Lawn treatment advice

[OneStaple]

In the "Insect Control Tip" thread, there were some comments about anything you get at a borg is essentially worthless for killing both insects and weeds. I've tried for multiple years to be good about putting stuff down on my lawn to reduce weeds and fertilize the lawn, but have been rather disappointed with the results from the products from the big box stores that I'm using. If there are alternate suggestions on products/sources, I'd love to hear them!

My lawn is currently mediocre and passable, but certainly not great. Someone gifted me a year of TruGreen lawn care service last year, which made things much nicer, but I'm not looking to pay that much money. I put down a pre-emergent this year, and I swear it's like I did nothing at all.

If there are good resources to be reading, feel free to point me in the right direction.

Thanks,
Tyler

[MarkSingleton]

Go talk to a good local nursery/garden shop. They will know what works
best in your area, for your conditions.

[packerguy®]

In the "Insect Control Tip" thread, there were some comments about anything you get at a borg is essentially worthless for killing both insects and weeds.  I've tried for multiple years to be good about putting stuff down on my lawn to reduce weeds and fertilize the lawn, but have been rather disappointed with the results from the products from the big box stores that I'm using.  If there are alternate suggestions on products/sources, I'd love to hear them!

My lawn is currently mediocre and passable, but certainly not great.  Someone gifted me a year of TruGreen lawn care service last year, which made things much nicer, but I'm not looking to pay that much money.  I put down a pre-emergent this year, and I swear it's like I did nothing at all.

If there are good resources to be reading, feel free to point me in the right direction.

Thanks,
Tyler

Lawns are a ton of work getting them to a good place, then easy after that. 

When we moved in our lawn was junk. 75% weeds. Lots of bare spots. Thin elsewhere. 

In three years its pretty good. 

For an average summer now....before the ground temp is 50F....put down the crabgrass preventer (all I use is scotts) This year was a bit late...Last week in April (normally its in the first week or so of the month) ill use lawn food 5 weeks after that treatment and 5 weeks after that as long as its not between June 15-July 30, I never fertilize in the middle of summer. During that time (mid summer) ill spray the weed-b-gone concentrate on the lawn. Starting in mid august another lawn food application. I dont use the summer guard stuff they have. First week of Sept ill overseed so everything germinates before leaves fall. Put down winterizer in mid/late october. 

The first two years I did weed b gone twice, once in may, once in july. I dont over water.....about an inch a week, inch and a half in July (i put cans out when watering)

What I have found is killing the weeds, then overseeing to fill where the weeds were systematically, works great. Its not an overnight thing, it takes time. When the lawn gets full, when an occasional weed pops up I spot spray it or just pull it out. Right now, I literally had less than 3 weeds in my entire lawn when I mowed. 

My maintenance is yearly now is a bag of crabgrass preventer, three bags of lawn food, bad of winterizer, the concentrate hose weed b gone, and seed.

As far as bugs, ants have been my only issue and sevin duster cans on the spots worked well. I have broadcast sevin and in the past used the bayer stuff, in the fall to kill grubs and japaneese bettle larve

[daddo]

The "weed and feed" products should be taken off the shelves. The times to fertilize are not the times to weed here.

Find each weeds pre-emergent times. Follow the directions exactly.

[atgcpaul]

Check out the Lawn Care Nut on YouTube.  When I started watching him, he lived in Indiana so his climate was closer to mine when I lived in the DC area and his tips were more applicable.  He was growing tall fescue which is what I had.

He now lives in Florida and I think his lawn is Saint Augustine or Bermuda.  He still talks about cool season grasses on occasion, but his more recent stuff (past 2 years) is more about southern lawns.

Anyway, he has a year long lawn program video series that is worth checking out.  And yeah, he agrees the home center weed and feed is fairly worthless.  It's better to spend your money on separate fertilizers (he's a big proponent of Milorganite which I really like, too) and the right weed killer applied at the right time, for the right weeds, and at the right amount.

I always mistimed my pre-emergent application with the weird springs we had in DC, but Tenacity herbicide works as a great post-emergent.  The one weed I could not keep under control was creeping charlie.  Just when I thought I had it in retreat, it would come back.  I raised the white flag on that one.

Paul

[CLETUS]

2-4,D for weeds, malathion for bugs

[Jack in omaha]

In the "Insect Control Tip" thread, there were some comments about anything you get at a borg is essentially worthless for killing both insects and weeds.  I've tried for multiple years to be good about putting stuff down on my lawn to reduce weeds and fertilize the lawn, but have been rather disappointed with the results from the products from the big box stores that I'm using.  If there are alternate suggestions on products/sources, I'd love to hear them!

My lawn is currently mediocre and passable, but certainly not great.  Someone gifted me a year of TruGreen lawn care service last year, which made things much nicer, but I'm not looking to pay that much money.  I put down a pre-emergent this year, and I swear it's like I did nothing at all.

If there are good resources to be reading, feel free to point me in the right direction.

Thanks,
Tyler

I have used weed b gone to spray the entire lawn and plant bluegrass then spot kill the weeds with the gallon jars of weed b gone

[joe1086]

Nice healthy, thick lawns helps prevent weeds. Do what you have to now, but consider nuking the whole thing in the fall and starting over. Kill all the grass and all the weeds at the same time and reseed. Sounds drastic, but when your lawn is "so-so" it's actually harder to get it to where you'd like it to be than just starting over. A gallon of concentrated glycosphate will kill it all and then some...and you can be seeding two or three weeks later. Timing is everything, here in Maryland we'd torch it in late August and reseed in early September. By November it's been cut quite a few times and ready for winter.

[Robert Adams]

Allot depends on where you are because grass types vary allot. In the nicer weather parts of the country(north) you have access to more types of grasses than us in the miserable summer areas. 

         Cool season grasses generally can be seeded. For warm areas you are really stuck with grasses that are only available as sod. The warm grasses in seed form are not the better varieties. And if you need St Augustine (aka crabgrass) you cant even buy seed and it grows very slowly so sod is the only way and many of the other grasses will not grow from seed at all as they can only spread from existing plants.

     What I have found is start with a good soil test. I had a link to a commercial one that had fair prices and pretty complete testing but my tablet died... Some states you can have it tested at an AG extension office. Here in TX we have no such thing the only option is to send it to A&M in college station. Good facility but their prices were much higher than the commercial tester I had found.

      After that take that info to someone that can interpret it and tell you what you need for the grass you want to grow and hopefully they can also advise on grass types for you.


        I have lots of issues here. Sandy w silt soil and areas that are full sun to areas that are full shade so it has to be a mix everywhere and nothing grows well. The sand requires lots of water and lots of fertilizer and the oak leaves screw up the PH over time as well. I really need to kill off the existing grass till it up and add in a couple inches of compost to get some organic material in the soil for nutrients and water holding.

[EricU]

if they had something that would keep my dogs from eating dirt, that would definitely make it so I had fewer bare spots.  The dogs don't eat weeds, but I'm afraid to spray because they love to eat grass.  I swear I have three miniature cows.