Gardening & Landscaping
MTbridess
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Recommend best lawn websites
My DH and I have lived at our house for almost 5-years. The lawn gets more and more weeds (and honey-suckle-looking, yellow-flowered vine shoots from the neighbors) every year. I don't like herbicides, but I really want to get my lawn looking nice this year and we have two areas (1/2-day shade and full-sun) that both need work. Our goal is to establish thicker grass in certain areas and kill off those weeds somehow. I checked out a library book, but it was too general. Any recommendations from you green-thumb Nesties or links to good websites to help tell us what to add and when (we live in Denver area in Colorado)?
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Re: Recommend best lawn websites
All you need to do to have a great lawn is follow the Scotts program, which basically just involves putting down weed n feed four times a year. It's easy and your lawn will look like a golf course by this time next year. Go here to get the info for your area and grass type.
The Scotts program is basically the same thing people pay TruGreen or whoever to come do for $60/month or more. You're paying for their advertising and labor.
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I can't recommend a particular site, but it sounds like you might have creeping charlie (the yellow-flowered vine). See if you can search for something that might kill that but not your lawn. I completey understand how it is to try having a nice lawn. You should fertilize as the pp said, but that's not enough for certain aggressive weeds.
I feel your pain because I have wild violets and I think only napalm will work on them. I've tried every chemical but have finally given up and plan to start hand-pulling.
I feel your pain as well.
I also have wild violets too and have found the hand pulling is the only thing that works other than actually taking a small paint brush and painting the leaves with Round Up (which is also a huge pain and time consuming).
We are going to try the Scott's method ourselves this year since the previous owners didn't take care of the lawn at all.
This, exactly!
We moved into our house a year and a half ago. First time home owners after living in apts in the city. We had no idea what we were doing and our lawn looked awful! Last spring I followed Scott's program and like previous poster said, my lawn looks like a golf course right now. The only thing we did differently is not use Step 1 because it contains a crab grass killer and we laid seed over bare spots and also reseeded the lawn. The crab grass preventer doesn't know the difference in grass. I don't know of any good sites off the top of my head, but I can tell you what I learned from googling info.
1. You'll want to reseed your lawn now and also cover any bare spots. To do this:
- Mow your lawn (never more than a 1/3 of growth at a time).
- Rake out dead annual grass and pull out as many weeds as you can.
- Loosen up the soil in the bare spots.
- Spread about an inch layer of garden/seeding soil over bare spots
- Use your hand to spread grass seed over your bare spots (for you: use Scotts sun & shade mix)
- Now spread grass seed over your entire lawn with a spreader
- Spread Scott's starter fertilizer. It sounds like you have some major weed problems, so if you're willing to spend the extra cash, I would spread Scott's starter fertilizer with crab grass preventer.
- Water your grass and water every day until the grass starts growing in.
- Don't mow until your grass is about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long.
- This should be done now...like this weekend.
2. Spread Scott's Step 2 eight to ten weeks later
3. Spread Scott's Step 3 eight weeks after you spread Step 2
4. Spread Scott's Step 4 eight to ten weeks after you spread Step 3
A few tips:
- You should mow your lawn shorter in spring and fall and longer in summer. There are recommendations based on what type of grass you have that can be found easily online
- Water deeply once a week if no rain. This means 10 minutes per section.
- Don't cut more than 1/3 of your grass at a time. If you go away on vacation and skipped a mow, mow higher, and then a 3 or 4 days later mow again to get back on schedule.
- The time to spread the fertilizers are also printed on the bags, but in general, you wouldn't want to spread them less than 8 weeks apart.
Good luck!
I couldn't disagree with this more. The Scotts program is nothing but a panacea, covering up underlying problems with soil fertility, compaction, pH, etc. On top of that, nearly all chemical fertilizers are salt - the more you use them, the poorer your soil gets. Salting the soil was actually a warfare tactic - people couldn't grow anything in salted soil for years. That's what chemical fertilizers do - the more you use them, the more you HAVE to use them to keep things looking nice, because your soil has gone to sh*t.
If I were you, I would put down ONE broad spectrum weed control this spring to kill what is germinating. I'd probably do that about now - we've got dandelions coming up here in Wisconsin.
Four to six weeks later, I would overseed areas that are thin. You'll want to do a 3-pass method over the area: horizontal, vertical, diagonal.
This year for mowing the lawn, set your mower blades as high as it will go. We keep ours at 3". The higher the grass, the harder time weeds have at getting enough sunlight.
Water ONLY when your grass needs it and then water deeply (at least 1" of water). Frequent watering encourages shallow roots and makes grass more vulnerable to drought, diseases and weeds.
If you do fertilize, use an organic fertilizer in the spring or fall. Fertilizing in the summer only feeds the weeds, since most cool-season grasses go semi-dormant in the summer. Make certain that the fertilizer does NOT contain Phosphorous. Many states have outlawed this chemical as it wreaks all kinds of havock with ground water and marine systems
Other things to consider:
Aerating your lawn - if soil is too compacted it can be difficult for turf grass to grow. If you choose to aerate, fertilize afterward.
Thatching - if the thatch on your lawn (the slightly dead, brown grass just above the soil) is more than 1" thick, consider thatching your lawn to remove some of it. If the thatch gets too thick it can be difficult for nutrients to get thru to your lawn's roots.
Test your soil - Determining pH and nutrient information of your soil can help you target specific problems that lead to weed growth. Certain weeds thrive in certain soil types - for example, clover is a sign of nitrogen-poor soil. Colorado State does soil testing - http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/4DMG/Soil/soiltest.htm
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Also, you asked for links:
http://www.beyondpesticides.org/ (go to Issues->Lawns & Landscapes)
http://www.healthycommunitiesproject.org/
http://www.safelawns.org/
http://www.richsoil.com/lawn-care.jsp
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Scotts is horrible! So many people just follow their "program" because they don't know better. They don't know how damaging the scotts can be to the soil and beneficial bugs because all they see is green grass from all the nitrogen in it.
Also weed AND feed in one product is not very good, it is better to do them separately. I can't remember the exact reason offhand
One book I've liked is http://www.amazon.com/Organic-Lawn-Care-Manual-Low-Maintenance/dp/1580176496
There are pretty good tips in it.
Good luck. I know the feeling of never-ending weeds, we are dealing with crabgrass issues!
This yr we are going to try a corn gluten based pre emergent weed killer to see if that helps.