Spring Lawn Care
Just wondering if and when I should do a spring lime and ferilizer on my lawn. I'm from Canada, and we had a cold winter with ALOT of snow. We're in zone 5a of plant hardiness.
Oh heck, I hate being vague. I normally provide the information about things I mention so you don't have to ask. Sorry about that.
Here is the [url=https://www.nr.gov.nl.ca/agric/prog_serv/soil_land/pdf/soilpflab.pdf]Soil & Plant Lab[/url] of the Department of Natural Resources. Call them first for a sample kit and sampling instructions.
Here in the US, each state's agricultural university has Cooperative Extension Services in each county, so I don't know if there is a place closer to you or not. If they are not located near you, perhaps ask about that in order to save yourself the postage fees if you can.
I'm doubting you have a "lot" of thatch with a brand new lawn. I more so suspect matted grass that was injured during winter. That can happen if the grass went into winter dormancy without adequate moisture and if it was too long. Try to remember if you watered properly last fall and mowed it to within suggested mowing height for your grass type. If I'm right, you want to gently rake the grass to stand it up so disease does not colonize. Rake gently because the soil is still very moist right now and fragile. If you rake it too hard, you'll pull out the grass. You might wait another week or two before doing this. Your grass may not have fully greened up yet, so a lot of brown that you think is thatch just might be grass still emerging from winter dormancy.
But then I'm afraid you already have disease as indicated by your "slime" description. When you call the Soil & Plant Lab, ask them if they also have a plant pathology lab or where you can take samples for disease testing. Once diagnosed, they will be able to offer steps to remedy.
Here is helpful maintenance information to help prevent disease and desiccation in the future.........
Your lawn needs one inch of water per week (including rainfall) and should be applied all at one time. This is what is referred to as deep but infrequent irrigation. Using tuna cans placed in various places, run the sprinkler to obtain one inch of water in the tuna cans and time it. Run the sprinklers each week for that amount of time in every section to achieve one inch of irrigation all over. One inch will moisten the soil to a depth of 6-8 inches. This encourages the roots to grow deeply. The soil will pull the water downward. The roots will grow down looking for water and nutrients. Each week, be sure to take rainfall into consideration.
Irrigation should be modified during the hot periods of summer, particularly during heat waves. To relieve heat stress and prevent drought stress, water the lawn more frequently. Divide the weekly irrigation schedule in half to provide water twice a week for half the amount o f time. If it normally takes one hour to provide an inch of water, then irrigate twice a week for half an hour during the hot weeks of summer. Divide irrigation schedule into thirds during heat waves. Again, if it normally takes one hour to provide one inch of moisture, irrigate three times a week for 20 minutes.
Always mow high at 3 inches or higher on a regular basis. Mowing high permits proper photosynthesis. That means the grass needs sunlight to grow. The shorter the blades of grass, the more you impede the photosynthesis process. Photosynthesis takes place at just about the middle of the grass blade. Ever notice the grass is yellowish closest to the soil? The reason is that as the grass utilizes sunlight to manufacture its own food, chlorophyll is produced to give the grass its green color. It is very important to remember you should never remove more than one third of the grass blade at a time or you shut down the food factory, which causes stress. You may wish to mow once a week or 2-3 times a week, depending on how fast the grass grows. Either is fine just so long as no more than one third is cut off at once.
Infrequent deep watering and frequently mowing high are the two crucial points of lawn care. Anything else you do is secondary to these cultural practices. Proper watering and proper mowing are what encourage a healthy growing environment for a lush green lawn that is able to crowd out weeds.
Here is the [url=https://www.nr.gov.nl.ca/agric/prog_serv/soil_land/pdf/soilpflab.pdf]Soil & Plant Lab[/url] of the Department of Natural Resources. Call them first for a sample kit and sampling instructions.
Here in the US, each state's agricultural university has Cooperative Extension Services in each county, so I don't know if there is a place closer to you or not. If they are not located near you, perhaps ask about that in order to save yourself the postage fees if you can.
I'm doubting you have a "lot" of thatch with a brand new lawn. I more so suspect matted grass that was injured during winter. That can happen if the grass went into winter dormancy without adequate moisture and if it was too long. Try to remember if you watered properly last fall and mowed it to within suggested mowing height for your grass type. If I'm right, you want to gently rake the grass to stand it up so disease does not colonize. Rake gently because the soil is still very moist right now and fragile. If you rake it too hard, you'll pull out the grass. You might wait another week or two before doing this. Your grass may not have fully greened up yet, so a lot of brown that you think is thatch just might be grass still emerging from winter dormancy.
But then I'm afraid you already have disease as indicated by your "slime" description. When you call the Soil & Plant Lab, ask them if they also have a plant pathology lab or where you can take samples for disease testing. Once diagnosed, they will be able to offer steps to remedy.
Here is helpful maintenance information to help prevent disease and desiccation in the future.........
Your lawn needs one inch of water per week (including rainfall) and should be applied all at one time. This is what is referred to as deep but infrequent irrigation. Using tuna cans placed in various places, run the sprinkler to obtain one inch of water in the tuna cans and time it. Run the sprinklers each week for that amount of time in every section to achieve one inch of irrigation all over. One inch will moisten the soil to a depth of 6-8 inches. This encourages the roots to grow deeply. The soil will pull the water downward. The roots will grow down looking for water and nutrients. Each week, be sure to take rainfall into consideration.
Irrigation should be modified during the hot periods of summer, particularly during heat waves. To relieve heat stress and prevent drought stress, water the lawn more frequently. Divide the weekly irrigation schedule in half to provide water twice a week for half the amount o f time. If it normally takes one hour to provide an inch of water, then irrigate twice a week for half an hour during the hot weeks of summer. Divide irrigation schedule into thirds during heat waves. Again, if it normally takes one hour to provide one inch of moisture, irrigate three times a week for 20 minutes.
Always mow high at 3 inches or higher on a regular basis. Mowing high permits proper photosynthesis. That means the grass needs sunlight to grow. The shorter the blades of grass, the more you impede the photosynthesis process. Photosynthesis takes place at just about the middle of the grass blade. Ever notice the grass is yellowish closest to the soil? The reason is that as the grass utilizes sunlight to manufacture its own food, chlorophyll is produced to give the grass its green color. It is very important to remember you should never remove more than one third of the grass blade at a time or you shut down the food factory, which causes stress. You may wish to mow once a week or 2-3 times a week, depending on how fast the grass grows. Either is fine just so long as no more than one third is cut off at once.
Infrequent deep watering and frequently mowing high are the two crucial points of lawn care. Anything else you do is secondary to these cultural practices. Proper watering and proper mowing are what encourage a healthy growing environment for a lush green lawn that is able to crowd out weeds.
Last edited by Bestlawn on Wed Apr 08, 2009 12:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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The Helpful Gardener
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If you do organic lawncare you can skip the thatching part as thatch becomes lawn food ni the organic model. The other reason this is good is that you don't disturb the soil surface, uncovering weed seeds which can lay dormant for years under thatch (crabgrass can stay viable up to six feet down for a century). They get started now right with your grass then they are ready to kick its butt when the summer heat turns on...
Overwatering can sometimes lead to slime molds which are certainly slimy, but certainly not a mold. One of the original (if not the original) forms of life, these are sapprophitic (only feed on dead material) but can be unsightly and smelly and REALLY hard to get rid of (Whenever you get a creature as old as life on earth, you got a toughy on your hands...raking across slime mold would spread it. Images would be helpful here...
HG
Overwatering can sometimes lead to slime molds which are certainly slimy, but certainly not a mold. One of the original (if not the original) forms of life, these are sapprophitic (only feed on dead material) but can be unsightly and smelly and REALLY hard to get rid of (Whenever you get a creature as old as life on earth, you got a toughy on your hands...raking across slime mold would spread it. Images would be helpful here...
HG