Category: Organic Lawn Care

Lawn Care Guide – Free Lawn Care Help!

Dethatch

Thatch is a lawn condition caused by root and steam buildup. A Layer of thatch is a barrier to everything your lawn needs to be healthy: air, water, and nutrients. Several things can cause thatch–too much nitrogen, mowing to short, and shallow watering. Use a garden or thatch rake or power dethatcher to remove thatch if your lawn has a problem.

Aerate

Punching holes in your lawn loosens soil, helps drainage, and promotes root growth. It also helps reduce thatch. Plan to aerate every few years in spring or fall.

Seed and Feed

Use a balanced fertilizer three times each year — early spring, late spring, and again in the fall. Lawn food contains nitrogen, which greens up lawns quickly. A slow-release product nourishes your lawn over time. Caution: Be sure to use a special starter fertilizer if applying over newly seeded areas.

Water

Lawns become increasingly tolerant of drought and develop deeper root systems when they are watered deeply and less often. Aim for about 1 inch per week.

Mow
Whether you use a reel or a power mower, be sure to sharpen your blades once or twice a year to avoid shredding your grass. When you mow, cut a third of the grass height; as temperatures rise, raise the mower height.

Call Lego Services today at (814) 515-3115 to help get your lawn back on track! Free lawn care help is available!

Dollar Spot Disease, Lawn Care

Lawn Disease, The Dollar Spot.

Dollar spot disease is a kind of lawn disease that kills and infects different kinds of grasses. This disease grows in distinct and small circles around the size of a small pancake or a silver dollar. It is easy to take the dollar spots lightly because they do not look dangerous but they can cause serious damage to the lawn.

Dollar spot disease survives during winter in the plant parts in the soil and thatch and it begins to start again as the temperature gets to sixty degrees. Aside from temperature, other factors that cause the disease include low fertility of nitrogen, low moisture in soil when humidity is high, too much mowing during hot climate, and too much thatch. A quality program is needed to provide the lawn proper mixture of fertilizers in order to prevent dollar spot. In addition, your lawn should be mowed or watered regularly.

Identifying Dollar Spot Disease


You can identify dollar spot disease in your lawn in two ways. The first way is through the size and shape of the area that is damaged. Usually, individual spots are very distinct and circular in shape, which are only a few inches in diameter. Another sign of dollar spot disease is the appearance of lesions on grasses. The disease can cause bands in hourglass shape across the grass blade, which is light tan in color with a reddish-brown edge. It can kill the entire grass and your lawn needs reseeding or renovation to control the disease.

How Do I Prevent, Or Get Rid Of Dollar Spot?

It is necessary to saturate your soil regularly because grass diseases including the dollar spot occur in soil with low moisture. However, make sure to avoid watering frequently during the late afternoons or evening. Use proper mixture of fertilizers in correcting the nitrogen fertility during the times of the disease activity.

You can apply treatments such as fungicide in getting rid of dollar spot disease. However, fungicide is not required in residential lawns if the levels of nitrogen fertility are managed properly and other cultural stresses are lessened. Dollar spot disease has different degrees of fungicide tolerance and there are some strains of dollar spot that have become resistant to fungicide, so a particular fungicide may be effective to one disease but not to another. In addition, the use of fungicides can increase disease and insect problems in the future because they can affect the soil organisms such as microbes and earthworms, which help in the decomposition of thatch. In addition, earthworms and other soil organisms improve the health of the grass and help aerate the soil.

You need to have a balanced nitrogen fertility program to control the disease because dollar spot disease is known to be most severe on nitrogen-deficient soil. With a balanced nitrogen soil, the outbreak of the disease will be delayed in the spring and the severity of outbreaks will be reduced. In addition, the performance of fungicide will improve and the recovery of turf will be faster.

Proper scheduling of irrigation is necessary to control dollar spot disease. This is due to how fast the period of dew is relative to the infection extent, so the prolonged practice of irrigation will greatly contribute to the outbreaks of the disease.

read more at blaircountylawnservice.com/articles/disease

Lawn Disease, They Destroy Lawns Everday. Learn how to Protect and how to Destroy them

Lawn Disease, They Destroy Lawns Everday. Learn how to Protect and how to Destroy them.

There is perhaps no single act more authentically American than fostering a beautiful, green lawn. There are magazines, books and even television shows dedicated to keeping your lawn green and healthy for as long as the seasons allow, but sometimes, unsightly yellow spots and dead areas can crop up out of nowhere. Most common lawn diseases are caused by fungus, but identifying and treating the particular disease that is turning your grass yellow is sometimes easier said than done. If you are serious about keeping your lawn in tip top shape, make sure you keep a lawn diary that charts the type of grass seed you are using, when you water, what fertilizer you choose to use and how often you water.

Lawns are never perfect. Even the greatest lawns have some problems owners have to address. Weakened, thinned, and discolored turf are often signs of a possible lawn disease. It is important to be diligent in identifying the possible cause to be able to apply the right solution. Disease can be caused by anything from nutritional deficiencies, drought, bacteria, fungi, or viruses.
There are three major factors that cause Lawn Disease

Vulnerable Plants
Appropriate Conditions
Pathogens
It is much easier to take preventative measures related to these three conditions rather than to heal an infected lawn. While you can’t do much to prevent your lawn from having pathogens, you can influence the conditions and vulnerability of your grass. Proper lawn care is the best thing you can do as a lawn owner to prevent disease. You can apply the right amount of fertilizer and water, while keeping the soil loose and aerated. You can also make sure to mow properly and encourage good drainage.

By far, the most popular and common lawn diseases are melting out and leaf spot. Both of these conditions are caused by common grass funguses, but there is a chance you may be enabling this condition without even knowing it. Leaf spot appears on individual blades of grass as purple or brown spots that begin to take over large swathes of your lawn over a period of weeks. If your grass is growing too thickly in spots or if you are using too much nitrogen in your fertilizer, you can accidently help to bring on this condition in your lawn. You can also enable this condition by mowing too closely and by not allowing enough sunshine to get to your grass. If you can aerate lawn a couple times a year, it can help prevent disease by developing healthier soil. Check to see what sort of proper fertilization schedule your particular kind of grass needs and make sure you are watering on a proper schedule and you will likely see an improvement in your lawn right away.

Necrotic ring spot is another common lawn destroyer that you may encounter. This condition is sometimes known as frog eye syndrome because of the ugly pattern of dead and infected grass it leaves behind. You may also notice a depressed area in the middle of an otherwise healthy lawn. This condition is most common during the beginning of your growing season and again at the end and is found on lawns that need a lot of help growing or on ones that are treated frequently, such as golf courses. You’ll notice a reddish hue in the infected areas that stand out against the healthy green of the grass around it. Change your watering schedule, fertilizer usage and consider enlisting the help of fungicides to beat necrotic ring spot.

If you have a lawn that is especially shady, you may have the same problem that a poorly ventilated bathroom might have: mildew. Powdery Mildew leaves a white residue on the blades of grass that can seriously inhibit natural growth. In serious instances, the powdery mildew can get so bad that it eventually yellows the blades and kills off an entire section of your lawn. Try and trim away hedges, bushes and trees that are killing off access to sunlight in infected areas and consider replacing the variety of grass you’ve chosen for that area with one far less susceptible to mildew.

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Can I put too much compost on?

Can I put too much compost on?

It is possible and happens to people who get bad advice about applying compost and manure. Unfortunately you can easily smother many grasses by putting too much compost on. That is why the recommended rate is 1 cubic yard of compost for every 1,000 square feet. This will result in application of 1/3 inch of compost if spread out uniformly – a very thin layer.