Spring is
just around the corner and many of you will want to get out and work on the
yard. To your dismay, your lawns may fall short of perfection due to “bald
spots” or thin turf as a result of pet damage, weeds, sprinkler coverage,
fertilizer spill, or any other number of things. I would like to say “That’s easy. Just sprinkle a little seed out there” and
all will be well, but it is a bit more complicated than that.
First I
would determine what it was that caused the turf to thin out or disappear
altogether. If it is something that you
did wrong then I would be sure to not do it again and maybe hire a professional. If it thinned
out due to shade then you need to find another grass or plant material that can
tolerate the increased level of shade or open up the trees to allow more light
in. Grass does not grow here without
adequate water, so be certain your sprinklers cover well. I know this sounds really basic, but these
are the problems that are often ignored and we repeat the same thing year after
year and get the same mediocre results.
The next
step is to determine what kind of lawn you have and learn what makes it
happiest. Tall fescue, ryegrass, and
bluegrass lawns generally stay green year-round if they get fed, watered, and
mowed regularly. They thrive on 50-75
degree weather, tolerate some shade, don’t spread well or none at all if
damaged, and don’t compete well with warm season grasses like bermuda. Bermuda thrives on 70-100 degree weather, but
can spread by rhizomes and stolons to repair thin turf under good growing
conditions. Don’t try to reseed bermuda
in the winter, early spring, or fall because it will have little chance to
establish. Don’t seed tall fescue in the
middle of summer or winter either for similar reasons.
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| Pet Damage (dog spot) |
Finally
there is the matter dealing with the threat of crabgrass. It will out-compete all lawn types from March
through September. It starts to
germinate mid February and if there is a history of crabgrass in the lawn I
would not feel good about the chance of successfully seeding a lawn during this
time frame. For cool-season grasses like
tall fescue, I would delay seeding efforts until October 1. If I had bare spots or thin weedy spots I
would consider resodding those areas February through early May to allow
establishment prior to our hot summer months.
Bermuda can be sodded most any time, and it does have the ability to
fill in by itself under good conditions and without seed or stolons in many
cases.
If you are
not sure about what to do with your lawn we will give you a free evaluation
quickly. Call Weed Man at 559-266-1624
or visit us at fresno.weedmanusa.com to learn more or schedule a free evaluation.
