.
Lawn Care Tip #3 Lawn Disease!
Be sure to survey your landscape to spot any dangers for early lawn disease and to identify the best types of weed control products or other lawn care treatments to ensure a healthy, green lawn throughout the summer.
The most common types of summer lawn diseases are dollar spot (bermuda), brown spot (fescue), and zoysia patch (zoysia). Patch disease is another common type of summer lawn disease, but the infection doesn’t become obvious until the plants go into stress, so preventive treatment as a part of your lawn care program is important.
Lawn Care Tip #2 Irrigate
Like mowing, watering your lawn may sound easy enough, but many homeowners are unsure about the best frequency and amount of watering is required as a part of their total summer lawn care program. The amount of water your lawn requires can vary depending on weather conditions, soil drainage and the amount of sun or shade in your landscape. A good rule of thumb is to ensure that your summer lawn receives approximately one inch of water per week. You may use a rain gauge or a container to determine how much water you need to supplement any rainfall.
Summer lawn care tip!
While this may sound simple enough, how and when you mow your lawn is a critical component of summer lawn maintenance.
- Mower Height
A mowing height between 2.5 to 3 inches is best for most of the season when moving fescue grasses, except during summer stresses when the lawn mowing height should be raised one-half inch to mow at 3 to 3.5 inches. Raising the mowing height provides more insulation from summer heat and reduces water loss from your soil. Bermude and zoysia should be cut weekly as low as possible without scalping it. - Grass Length
Be sure not to let your grass grow too long, because removing more than one-third of the total leaf blade height at one time could stress your lawn. Keeping your lawn mower blades sharp helps to protect the grass from lawn diseases. A dull mower blade shreds or tears the tips of the grass, leaving the grass vulnerable to lawn disease. - Grass Clippings
Many homeowners are confused about what to do with their grass clippings. Mulching and returning your clippings to the lawn returns nutrients and does not contribute to thatch. The only times it makes sense to collect clippings would be if you had a severe disease and you did not want to further contaminate the lawn, or if the leaf clippings are too long. - Mow Wet? Or Wait?
If you have the dilemma of deciding whether it’s better to cut the grass when it’s wet or let it get too tall, it’s better to cut it when it’s wet. Although this can create some clumping with your clippings, it’s better to get the grass cut, and remove the clippings rather than letting the grass get too tall. Do not mow a wet lawn if you have lawn disease in order to minimize the spread of many diseases including red thread, dollar spot, patch disease or other lawn fungus diseases.!
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