First Fall Lawn Care

September 13, 2010

Aereated, seeded, fertilized. The summer was so hot and so dry that the lawn has seen little attention except for occasional mowing. Big Mistake, but I just can't work in the extreme heat any more. Now we have water restrictions so seeding etc. may be a mistake too.

I used one bag of seed which they say is enough to seed 5000 sq feet so it should be enough to over seed my 10K. I used 3 5K sq. ft. bags of fertilizer. We'll see how it turns out and will post some pics if the seed germinates and looks good. Otherwise,..........................

2010 Spring Activities

Spring has sprung.. I can hardly believe the work to be done. Limbs and sticks everywhere, ruts and missing grass all along the street thanks to the snow plows and neighbors that don't know how to keep their cars on the street, etc.

The solutions are fairly obvious. I've gotten all the limbs, sticks and leaves up. Also, filled in all the stuff along the street. In an effort to try to avoid the same problems another year, I've installed posts with reflectors along the street. Fertilizer and Pre emergents are down. Hopefully this will lead to lots of grass to mow. For the record, here are photo's of the street and the products that have been put down. Also, there's a photo of the new bushes by the front of the shed. They are Japanese Holly compacta.

D is for December

Finally, the vast majority of the leaves are up. None too soon I might add because it's time to move on toward warmer weather. The last of the fall yard work was completed yesterday with

the application of the December fertilizer.

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No other lawn work is planned until we return home in the spring when I'll apply some spring green up fertilizer and a pre-emergent for the weeds.

O is for October

2009 has produced another bumper crop of acorns. I've gotten up the worst of them, mowed and put down the October fall fertilizer using speedygreen 2000 set on 4+. Last months seed and aereation has produced lots of new grass and the yard is looking good.

First Fall Activity

Fall is here. Fall lawn care started with aeration. I now know why I once said that I'll never aerate again. These machines are killers and unles some extraordinary results are the outcome, never again. Following aeration, I applied starter fertilizer and seed. This year I applied seed at a rate that's about double that which I've used for over seeding in the past.

Seed was applied with a speedygreen 2000 setting on 4 1/2. Fertilizer seeting was 8. We'll post some results later.

Summer Update

As usual, late summer is a time when the weeds flourish. My lawn is no exception. Things could be better with more attention but health matters have gotten in the way. Maybe next year.

The July feeding was July 29, 2009

Next: Areate and plant seed in early September

Early Summer

Today I spread Scotts summerguard turf builder fertilizer. The lawn is holding up pretty well but summer is here and the heat is taking it's toll. Most of the problems are weeds. I'll work on this next week with weed be gone.

I bought this Scotts product last year at Sams on a clearance deal for about $15. The price for this bag this year is about $55. This is worth remembering.

Better late than never.

I finally got around to putting down some pre emergant weed control. This probably should have been done at least two or three weeks ago. Ideally, when soil temperaturs get to about 50 degrees. The idea is that this is about the temperature when weed seeds start to germinate. I read somewhere that many weed seeds can last as long as 100 years befor germinating. They just lay around waiting for the ideal set of circumstance. This time I used a Lesco product pictured here.

Weeds

Applied about 4 gallons of weed B gone mostly in the front front yard along the ditch. Picture below shows clover etc prior to treatment. More later after it's had a chance to work

Spring Lawn care

It always amazes me how much lawn debris accumulates over the winter. We left on our winter trip to warmer places on January 2 and the lawn was in good shape. Returned home March 20 to find a grown up yard full of twigs and small branches. In total, it all filled up one of those huge cans on wheels. Any way, I got it done. Then, I fertilized with a 20-3-4 fertilizer

on 04-14-09 using two 5k sq ft bags. Here we are a couple of weeks later and the lawn is almost lush. I need to work a bit on weed killing and prevention but all in all things look pretty good.

The Dogwoods are beautiful this year.

This the D part of SOD

The final lawn clean up of the year was completed today and and the final maintenance of the fall was also completed. The fertilizer wasn't what I would like to have used but it's all that was available. There's something to be learned here. In the future, buy supplies earlier in the fall.


I used two 5000 sq ft bags with the spreader set on 4.

Mid December

Here we are, it's the middle of December, most of the leaves have fallen and I've cleaned up the yard. The problem is that we have neighbors who don't maintain their property. The result is that when the wind blows, the leaves move from the neighbors yards to my yard. So, since when is life fair?

My solution: automation. With the new mower and the Cyclone rake I manage to turn an almost impossible job into one that's doable.


The cyclone rake is a marvel. Not only does it vacuum the lawn it grinds the leaves reducing the volume by about 80%. My amortized cost is now down to aboout $150 per year. I can accompolish in one hour what would otherwise take at least 8 hours. In a nutshell, if you have leaves but don't have a Cyclone Rake, you need one.

We're comming down to the finish line for this year. There may be one more cleanup to get rid of the neighbors leaves and of course there's still one more fertilization doe the D part of sod.

S O D....... This is the O entry

Remember what the new area of the lawn looked like in early September? If not look at the photo's below. The new grass is filling in pretty well following two seedings and of course water and fertilizer. I applied lime a couple of days ago to the area that was previously "au natural" among the trees and this morning I applied the October fall feeding which also includes weed control.
My hope is that the weed control part of the equation will do it's job and the fertilizer will help the grass to establish a good root system for the hot weather that's sure to come next summer.

I've also been working on the lawn at the end of our driveway. Relocated a sprinkler head, repaired the hose connection to the irrigation meter, planted some landscaping bushes and mulched. I think the end result is a good improvement.

There are still some bare spots in yard so if a little seed is good, some more must be better. I planted most of this bag today using the trusty Scotts speedee green spreader. Some of it I planted by hand in the bare spots.



The sum of this planting and the last is probably the most seed I've ever planted in a single season. I'll add some photo's after it germinates.

Fall Grass Seed and Fertilizer

Today was a busy day of hard work. Mowed the lawn real short, lightly tilled bare spots and a few areas that had weeds, sewed grass seed and put down fertilizer. Here are photo's of packaging:

Speedy Green setting were 6.5 for the seed and 3.5 for the fertilizer. Using these settings, this size bag just barely covers the lawn.

Yard expansion

I decided that the yard would be simpler to care for if I expanded the grass area behind the house so that I can mow all the way around the back yard. Presently, the back yard is divided by a deck which effectively divide the lawn into two sections. I also decided that gardening is a lost cause in this area because of the deer so I removed the landscape timbers that surrounded my small vegetable gardens, removed some of the dirt, leveled out the remainder, and then seeded. It'll be interesting to see how the grass seed germinates. I hoe it does so I won't have another battle to fight trying to get the lawn in shape. I've inserted a couple of B4 pictures.

I'll add some afters in a few weeks. Wonder if all this dirt will be green by then? Note that concrete in the corner of the first picture. It's the beginning of a foundation for the garden shed that I haven't built yet. More on that later when some progress is made.

Late Summer Fertilizer

Applied Scotts Turf Builder (15k Bag) for late summer fertilization. Revised Extension Service recommendations call for fertilization in August, September, October and December. This is the first application for the fall season.

Lawn Care Equipment

I mentioned on Supreme Central that Daughter Lara and here family are relocating from Richmond to Houston, TX. We hate to see them move but if they must, then I'm grateful for some much improved lawn care equipment which they indicate is too much trouble to move and not needed for the new house. Included are a great Husqvarna lawn tractor with a 46" cut, a blower which should make fall leaf removal a simpler task and a small trailer which I'm sure will be put to good use. I'm including pictures to show off these beauties! I'm so pleased to be using such nice equipment and I'm hopeful

that it'll lead to a better lawn. The trailer is a real nice heavy duty unit that's big enough to transport the mower if we need to or a more likely scenario, transport the antique motor cycle when it needs repairs that I'm unable to do.

Late Spring Weed and Feed

After mowing yesterday, I got up early today to catch the grass while its still wet from dew and irrigation. I applied Lesco Weed and Feed 18-2-26. There aren't that many weeds but if we can eliminate the few that we have and at the same time help the grass thicken and grow a stronger root system, the lawn will be better prepared for the hot and very likely dry summer to come.

I think we now have one of the best if not the best lawn in the neighborhood. Not a bad recovery from last years drought!

Spring Fertilizer and pre-emergent

The more I look at the lawn, the better I like the results. Today, I mowed again just to freshen things up and put down a Lesco product that's a combination pre-emergent and fertilizer. I also started up the irrigation system and set it to run early AM every other day. This should be enough given that we've had a pretty wet winter so far.