Turf & Ornamental Maintenance

The best time to renovate your lawn is NOW!  Seeding now while the temperatures are still warm will ensure the best possible germination.  As soil temps. cool so do percentages of germination.  But remember, you must keep the seed bed moist at all times and not allow it to dry out.  Once the seed pod breaks open, the plant must have consistent water to continue it's germination cycle.  It is also important to remember to water frequently after watering up until and in some cases past dormancy.

We've been asked why we only use fescue to overseed our lawns.  The biggest concern people have is that there is a preconceived notion that fescue is a much thicker, more unattractive blade than bluegrass is.  The truth is that newer varieties of Turf type fescue are hard to distinguish when held up to a blade of bluegrass.  K-31 Fescue is the type of fescue that presents a thicker blade.  Newer varieties are developed for their superior presentation in the lawn (See picture for differance in size from K-31 to turf type).

www.ksuturf.org/Weather/ 

Ever wondered what the actual soil temperatures are.  This tool gives you a realtime temperature at 1" and 4" depths.  What amazes me is how much it varies from day to night this time of year.  Seed germination takes twice as long when soil temps dip into the 50's and 60's at nightime like they are right now because it is only growing during the daytime (warmer) hours.   

This is one of the most important steps in the renovation process.  Make sure your seed is receiving enough water to germinate but not too much that it drowns.  We reccomend at least 2 times per day 10-15 min. on rotor heads and 5-7 min on spray heads.  Continue this watering until seed has germinated and you have a good stand of new grass.  Switch watering over to once a day, around mid-day, everyday.  Except on days when you mow, not to damage new grass.   Keep this process up until you have mowed your new grass 2-3 times.

Sometimes you will hear people say to let the grass grow tall right before winter sets in. Their reasoning is that the extra foliage will insulate the crown of the plant from the extreme cold of winter. Although this may sound reasonable, in practice it probably does little, if anything, to increase winter hardiness. On the contrary, a canopy that is too high during the wintermay lay over and become matted down, leading to an increased

With winter approaching and water bills at an all time high this summer, people are anxious to winterize their systems this fall which should still be done to avoid freeze damage.  However, please keep in mind that we are still in the midst of a DROUGHT!  Nearly every homeowner had to overseed some part of their lawns this fall.  New grass needs much more water even after it is completely germinated than established turf because it doesn't have capable root systems to store and maintain.

Heavy Leaf pack will smother, stress and kill newly germinated grass seed that was planted this fall.  Please make sure to keep leaves removed from the turf to avoid damage.  Also, we're still very much in a drought...most everyone has had their sprinkler systems blown out for the winter so you MUST water manually, especially new grass.  If the plant is forced to go into domancy drought starved, it will die and not come back in the spring.

In spirit of Arbor Day, check out this online tree appraisal tool.  https://www.treebenefits.com/calculator/

We recommend starting to water if you have an irrigation system.  Plants and turf are starting to show early signs of drought stress and minimally watering will help them continue to thrive going into the summer.  We recommend watering turf 3 days per week, rotors: 30 minutes, sprays: 10 minutes and MP rotators 25-30 minutes.  Planting areas should be watered as needed or 2-3 days per week to supplement rainfall.

Recently we have seen alot of below disease on maples here is good article from purdue on what it is and how to treat

Tar Spot on Maple

The following question was sent to the P&PDL diagnosticians here at Purdue University:

Question: Almost every summer the leaves on my maple trees have black spots on them that look like tar. What is it and what should I do about it?