30 Days to a Better Lawn in 2014

Step outside and take a good look at your lawn. Do you see bare spots or patches of undesirable looking grasses and weeds? Maybe your kids’ activities, your dog’s constant pacing in the same path day after day, or your parking the car on the front lawn has caused the lawn to thin out due to wear and compaction. It’s true that the 19 straight days of temperatures exceeding 100 degrees certainly did not help our cool-season lawns either. The lawns are beat and just looking for some tender care.

Cooler temperatures are just around the corner. What is left of the lawn will perk up and appreciate the cool nights and shorter, milder days. Crabgrass will stop germinating by mid to late September. Thirty days from now life will be great!

What needs to be done in the next 30 days to have a better lawn for next year? Get ready because this is where you come into the mix. Check for unwanted grasses. Patches of Bermuda or dallisgrass are hard to kill and should be sprayed 2-3 times in the starting early September. Dense sections of crabgrass or bentgrass are fairly easy to kill and could wait until the middle of September to spray. If you think the lawn looks bad now just wait to see what it looks like in a few weeks!

Here’s the good news. Oct 1-10 is a great time to reseed all those problem areas. I would strongly recommend scalping down the areas to be reseeded prior to seeding followed by a fall lawn aeration to loosen the soil and encourage better root development. Areas could then be raked or dethatched mechanically to make a proper seed bed. Select a quality grass to match your existing lawn and follow suggested seeding directions. Generally tall fescue and ryegrass go down around 7-10 lbs/1000 sq ft. Next apply a ¼ inch of clean humus or compost to cover the seed to keep in the warmth and moisture to insure good germination. Apply a starter fertilizer like 10-20-10 at 10 lbs/1000. Water 2-3 times a day lightly to keep the mulch and seed moist for the first 7-14 days.

Here is what you don’t want to do. 1). Nothing. Your lawn will be no better next year and likely worse. 2). Sprinkle some seed over the bare spots and hope for the best. This is not much better than option 1. 3). Buy the cheapest seed you can find like annual ryegrass. This will result in the ugliest lawn on your block. Annual rye never really greens up, it grows very fast and often clumpy, and it does not match any grasses in your lawn. and it often gets riddled with disease in the winter months.

The window of opportunity is here. Now get outside and take the actions needed for a better lawn in 2014!

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