LAWN CARE SIMPLIFIED - A Safe and Natural Approach

How To Use a Hose-end Sprayer

 How To Use a Hose-End Sprayer 

 

 Hose-end sprayers are a great tool for spraying liquid garden products. You need to know a little bit about how they work or you will undoubtedly have a problem with over or under-applying your products.

 A hose-end sprayer is simply a tool that  siphons  out products from a bottle and mixes the product with water for easy spraying . All hose-end sprayers designed for use with  liquid  products (not powders or granules) work in a similar fashion.

 When you turn the sprayer on, water passes through the spray head on top of the bottle and shoots out the other end.  A s the water moves  through the top of the spray head, it creates a suction or vacuum that siphons the liquid product up the tube to the top of the spray head.  There, and  not in the bottle , it mixes with the hose water and gets sprayed out. Most hose-end sprayers have a knob or button that allows you to close off the hole on the siphon tube so you can spray water only if desired. 

 The size of the hole underneath the spray head will determine how many ounces (or teaspoons) of liquid product will be siphoned up for every gallon of water that you spray .  Sprayers will have either just one hole underneath, or they will have multiple holes (or settings) that you can choose from.

Adjustable hose-end sprayers have a dial on top that allows you to choose from multiple hole sizes, ranging from as low as 1 teaspoon per gallon to 8 oz per gallon. 

You can see the black dial on this one.

Adjustable hose-end sprayers allow you play around with different setting or to mix a product with water an exact specific rate if needed.  They generally are very easy to fill and easy to use. And, as you will see below, they allow you to spray out your products faster or slower.

There are numerous adjustable hose end sprayers on the market, with different designs.
 

 Many hardware stores carry their own brand. You can usually find the Ortho Dial N Spray or a Gilmour Select N Spray at one of the big box stores.

Pre-set or Fixed Rate sprayers are usually found on RTU (Ready-To-Use) products. There is just one hole in the spray head so it always siphons out at the same rate. 

An example of a Fixed Rate sprayer is the hose-end applicator we use for our liquid lawn aeration product called  Aerify PLUS , there is a small hole on this that siphons out just 1 1/2 oz of product per gallon of water.    

Since this bottle hold 32 ounces of product you would need to spray 32 gallons of water out over your lawn or garden to empty it.

If you have a hose-end sprayer in your garage that says something like "20 Gallon Sprayer", that tells you it is a fixed rate sprayer that will empty out after spraying 20 gallons of water.  A "10 Gallon Sprayer" empties after spraying just 10 gallons. Our Aerify PLUS sprayer would then be called a 32 gallon sprayer.

APPLYING THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF YOUR PRODUCT

Most garden product labels will recommended applying a certain amount of the product per every 1000 sf. But all hose-end sprayers are set up to siphon out in ounces per gallon- not ounces per 1000 sf. So, how do you go about getting the right amount of ounces per 1000 sf applied?

The key fact you need to know about hose-end sprayers is this:

 

The amount of product that gets sprayed out on a lawn is determined by both the sprayer hole (oz per gal) setting , and by how many gallons of water you actually spray on the lawn as you do an application.

And, because everyone walks at a different speed, sprays a wider or narrower swath and has different water pressure, there is always going to be some trial and error when using a hose-end sprayer.

Here is our advice on how to apply products with either a fixed rate sprayer or an adjustable hose-end sprayer :

1. Before you start spraying, get an approximate idea of the total area (in square feet) that is going to be sprayed. Walk it off heel-to-toe if necessary and measure length times width to get the area.

2. Once you have the total area, figure out how much of the product you should use. For example, if your yard is 4,000 sf and you want to apply our Aerify PLUS  at 4 oz per 1000 sf rate, you want to use 16 oz total on your lawn.

3. Attach your garden hose to the sprayer. Turn your water on at about ½ to ¾ pressure for best functioning of the sprayer. You can turn the sprayer to the Water Only setting while you get the pressure right.

4. If you are using a fixed rate sprayer, turn the sprayer to ON (MIX). If you are using an adjustable sprayer, set it to 1 oz per gallon (for Aerify PLUS) or whatever the recommended sprayer setting is on the label of the product you are using. Walk at a slow to normal pace moving your wrist side to side enough to spray a 6-8 wide swath over the lawn (or gardens). Spray enough to make sure all areas get wet on top. You do not have to soak these areas at this time. You can water it in later.

 

1. After you have sprayed a small area, say ¼ or ½ of the lawn, stop and check to see how much of the product you have used up. Figure out if you have sprayed too much or too little based on how much area has been treated. For example, if you have treated about 2000 sf and you want to apply at 4 oz per 1000 sf, you should have used approximately 8 oz (or 1 cup) of the product.

 

1. If you have used too little, you need to walk at a slower pace when spraying and/or spray a narrower swath. If you are using an adjustable sprayer you can simply increase the spray setting and walk exactly like you did the first time. Test another area re-adjust as needed.

 

If you have used too much, you need to walk faster and/or spray a wider swath. If you are using an adjustable sprayer you can turn it down to a lower setting.  

 

1. If nothing or very little has come out of the sprayer check to see that the siphon tube is still connected. If there is a filter tip on the end of the tube, make sure it is not clogged. Our filter tip can be cleaned out with a large paper clip. 

As we said,  there is always some trial and error when you spray with a hose-end sprayer. Even commercial lawn spray technicians have practice and make adjustments to get their walking speed and spray pattern down correctly. It gets easier after you have done it once or twice.

Hope this has been helpful.

 

Stuart Franklin

President of Nature's Lawn & Garden, Inc

If you plan to copy this, please give appropriate credit to our site  www.lawncaresimplified.typepad.com

 

 

Water Wisdom Part 1

When there is a lack of water - whether short term or long, it is going to affect your soil and everything that grows in it. And because water becomes more precious with each passing year. it is imperative to know as much as possible about using water wisely and doing what you can to improve your lawns, plants and soils so as to obtain the best possible water management. The holistic approach  asks that you see how all things interact. Choosing the best grass for your climate, giving it the best care to promote health and deep rooting, and improving the soil so it holds water better are all going to influence your water needs.

If you are living in an area where lawns can not grow without daily watering , we suggest finding an alternative to grass for your ground cover.  In most areas of the country there are grass types that are suited for your climate and will actually survive without watering at all, or  with just a bit of water to help it through weather extremes.  They may go dormant for part of the year, but they'll survive. We will cover the subject of  “choosing your grass type” in a later section.

 

The Need For Water

Grass plants have to take in most of their basic nutrients dissolved in water and through their roots.  Without enough water in the soil, a lawn can't get to the nutrients it needs for food production, growth, defense and reproduction. In this situation, the grass  normally shuts down, dries out on top and goes dormant.  When dormant, it is not very attractive to most insect and disease organisms.   The grass will come back to life when there is sufficient soil moisture. It is actually better for grass health to let it go completely dormant than to keep it just barely green and growing with light watering.

Keep in mind that water is not just to keep your lawn green - water is also needed when you want to keep the soil improvement processes going.  If you are working on improving your soil with organics, compost or any of the soil improvement products on our site at natureslawn.com, you want to keep the soil somewhat moist.  When soils dry out, earthworms disappear and microbial  activity and thatch decomposition ceases. It doesn't begin again until there is sufficient moisture in the ground.

Hold Off Watering Too Early In the Spring

This applies more to northern lawns.  There is no point in watering the lawn before the grass actually needs it, and there is some benefit to delaying watering. You want to get the roots of the grass to dig deeper for water as the soil dries out. If the soil is constantly saturated with water, the roots won't have the incentive to go deep. If you want to know how dry the soil is, dig into it with a spade to see for yourself.

Begin watering your lawn when soil has dried out well into the root zone. This will usually mean 3-4 inches deep on a healthy lawn. (Higher mowed grasses should have deeper roots.)  When the grass needs water it will take on a bluish or darker tint from wilting. It will also start to show footprints after you've walked over it.

 

The Best Time to Water

Watering in the morning, before the heat sets in is considered the best possible time to irrigate a lawn. The next best time is late afternoon/early evening when the sun's rays are less intense. Night time watering is generally frowned upon due to higher disease potential. However, if you are in a heat wave and night time temps are staying above 70, there should be not problem.

Mid day watering is also fine if the sun is not out.  And even if the sun is out and baking the grass, watering at that time won't hurt the lawn. It will cool it down.  Contrary to what you may have heard, there is no proven magnifying glass effect of water that is going to burn a grass by concentrating the sunlight. In many tropical areas you'll get a mid-day sunshower and then a quick return to 90+ temperatures. And the lawns and plants do fine. The reason for not watering in the heat of mid day is simply that you are going to waste some water due to evaporation.   

See Water Wisdom Part 2

 

Water Wisdom Part 2

How Much Water?

Homeowners are always asking questions like   “How long should I water?” or “How many inches should I water?". There is no pat answer for this question, of course, due to all the variables that can affect your water needs throughout the season. However, if you want a ball park figure for watering, turf pros generally agree that the amount of water a lawn requires (whether through rain or through your sprinkler)  is ¾ - 1 inch per week. This amount is for lawns that are actively growing and not dormant or in a slow growth stage.

Determining your rate of Water Flow

All homeowners should have an idea of how much water is coming out when they turn their sprinkler on. Here is how to figure it out:

Set out a four or more wide mouth containers (such as pots or tuna cans) on the grass, spaced evenly within the spray pattern of your sprinkler.  Then turn your sprinklers on and run for twenty minutes (or 1/3 of an hour).  Then measure the amount of water in each can with a ruler.  Figure out the average amount of water per can after taking all the measurements.  Then multiply by 3. This will tell you, once and for all, how many inches of water you get per hour of sprinkling -assuming your water pressure doesn't change. 

By placing the containers in various spots, you'll also be able to note whether the spray pattern of the sprinkler is distributing the water evenly and whether you may need to make some adjustments or do some overlapping when you move the sprinklers around.

IF you want to water like a pro, you need to actually take a look at the soil in the root zone (3-5 inches deep for most home lawns) of the grass occasionally to see if it is moist, dry or over-saturated. After watering, wait 30 minutes (an hour for heavier clays) and then check to see how far the water has penetrated. Step on a spade and push it back and you can see where the dry soil begins and ends.  Get to know your yard, your soil type and where the dry and wet areas are. 

Here are some factors that will influence your water needs: 

Amount of actual rainfall. Most people are fooled by rains and think they are getting more water than they really do get. A rain gage is a good, cheap tool to have.

Temperatures. This is obvious. Higher temperatures mean faster drying conditions. It may also speed up grass growth for a while, and that will also increase water absorption by the grass.

Wind. If you are in a windy location there is going to be a lot of water loss due to evaporation.

Tree root competition. Trees can take an enormous quantity of water out of the ground and their roots will go right into the lawn area if that is the only place where it can find water easily. Lawns on the south side of trees dry out extremely fast. You need to compensate for the tree's water needs when you water your lawn.

Soil Compaction. Clay soils are compacted by definition (see below), but even good loams and sandy soils can get compacted. Water has a hard time getting to the root zone when the soil is severely compacted.  For years, our customers have been improve soil compaction and water penetration by using our Aerify PLUS soil conditioner.  Applying before a heavy watering is the most effective way to use it.

Water sits on top of a compacted Clay soil. See why, below.

 

 

 

Soil Quality – Clay versus Sandy Soils.  There is a huge difference between the way sandy soils handle water and the way clays handle water. Here is what you need to know:

Clay soils are made up of microscopic size rock particles that bond together somewhat magnetically. There is little to no airspace between these particles, and water penetrates through very slowly, completely saturating the soil with very little “free water” left for plants. They tend to swell up when wet and shrink back when dry, often forming cracks in the soil and squeezing or tearing roots.

   Denser clay soils can be very hygroscopic -  meaning water binds to it so tightly that roots cannot absorb it. This is why clay soils usually need more water than you would imagine to keep plants from wilting.  If your clay soil feels wet, but your grass or garden plants are wilting, you probably have a hygroscopic clay soil that is going to need more water until the soil is improved.

Sandy soils, on the other hand, have larger, visible rock particles in them – perhaps 1000 to 2000 times larger than clay particles. Unless extremely compacted, there is a lot of airspace between sand particles. Water infiltrates sand quickly and deeply and there is more “free water” available for grass and plant roots to grab. If you want an analogy in terms of size and free airspace, think of sandy soil as a barrel of basketballs and clay soil as a barrel of marbles.

 

 

On a medium textured sandy soil, an inch of water can penetrate down to 12 inches, in just 2-3 hours. On a medium-clay soil, an inch of water may only penetrate about 4 inches deep, and it would take 6 hours or longer to get that deep.  Puddling or runoff is a real problem on clay soils.  In terms of drying out, as you may suspect, sandy soils dry out  much faster than clay soils.

Silt is a very small soil particle between sand and clay size. It has more of a sand physical appearance, but tends to compact and tighten up more like clays when it makes up most of a soil.

Loam soils are a nice mix of sand, clay, silt and organic matter.  If not badly compacted they will absorb, hold onto and release water in a more ideal fashion. Depending on amounts of each particle, you can have clay loams, sandy loams or silt loams.   Soil types will be discussed more thoroughly in a later section.

 

What does this all mean to you?

We said earlier, the suggested amount of weekly water for lawns is about ¾ - 1 inch of water.  Since an inch of water on a sandy soil goes perhaps 12 inches deep (and your grass roots are only perhaps 3-6 inches deep), it would be better to water a sandy soil lawn 2  to 3 times a week, putting down ½ -1/3 of an inch respectively.

If you have a nice loamy soil, or clay loam, you can put down an inch at a time, once a week. If the grass is not responding you may have hydroscopic conditions that require more attention. If you ever find that your water is puddling or running off, break up the watering into a few stages on the same day. Give the water a chance to penetrate and create some channels in the soil before resuming watering. Again, spraying the lawn with Aerify PLUS will help with penetration, and hydroscopic conditions. but you could also get some improvement just by applying a few oz of dish soap per 1000 sf ahead of watering.

Improving soil quality and creating more humus is vital when you have a clay or sandy soil. Finding better soil improvement methods and products has been part of our company's mission for over 30 years. You can read more about our soil improvement products at www.natureslawn.com

Stuart Franklin is President of Nature’s Lawn & Garden, Inc. (http://www.natureslawn.com) a lawn fertilizing company and on line Web Store , located in the Buffalo, NY area.  He also authored the book Building A Healthy Lawn:  A Safe and Natural Approach (Storey Publications 1988). A few copies are still available at natureslawn.com

 

Copyrighted Materials. No part of this website, its design or any of the content may be used without the expressed permission of the author.

 

 

Understanding Snow Mold

 

After the snow melts, you may find that your lawn is riddled with circles or patches of dead looking grass. It will look grey, tan, white or even pink.  It could be that the grass is dead due to extremely severe winter conditions, or late fall damage by Grubs or Crane Fly larve, but it is more likely that you have snow mold.

Here is a severe case

Grey and Pink Snow Mold are lawn diseases that are usually related to winter conditions and snow cover - too little or too much. But pink snow mold can also affect Southern lawns when conditions are right (see below).  Snow mold is encouraged when lawns are left too long over the winter, and nutrients and trace elements are lacking. Thatch conditions are also going to promote snow mold.  If you over-fertilize in the fall, or time it wrong, you can cause too much tender late fall growth and this encourages snow mold too.

Some grasses are more susceptible to snow mold, but all grass types can get it. A properly mowed and watered, deep-rooted lawn, growing in a bio-active  and nutritionally balanced soil is probably your best defense agains snow mold. 

As we said, there are two types of snow mold - gray snow mold or (more severe) pink snow mold . Both of these diseases will appear as circular dead patches, often 3 -12 inches in diameter. Sometimes it is so severe that the patches all join together and cover most of the lawn. Upon closer inspection you would see fuzzy webbing or strands (mycelium) on top of the grass blades or at the very edges of the damaged spot.

  

 

 

Grey Snow Mold above

 

Grey snow mold damage is less severe than that of pink snow mold. The damage is primarily to the leaf blades of the grass only.  Once lawns start to green up in the spring, and temperatures are staying in the mid 40s and above day and night, further damage  to the lawn usually ceases. The mycelium will quickly dry out and and will be hard to find.  The lawn will usually recover if it is healthy and deeply rooted.

 

TREATMENT FOR GREY SNOW MOLD

The best thing you can do for grey snow mold, aside from improving your soil aeration and bioactivity (we recommend using Aerify PLUS  soil conditioner), is lightly fluff up the dead grass with a rake. This will allow it to dry more completely and will also allow the sunlight to reach the soil and promote new grass growth. A light fertilizing after the rest of the grass starts to green up may help recovery too. Use our All-In-One for LAWNS if you have it, or any fast acting fertilizer. Again, go light at this time.   In the fall, make sure you cut short at the end of the year and handle any thatch during the season.

 

 

Pink Snow Mold above.

Pink snow mold remains active much longer than grey snow mold. It can continue to grow until temperatures get into the low 60's.  You will find pink/salmon colored mycelium at the outer edges. You can see this easily in the morning when there is dew on the ground. Pink snow mold damages the blades as well as the crowns of the grass.  When the crowns, where both the blades and the roots emanate from, are damaged the grass may not recover.

Southern lawns can get pink snow mold, especially on golf course greens. All you need are temperatures in the low 30s and damp conditions.

 

Here is an up close view of pink snow mold.

 

 

As with the grey snow mold, you should lightly rake or fluff up the pink snow mold to allow air and sunlight to the soil. With this type you should be careful to not spread the disease by using the rake on the rest of the lawn.  After you rake the pink snow mold you should clean your rake with some alcohol or an anti-bacterial soap.

Pink snow mold eventually stops on its own when temperatures are high enough.  At that time it is a simple enough matter to simply spot seed the damaged areas.

 

TREATMENT FOR PINK SNOW MOLD

The general advice in handling bad pink snow mold infestations is to treat with a chemical fungicide, usually twice a week to 10 days apart.  Since this site is dedicated to more natural solutions I would suggest trying a few organic solutions first.  

Liquid Kelp (seaweed) and Humic Acids (bio-active carbon) contain numerous trace elements and bio-stimulants that can help a lawn recover from snow mold quickly. Using one or the other or both will provide benefits to the soil as well as the grass. Spraying liquid forms of these will work much quicker than applying powdered forms.  A late fall application may work as a preventative too.   Nature's Magic  is a 50/50 blend of these two amendments.  

 Compost Tea and  Earthworm Castings Teas have been shown to help reduce most lawn diseases.  A simple verison of how to make this tea to cover a large area of lawn would be to take a cup of compost or earthworm castings (you can usually find each in nurseries) and soak them for 24-36 hours in a five gallon bucket filled 2/3 or so with water.   Stir often to get some air in the water or use an aerating device if you have one.  Then simply strain and put the tea in a watering can or sprayer and soak the snow mold and the grass right around it. 

Something else to try would be hydrogen peroxide- 1 cup in 2 gallons of water 2 or 3 times, perhaps 5 days apart. If it doesn't kill the snow mold it should keep it from spreading. If you have any Cedar Yard Guard, that has anti-fungal properties so you can spray that on the snow mold in the same way as the hydrogen peroxide.

 Stuart Franklin

President of Nature's Lawn & Garden, Inc

 

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All About Thatch

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Contrary to what most people believe, thatch is not simply grass clippings that aren't decomposing. Clippings can add to a thatch problem once the problem exists, but generally, clippings are very beneficial to the lawn when you have a healthy, bioactive soil. They decompose and recycle in as little as two weeks and help provide nutrients and organic matter.

Thatch is actually a matted layer - of roots, stems, blades, runners and clippings - that forms on top of the soil. You might describe it as a lawn that is growing into itself rather than into the soil. If you try to poke your finger through your lawn and into the soil, and find that there is a matted, vegetative barrier of about 1/2 inch thick or more, you have a real thatch condition. I've seen thatch as thick as 3 inches.

In the image below you can see how the tightly matted thatch layer is sitting on top of the soil:

If you have real thatch, like above, then there is no way you can remove it with a dethatching machine ( sometimes called a power rake). Such machines can barely penetrate the thatch layer before tearing the grass right out of the soil.  In our lawn care business we handle thatch with a 2 pronged approach. First we improve the soil under the thatch with our Aerify PLUS to make it easier and more desirable for the roots to dig deeper. Then we add on specific decomposition microbes using our Biological Dethatcher product.  This digests the dead organic matter and turns it into beneficial humus.  More on this below. 

Thatch can take years to develop on a lawn, but when lawns are sodded and not cared for properly you can get what I would call "instant thatch" . It happens when you lay sod on top of the soil and the sod does not root into the soil quickly or deeply.

 

This often happens when the soil below the newly installed sod is dry and you don't water heavily enough to get through the sod to saturate the soil.

The water stays in the sod and that's where the roots stay too.

In some cases you get "instant thatch"  because the soil underneath the sod is a very hard subsoil, and nothing can penetrate it.

 

The Problems With Thatch

Thatch is undesirable for many reasons, a major one being that the roots of your grass are up in the thatch, and only barely in the soil (see the drawing below).  This is not a healthy state and it makes the grass highly susceptible to insects, drought, and winter-kill.  If the grass is not anchored in the soil,  winter frost or ice could actually lift the thatch right out of the soil. When you have thatch,  you have a weaker lawn. It is only a matter of time before something kills it off.

A matted thatch layer will act like a sponge to absorb the rain or your watering.  This wet matted layer promotes disease.  If the thatch is thick, and the water isn't heavy enough, it might not even get through the thatch into the soil. The soil eventually dries out, and the grass roots will have to grow into the thatch layer itself-where there is some moisture-instead of into the dry soil. And this will only add more to the thatch layer. And it gets worse from there.

 

 

One way to help get water through the thatch layer and into the soil, is to  put on some dish soap before watering or before a rain. This will help thin out the water allowing faster penetration.  2 or 3 oz. per 1000 sf should do the trick.

You could also put on a light application of Aerify or Aerify PLUS , before watering. You should test to see how deep your water is penetrating by cutting into the soil with a spade and looking to see if the soil underneath the thatch is moist or not.

 The only time when thatch may be desirable is when the grass is growing over tree roots near the surface. In this case, there is hardly any soil so the grass is doing what it can to survive.

Why Thatch Forms

There can be a few reasons for thatch forming on lawns aside from the poor sodding situation as mentioned above. But in general, a thatch condition  indicates that there is something wrong with your soil. It is either preventing the grass from rooting (compaction or clay) or it is not bioactive or healthy enough to promote the decomposition of dead organic matter. Your soil should be teeming with microlife instead of "dead", or sterile. If you've been to our website at www.natureslawn.com you know that soil improvement is our main focus.

Soil compaction, clay, and poor pH (too acidic or alkaline), will all discourage bioactivity. And if you've used a lot of conventional lawn fertilizers that are high in chlorides or salts, or you've used excessive pesticides. you may have killed off a lot of beneficial soil micro-life yourself. 

    FYI: Lack of earthworms is an indicator of a bad soil. In fact, you'll rarely see thatch where earthworms are abundant because along with being great soil aerators, they are one of nature's best thatch digesters.

 
THE SOLUTION

You can not handle a real thatch condition with a dethatching machine or power rake. You would end up ripping out the lawn. These machines will take care of surface issues like dead or matted grass, clippings and debris - and you can have bushels of that stuff with some grass types.  But as far as getting out the real thatch, the interwoven mat, it would barely scratch the surface of it.

The real solution to thatch, and the best way to prevent it, is to improve your soil so it is aerated and bioactive enough to get the thatch to decompose. When you do this, the thatch - which is part Organic Matter, will gradually begin to break down from the bottom (where it is in contact with the soil) up. It will turn into rich, dark humus. It can take a couple of years to fully break up the thatch, but it will happen.

 

Here are some other factors and tips to help you get rid of thatch through decomposition:

1. You need to keep the soil moist underneath the thatch layer. When it dries out, decomposition ceases. Less frequent, heavy waterings are best. If you water too often and keep the whole thatch layer moist all the time, you are asking for trouble with fungus. Also, you want to encourage the roots to go down into the soil for water and not stay in a wet thatch layer.

2. Collect your clippings until the thatch problem is handled.  They will only add to the thatch.

3. Test the pH and add Lime as needed.  If your soil is Acidic it could dramatically slow down or even prevent thatch decomposition. Over-liming will also cause the same problems.

4. Increase thatch degrading bioactivity. You can do this by improving your soil quality with compost or simple compost teas (soak compost in a bucket of water for a day and spray the liquid over the lawn).  You can treat the thatch with  Biological Dethatcher.  It contains specific microbes and enzymes designed to generate and accelerate thatch decomposition.

5. Improve soil aeration. Thatch-degrading microbes, and most beneficial soil microbes need air to survive. Compacted or heavy clay soils suppress the micro-life in the soil. Improving aeration is a must if you want to increase the soil bioactivity. Visit our website for more information on better ways to increase aeration.

6. Your lawn will need regular fertilizing because soil microorganisms need nitrogen to decompose thatch. You want to avoid any fertilizers that contain muriate of potash (potassium chloride) because chlorides can be harmful to soil life. Straight organic granular fertilizers may not be the best choice here because unless they are water soluble, they will sit on top of the thatch layer and be very slow to break down and release their nutrients. After all, a lot of the thatch is already organic matter that isn't breaking down fast enough.
7. Liquid fertilizers may be the best idea when thatch exists.  They will go right through to the soil when watered in, and won't get stuck in the thatch   Monthly or twice monthly applications of a salt and chlorine free liquid fertilizer will provide more available nitrogen and therefore will promote faster thatch decomposition.  LAWN FORCE 5 is a liquid fertilizer that also contains our Biological Dethatcher along with some Aerify PLUS.

 

Stuart Franklin is President of Nature’s Lawn & Garden, Inc. (http://www.natureslawn.com) which sell online products, and Green Buffalo Lawn Care (www.greenbuffalolawncare.com) a lawn fertilizing company serving the Buffalo, NY area  He is also the author of Building A Healthy Lawn:  A Safe and Natural Approach (Storey Publications 1988), available through our office.  info@natureslawn.com  716-681-7796.

 

Visit our website at  Nature's Lawn & Garden, Inc 

 Copyrighted Material. All rights reserved.

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When you purchase a home in North America, there is a good chance that you are  also purchasing the pleasure, or the burden, of maintaining a lawn.  It is remarkable fact that despite having very little actual knowledge about how lawns grow, on any given week during the growing season, literally millions of homeowners are going to be caring for their lawns in some way. They'll be mowing or fertilizing or watering or otherwise trying to maintain or improve the lawn that came with the house. If you think about it, when comes to maintaining your home there is probably nothing as demanding and time consuming as lawn care.  So if you have to do it anyway, why not do it right and get the pleasure of having a really beautiful lawn?

 

To do things right, you need enough basic lawn care information to allow you to think for yourself on the subject.  Once you know a little bit about how grass actually grows and what makes a good or bad soil, you'll be able to  make the right decisions. You'll know when and how high to cut, and why. You'll know how to water too.  There is no magic formula that gives everyone, everywhere a great lawn.  Lawns are an assemblage of millions of individual plants that really are trying to survive, under diverse conditions and, perhaps, despite poor care. Once you know your basics, you'll know what to do to help your grass thrive. You'll be surprised at how clear the subject becomes.

It is a cause and effect world and this applies to lawns too.  We are not going to focus on lawn problems (effect), but we will look at what may be causing them and how to safely handle them when possible. Many lawn problems are simply symptoms of poor soil or growing conditions, or just poor lawn care practices over the years. But, if things have progressed too far and the only possible thing you can do to save your lawn is apply a chemical pesticide,  we certainly aren't going chastise you for that or even for spot-treating things chemically. What we do ask is that you change your lawn practices so you can try to prevent future need for those pesticides.

The emphasis is on learning what a healthy lawn is, and what you can do to make or keep your lawn healthy.   For the most part, we will use a “natural” approach and will take a look at the many facets that go into creating a healthy lawn, including the soil it grows in.   Let's call this “Holistic Lawn Care”.

My philosophy of lawn care revolves around this statement:

" A healthy lawn growing in a good soil will have good color, will crowd out many weeds and will be highly resistant to disease and insects."

Note, I did not say it will crowd out all weeds and it will never have insects and disease. But, with the right grass type(s), the right care and in good growing conditions you can probably keep out most weeds and other problems. That's my observation, and the observation of many lawn pros who have done natural/organic lawn care extensively.

In the posts to follow, you are going to learn how grass grows, the importance of good soil and what you can easily do to get and keep your lawn and soil healthy.  And you'll find out that everything you probably  already do -mow, water, fertilize- can have a positive or negative effect on your lawn's health depending on whether it is done the right way, or the wrong way.

So, lets learn about lawns.

 

Stuart Franklin is President of Nature’s Lawn & Garden, Inc. (http://www.natureslawn.com) which sell online products, and Green Buffalo Lawn Care (www.greenbuffalolawncare.com) a lawn fertilizing company serving the Buffalo, NY area  He is also the author of Building A Healthy Lawn:  A Safe and Natural Approach (Storey Publications 1988), available through our office.  info@natureslawn.com  716-681-7796.

 

Copyrighted Materials. No part of this website, its design or any of the content may be used without the expressed permission of the author.

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3 Things You Need to Know About Grass

If you really want to know how to care for a lawn you need to focus in and learn something about the individual grass plants that comprise it.  After all, a lawn is simply an area of land covered by one or more types of grass plants.  And there are actually about a million individual grass plants on a 1000 sf area.  So lets learn something about these grass plants.

  I've broken it down into three parts:

1. How grass grows.

2. How grass spreads

3. How grass gets its food

Part 1  How Grass Grows

Q.  Why is it that you can cut off a third or a half or even more of a grass plant, and do it regularly throughout the growing season, and yet the grass survives?  If you did that to any of your other plants in the yard or house they probably would die within a season.

A. Because grass grows differently from most of your other plants.

Other plants, whether shrubs, trees, tomatoes or vines,  keep adding on new growth to stems or branches that already have formed. New growth is always occurring at the extremities, far from the base of the plant. Not so with grass. Though some growth occurs on the leaf blades, the key growth point for grass is the crown. 

If you look at the illustration you will see that the crown sits at the soil line and it is also where the shoot section and the root section of the grass meet. The crown is a highly active growing point that pushes stems (and the leaf blades that form around them) upward.      Aside from the growth that can occur on the grass blades themselves, we find that essentially, the old growth of the grass is at the top of the plant while the new growth is at the bottom.

 

Root growth.

The crown is also responsible for initiating the roots, but the roots then grow in a more typical fashion.  New growth cells form at the tips of the roots instead of the crown.  The roots elongate in search of water and nutrients and form a very extensive and fibrous network, most of it being invisible to the naked eye.   

According to a lawn site at Purdue, one researcher, who examined the root system of Kentucky bluegrass, found that in one cubic inch of soil there were 2,000 roots with 1,000,000 root hairs. Poor root growth, for whatever reason, means a grass plant that suffers from poor water and nutrient absorption. Much more about this later.

 

 

 

 Part 2   How Grass Spreads

Some grass types can spread rapidly while others will hardly thicken at all.  The way your grass spreads actually depends on the particular type of grass you have. Bluegrass is different from ryegrass which is different from bentgrass and so on.  And the ability to spread  is also influenced by how well you care for the grass as well.

There are just four methods lawn grass plants normally use to reproduce or extend out from the mother plant. Most grass species are capable of spreading by two or more of these methods.

1. Going To Seed

Dropping seeds is one of the ways all lawn grasses can spread and fill in, but please don't depend on this method.  Because we mow the grass before seed heads develop, you rarely see much in the way of seeds on a lawn. If you did not mow your lawn at all, eventually you would see seed heads developing at the top of the stem, extending above the grass blades, like the bluegrass in this image.

 

Some grasses types have adapted to mowing and form seeds closer to the ground, below the mower blade.  Every year we get a few panicked calls from our local customers complaining that there is something white growing on their grass.  Upon inspection it is only the grass seeding, and doing what nature intends it to do.

With all the hybrid grasses today, there is also the possibility that the seed may be sterile too. I wouldn't count on the lawn going to seed as a good method of your grass spreading if it is thin.

 

2. Tillering  A tiller is a new shoot (a new stem with more leaf blades) that forms off to the side of the main plant. It grows out from the crown and essentially makes the mother plant into a thicker or wider plant.   If you look at the illustration you can see the tiller to the right of the main stem. (click to enlarge)

 

Most lawn grasses will send out tillers.  Some grasses use this method exclusively for spreading out or thickening. These grasses are called bunchgrasses or clumpgrasses.

Perennial ryegrass, a common lawn grass  is actually a bunchgrass. Here's a bunch of it. (click on it to enlarge)

 

The only way this would fill in the bare area would be to get thicker and thicker over time, and that might take a while. Tall Fescue is also a bunchgrass, and most varieties of this are very wide bladed.  When you get a spot of this in an otherwise fine bladed lawn, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

 

 

Rhizomes

Rhizomes are underground runners (or stems) that pop out of the ground a distance from the mother plant, forming completely new plants capable of sending out its own rhizomes. You can see a rhisome in the blue picture above on the left. Rhizomes are a great way for grass to spread, and typically grasses with rhizomes also thicken by tillering as well.  Kentucky bluegrass  and fine fescue spread by rhizomes.  The rhizomes can spread quite far to find an open spot in the lawn.  They will also pop up in your garden beds, like it or not, if bluegrass borders the beds. Good soils make it easy for rhizomes to grow, while dense clay soils can make it very difficult.

Stolons

Stolons are somewhat the opposite of rhizomes in that they are above ground runners  that travel on top of the soil. They travel a long or short distance from the mother plant and then form independent grass plants as they go along.  You see a stolon on the right side of the blue image up above.  Creeping bentgrass, St. Augustine and zoysia grass spread  by stolons and they will spread rapidly on top of the soil, especially if the soil is easy to root in and not hard or claylike. They can weave their way through other grass types in a lawn and eventually take over the lawn. 

 

Part 3  How Grass Gets Its Food

The commonly held, but incorrect belief is that grass plants get their food from the soil, and if the soil is fertilized the grass has more food. The fact is, when you buy plant food (fertilizer) for your lawn, you're technically not really buying “food”at all. What you are buying is some of the raw materials that can be used to make food for the grass.

So, where does the food come from?  Drum roll, please...

      A grass plant manufactures its own food in its leaf blades.

Do you remember learning about photosynthesis in grade school?  Well, now is when we are going to finally put that knowledge into practical, lawn improving use.

 

PHOTOSYNTHESIS   (It's not hard to understand)

All green plants use sunlight to make their own food in their leaves. Photo means “light”; synthesis means “putting together”.  Here is the simple version of how it works.

The sun's energy helps the leaves turn carbon dioxide (from the air) and water (inside the leaf)  into sugars (food). The plant can then use this food to create proteins, fats, cellulose and all the other necessary building blocks – everything it needs to make leaves, stems, crowns, roots, seeds, runners, tillers and so on. Unused sugars are stored as starch in the roots and leaf blades..

So what does the plant get from the soil?   It gets water, and dissolved minerals (nitrogen, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, potassium etc...) and trace elements.  These are considered the raw materials that plants need to convert, using the energy from the sugars, into the other building mentioned above.  Fertilizers and organic matter supply raw materials, but by themselves are not food.

Once again:

1. In the leaf blades of the grass,  sunlight is used to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar (food)..

2. The sugars are then turned into proteins, fats,cellulose and all the other  building blocks needed for plant health. Most of these building blocks are formed by combining the sugar with other minerals or raw materials in the leaf  blades.

3. The roots of the grass take up the water and dissolved minerals and send them up to the leaf. 

Here is the main point of this whole section:

EVERY TIME YOU MOW YOUR LAWN YOU ARE CUTTING OFF SOME OF THE FOOD FACTORY OF THE GRASS.

You need to know how to mow the lawn in a way that will optimize the food production in the grass, while keeping the lawn looking good.  If you regularly mow the wrong way, you can severely affect the  normal food production process. The result will be, at the very least, an unhealthy, stunted, and off-color lawn. It could get worse.

The next section is All About Mowing.  I plan to give you everything you need to know to experience the Zen of cutting the grass correctly.

 

Stuart Franklin is President of Nature’s Lawn & Garden, Inc. (http://www.natureslawn.com) which sell online products, and Green Buffalo Lawn Care (www.greenbuffalolawncare.com) a lawn fertilizing company serving the Buffalo, NY area  He is also the author of Building A Healthy Lawn:  A Safe and Natural Approach (Storey Publications 1988), available through our office.  info@natureslawn.com  716-681-7796.

 

Copyrighted Materials. No part of this website, its design or any of the content may be used without the expressed permission of the author.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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All About Mowing Part 1

 

One of these days, turf scientists will perfect the “dwarf” varieties of grasses that will not need mowing (or watering). The grass will get to a specific height and remain there. We'll have all the advantages of lawns – the oxygen they produce, the cooling effect, the wonderful playing fields and soft ground cover, the dust and erosion control, the sound buffering etc... without the noise, pollution, energy use and labor of mowing. Its only a matter of time before this occurs. There are already some types suitable for home use that need less mowing than others.

For now, the very least you must do for a home lawn is mow it. Poor mowing is absolutely the first problem that needs to be fixed if you want to give your lawn a chance to be healthy.  If your are mowing incorrectly, shifting to proper mowing technique will actually give you a better looking lawn in a matter of weeks.

Unfortunately, I can't summarize proper mowing in a few sentences. You do need an understanding of what is going on with the lawn first. Then everything gets easy.

In the last section, 3 Things You Need To Know About Grass,  we discussed how grass plants make their own food in the leaf blades. (Please read that section if you haven't already.)  The importance of that piece of information can not be overstated because every time you mow your lawn you are cutting off some of the food factory of the grass. Food is vital for both above and below ground growth and all the normal functions of a healthy plant.  When the food factory in the leaf blades is devastated by improper mowing, all plant energy goes towards rebuilding the food factory.  Nothing else happens until it is fixed.

 

A Question of Balance

If the lawn gets plenty of sun and is not cut too short, it has the potential to become a very healthy lawn.  The leaf blades can produce a lot of food in this state. It will be able to easily build new shoots and will have the energy to spread out. The roots will be deep and full. Deeper, fuller roots are capable of finding more and deeper water and nutrients in the soil and can store more food as well.  It has been shown over and over again that the higher you mow your lawn, the deeper the roots will be.

Here is an illustration from my book Building A Healthy Lawn: A Safe and Natural Approach that shows the relation ship of leaf blade height to root growth. (The book is out of print after a 20 year run, but we have a few copies left.)

 

 

 

 

If your were to scalp the lawn even lower than the height on the left, there would be little to no root growth at all.

Most plants have somewhat of a balance between above ground growth (shoots) and below ground growth (roots). It may not be entirely equal, one way or the other, but it the important point is that the roots and shoots are mutually supportive.  The roots send water and raw material to the shoots and the shoots send food and necessary building blocks to help roots expand and do their job.

 

When the blades are cut short and too much of the food factory is removed, the stored food in the roots will be called up to help stimulate new blade growth. Making new leaf blades is the highest priority at this point. Root growth slows down or stops completely till the shoots recover. If this continues too long,  all the stored food in the roots will be used up and the roots, no longer being supported by food from above, will wither. You have created an unhealthy lawn with a high potential for insect, disease and weed invasion.  With continued scalping the grass has no chance of surviving.

Here are two lawns with the same grass type, but the one on the right is cut too short. Without enough leaf blade area, the lawn is weak, shallow-rooted and tends toward disease and insect problems. The homeowner has created this problem because he had the mistaken idea that short is better.

 

 

 
A proper balance between shoot growth and root growth is one of the fundamentals necessary for the health of your lawn (as well as most of your landscape plants).  When things go out of balance for too long, your lawn is going to suffer.

 

 

Stuart Franklin is President of Nature’s Lawn & Garden, Inc. (http://www.natureslawn.com) which sell online products, and Green Buffalo Lawn Care (www.greenbuffalolawncare.com) a lawn fertilizing company serving the Buffalo, NY area  He is also the author of Building A Healthy Lawn:  A Safe and Natural Approach (Storey Publications 1988), available through our office.  info@natureslawn.com  716-681-7796.

 

 

 

All About Mowing Part 2

For this section to make real sense, make sure you have read How Grass Gets Its Food in the post titled 3 Things You Need to Know About Grass.

 

When Should You Mow ?

Each time you mow the lawn you are slicing off part of the food factory of the grass plant, located in the leaf blades.  Keep that in mind while you ponder these points:

1. You need to keep grass long enough to be able to produce the food and energy for optimum above and below ground growth.

2. The blades can't be so tall that they lean over or mat up. This would prevent the flow of air and moisture and would encourage disease.

3. It is how even a grass looks after mowing that makes it look good, not how tall it is.

4. You want the grass to still be green after mowing. Cutting off too much of the leaf blade takes you down to the yellowing part of the plant that the sun hasn't greened up yet.

 

As we noted in an earlier section,   mowing is a shock to the grass plant and the more you cut off, the greater the shock. To prevent growth-stopping shock and loss of color, the general rule is do not cut off more than 1/3 of the total blade height when you mow.  

 

 

So, the time to mow the lawn is when it is approaches a length 1/3 higher than the desired height.

 

 

For example, if you want to keep your lawn at 3”,  cut when it gets to about 4 ½ inches high, not 6”. If you want to keep it at 2” then you would cut when it reached 3”.

When lawns are in their quick growth periods (spring time in the North and summer in the South) their recuperative ability is high and you can get away with cutting off half the blade or more.  But during periods of slow growth the recovery time is slower. Try to take off a little less than 1/3. I tell my customers to think of it as trimming the grass instead of cutting. Never cut so much off that the grass is no longer green.

Homeowners have a distinct advantage over lawn mowing services when it comes to timing their mowing. They can  mow as often as needed for best health, and mow as little as needed as well.  Most mowing services will come once a week and during fast growth periods may be cutting half or more of the blade length at each cutting.  The lawn usually survives this type of cutting, but it gets pretty long between mowings.  In truth, most homeowners will only mow once a week too.

 

How High Should I Cut my lawn ?

This must be the most frequently asked question in all of lawn care. Unfortunately, there is no one answer to this question. Due to such factors as weather, specific grass types and varieties, moisture, heat,  times of season  and so forth there is never going to be one simple answer.  My advice is to “see the lawn in front of you.” Don't just mechanically follow a chart. You are dealing with a living system that changes with its environment.

Having said that, here is a chart that will give some general guidelines for the mowing heights of various grass types.  There are a few grass types that can be maintained at both high and very short heights.  For example, Bermuda can be used for home lawns as well as putting greens.  When maintained at lower heights you need to compensate with more fertilizer to stimulate more food production from the small amount of leaf blade area that you do have.

 

Bluegrass            common          2-4”
                             improved       1-3

Bentgrass            creeping        ¼ -1
                             colonial          ½ – 1 ¼

Ryegrass            perennial        2- 4
                            annual            2 -4

Fescue                Fine                 1 ½ – 3 ½
                             Tall                   2-5
                             Turf Type Tall  2-4
                             Creeping Red   2-3

Zoysia                                         1-2

Bahia                                          2-3 ½

Bermuda              common         1 ½ – 2 ½
                              hybrids           1/4 – 1

Carpetgrass                                1 ½ -2 ½

Centipede                                   1 ½ – 2 ½

St. Augustine       common          2-4 ½
                              improved        3-4

Buffalograss                                 2-4

 

 

 

Mowing too short can change the grass types in your lawn

As you can see from the chart, there are only a few grass types that can tolerate very short mowing -say an inch high or less.  If you have a grass type that thrives at a 3-4 inch height, but you are constantly mowing around 1 ½ -2” high, eventually your main grass disappears and other grasses take over. I can't tell you the number of times I've been called out to look at what a homeowner thought was still their original bluegrass lawn, only to find that there was no sign of bluegrass. The lawn had turned into a fine fescue or a bentgrass lawn because they kept mowing too short.

 

A Bad Idea – Some homeowners, as well as some lawn mowing service operators, have the idea that if they mow the grass short they will have to do less mowing.  Short mowing actually stimulates more growth intitially.  The grass stops all rooting and other health functions in order to send energy back up to the shoots to recover the vital leaf blades.  Eventually,however, with continued short mowing the grass gets too weak to grow and dies out, being replace by weeds and other, usually less desirable grass types.

Our advice is to favor higher mowing heights when you have a choice to make.  By the way, it is true that you can reduce the percentage of weeds on a lawn to some degree by having a taller or a thick grass. Cooler soil, less sunlight reaching the ground and less space for the weeds to grow all contribute to less weeds.

In the next section, All About Mowing Part 3, we'll teach you how to mow like a pro, and talk about adjusting mowing height by season, grass clippings, the difference between Northern and Southern mowing.  Then you'll get a step-by-step guide on how to actually do the actual mowing of the lawn.

 

All About Mowing Part 3

Grass Clippings

Pick up or leave on the lawn?

 

I can't recall the last time I picked up my grass clippings. Its been years. It is extra work and in my case, with my cutting routine, my mower, grass types and soil conditions, it is quite unnecessary.  But it may not be unnecessary for you at the moment. Lets go over the finer points.

Grass clippings are almost 80% water. 10% is fiber or organic matter (good for soil) and what is left over are nutrients, similar to what you get in fertilizer, with perhaps some extra extra nutrients obtained right from the soil and air. Whenever you remove clippings you are disrupting the natural growth/decomposition cycle and are removing nutrients.  If these nutrients are not replaced by fertilizers, the grass will definitely deteriorate.  Most lawn experts agree that the fertilizer value of leaving your clipping will be roughly equivalent to one good feeding.

 

Here are 3 things to consider in regard to clippings:

1. Clippings must be short enough so they do not mat down on top of the lawn. They should filter down to the soil level and quickly decompose. If you cut often, especially on higher mowed lawns,  the clippings will be short and will drop down easily.  If you have a side chute discharge on your mower and find that the clippings remain on top and are unsightly, you can quickly go over the lawn again, just to cut up and disperse the clippings more.  Better yet, get a mulching mower which will chop the clippings up finely and throw them to the ground. A mulching blade may be available for your current mower. It chops the grass up more, but doesn't do the job a mulching mower can do.

1. On poor soils that are not bio-active, clippings may be slow to decompose. This may be the result of just having a dense clay instead of real topsoil. Or, it could be that there have been too many detrimental products put on the soil over the years, resulting in the kill-off or suppression of the beneficial soil microbes and earthworms that do the actual decomposing of the grass clippings.  Some fertilizers and pesticides and even excessive lime can have harmful effects on the bio-life in the soil. We'll cover all of this and teach you how to restore or create bio-life in your soil later on. it is one of my favorite subjects and the reason we started selling products on our website. 

1. Thatch. Grass clippings do not cause thatch unless they mat up without decomposing. In fact, most of the thatch problems I have seen over the years were on lawns where clippings were actually bagged!  How is that possible, you ask?   Thatch is actually is a matted, woven layer of grass stems, roots, runners, and clippings, that sits on top of the soil.  (Click here to see a nice photo of thatch on our website.)  Clippings add to the thatch, but don't necessarily cause it. Over-fertilized lawns, of course, make for more or longer clippings. If the soil is also not bio-active you have a real problem. Thatch and how to correct it will be covered as its own topic later in the manual.  If you find a thatch layer sitting on top of the soil, bag your clippings until it is corrected.

If you can do what is necessary to be able to recycle your grass clippings on the lawn, it will be well worth in many ways. If you really do need to bag the clippings, you can still use them for composting or mulching your garden beds. It would be a shame to see them going to waste.

In the next section we'll go over how to do the actual mowing of the lawn, all the little steps and nuances that will teach you to mow like a pro.

 

 

Stuart Franklin is president of Nature's Lawn & Garden, Inc and author of the book Building A Healthy Lawn: A Safe and Natural Approach.  Copies of the book are available though our office.