Lawns Require Late-Winter, Early-Spring Care

Press Release -- Although our lawns are still dormant this month, you can begin to plan your strategy to have an attractive, healthy lawn this summer. Because the grass is still dormant, most lawns look relatively bad now, so dont judge yours too harshly at this point.

You should go ahead and identify areas where grass has died out completely and only bare soil remains. These areas will have to be repaired in April or May. Otherwise, wait until late April or May to evaluate your lawn and make final decisions on any repair work that may be needed.

Lawn thinning can be caused by several common problems, including insects and diseases, heavy traffic, poor soil fertility and too much shade. Poor maintenance, such as improper mowing and watering, also can be a factor.

One or more of these problems may be affecting your lawn, and the cause may stretch back well into the past.

Winter weather does not stop the lush growth of winter weeds in lawns. Most annual cool-season weeds will not cause significant damage to a healthy lawn, so control is generally not critical.

I would, however, recommend that you mow your lawn now and occasionally hereafter to keep any cool-season weeds from flowering and setting seed. This will reduce annual cool-season weed problems next year.

You may apply a lawn weed killer now if you choose to. Control with herbicides is more important for cool-season perennial weeds, such as dollarweed and clover.

A number of commercial lawn weed killers are available to control a wide variety of weeds. Make sure you choose one that is labeled safe to use on the type of grass you have.

You should know what kind of weeds are growing in your lawn you might take some to the nursery for identification so you can check the herbicide label to make sure the product will control them. Follow label directions carefully to avoid damaging the turf or landscape plants. Two applications generally provide the best control.

Whatever weed killer you choose, do not use a weed and feed. It is too early now to fertilize your lawn, and it will still be too early in March when lawns begin to green up. Research shows that turfgrass does better if you wait until early to mid-April to make the first application of fertilizer. If you have a weed problem that you need to deal with now, use a weed killer without fertilizer in it.

Read more from the original source:
Lawns Require Late-Winter, Early-Spring Care