Weeds!

When it comes to their lawns, our customers are primarily concerned with two things, color and weeds. Weeds are obvious. You have them or you don’t. You have a lot or a few. It’s pretty clear. Color is a more difficult discussion, and we’ll save that for a separate post. First, lets tackle weeds. Strong, thick turf is best defense against any weed. Weeds are most likely to pop up where the turf is thin or short. Therefore, we recommend a long lawn instead of a short lawn; your lawn is healthier at 4” than 2”. So while you might favor the look of a golf course fairway, the short turf does not help the fight weeds. Also, weeds are prone to pop up along freshly edged walks and driveways, so while a neatly edged walkway is attractive, the freshly exposed soil is prime territory for weeds. But what if you whole lawn is thin? We suggest aeration and seeding – reducing soil compaction and adding new life into your root system. This builds the health of your lawn, and chokes out pesky weeds before they have a chance to grow. Herbicides are only effective when the temperatures are warmer, say, when daytime temps are between 75° - 85°, so early spring isn’t always the best time to begin fighting weeds. The best time to fight weeds is actually the season before. So if you have weeds now, it’s best to let us treat them all season and into the fall – then your lawn will be better armed to fight them the next season.  So that means that fighting weeds is an on-going proposition. Weeds just don’t stay away, that’s why we include a weed control product with 6 of our 7 applications. (We actually do not apply a herbicide with our first, early spring, application, because it just doesn’t help. Plus, it would hinder any attempt to overseed your lawn.) The two most common weeds are crabgrass and dandelions. Both are persistent and challenging, but if we continue to treat them, they will go away. And while they are unsightly, it will take a little time for our treatments to work. Even under ideal conditions, herbicides take several days to fully penetrate the root system and begin to kill the weed. And for some lawns it takes a few treatments to kill all the weeds. In the end, we want your lawn to be the picture of health. If you have weeds now, don’t worry we’ll get them, we just need the weather to cooperate first. In the mean time, if you have any questions, please give us a call.