Frankfort Lawn Care

Lawn Care Frankfort

The weather this spring has been another great one for lawns in our Midwest area. The cool temperatures and timely rainfall during the months of April and May probably delayed the family pool opening, but your lawn has never looked better. Cool Season Grasses such as your bluegrass lawns have thrived in these conditions. As your lawn greens up, damaged areas begin to stand out. These areas may be old disease scars, (those brown circles with the green center that may form during the summer), or old drought damage. If the damaged area is small, sometimes just raking that spot will be enough for recovery. Raking damaged areas remove old thatch and allows air and water movement that aids recovery. Larger damaged areas will need over seeding and top dressing with top soil. Good soil and seed contact is needed for seed germination. Don’t throw the seed on top of hard soil. You have to work the seed into the soil to a depth of ½ inch. Keeping the area moist until the seed sprouts are equally important. Remember, a bluegrass blend of seed for open, sunny areas, and a mixture of blue, rye, and fine fescue for shady areas.

Every spring we get a few calls from customers wondering if we are applying our spring application too late. Please understand that there is a generous time frame to get our fertilizer and crabgrass control applied to your lawn. We start applying applications in March when the weather allows us to do so. This year, because of the late snow melt, our first applications were not applied until almost April! Spring applications always continue into the month of May. This gives us and other lawn care companies a window period to get our applications down before crabgrass germination. Not everyone will be done at the same. If you see other companies in your area before we get there, that doesn’t mean we are late. It means that all lawn care companies do not go into the same area at the same time. Sometimes we do. What you can be sure of is that Landscape Associates will apply, your application in a proper, professional, and timely fashion.

Grub Worms
Now is the time to be thinking about having a Grub Preventive application applied to your lawn. Grubs are insects that feed on the roots of your lawn. The Grub Preventive application will apply a barrier of insecticide that will last until the time that the grubs are actively feeding on the roots of your lawn. Approximately late August – Early September. If you would like to add this application to your program, please call our office.

Mowing
It is all right to mow your lawn after today’s application if you do not have a lot of weeds. If there are a lot of weeds in the lawn wait 24 hours before mowing. By now the lawn should be at 2 1/2” – 3” of cutting height of the summer. To check the cutting height, measure from the ground to the bottom edge of the mower on the side. During the warmer periods, it is advisable to cut later in the day to reduce the loss of water within the plant. If your lawn is dry, watering it a day or two before cutting will help reduce stress. Never cut midday. This can cause undue stress to the lawn and enhance possible disease problems or force the lawn to turn brown. If you mow your lawn when it is in stress or dried out, you can actually burn the lawn. We have seen several cases where you can see the brown lines from the wheels of the mower. If possible cut in different directions so you do not groove tracks from the mower and this will help the grass stand up. A reminder about mulching grass clippings. By keeping up good mowing habits, there is no need to bag clippings as it does feed nutrients back into the lawn. Do not be concerned with thatch build up from mulching, approximately 98% of the clippings decompose. Don’t forget to check your mower blade for sharpness.

Watering
There has always been a difference of opinion as to what time of day to water. The best time is early morning before 11:00 a.m. If you do not have the ability to do it then, the next best time is early evening. Now the next question is how much to put down and how often. Ideally, try to water 1 -1 1/2 hours per area once every 4-6 days. Try not to water the whole lawn in a day, unless you have an underground sprinkler system. Moving hoses are time consuming and you don’t want to be a slave to your lawn. Try watering half the lawn one day, then the rest a day or two later.

Disease Activities
Proper watering and mowing are major factors on whether disease activity will start. There are going to be problems occasionally during the summer due to the high temperatures and humidity. If any activity does start, call us and we will advise on what to do.

Office Hours
Our office hours are Monday – Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Please remember that our answering machine is on 24 hours, 7 days a week, so do not hang up. If we are not in, leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Your friends at Landscape Associates