timely tips from Don
Fall Tips
Cool Season Grass, Fescue, Rye & Bluegrass If you seeded last fall and your seed germinated, you may have weeds that also germinated last fall and now is a great time to control them with Fertilome’s Weed Free Zone. WFZ is a special blend of broadleaf weed killers that work at lower temperatures than most weed killers so you spray now before the weeds start accelerated growth. WFZ works at temperatures as low as 45 degrees. If you did not seed in the fall or if the dry weather gave you less than satisfactory results, now is an excellent time to seed. The seed needs to be able to reach the soil surface, so a general clean up is a must. You can take advantage of Mother Nature’s help, the freezing and thawing of the soil and plenty of soil moisture will help presoak the seed so that when the soil warms the seed will germinate quickly. Lawn fertilizing can be done at this time of year to help get the grass started in the right direction. If you used winterizer fertilizer in the fall more that once you may not need to fertilize this early. If you didn’t fertilize at all in the fall or if you’re sowing seed you may want to use a good starter fertilizer. You want to be careful if you have a fescue lawn to make sure that you don’t use too much nitrogen because that can cause a fungus and do more harm than good. Crabgrass and weed prevention is applied in mid to late March depending on the weather. Pre-emergent works as the name implies before the seeds germinate, so if you already have weeds present the product won’t help. Pre-emergent products work by setting a barrier in the top inch of soil that kills germinating seeds both weed seed and grass seed, that’s why you can’t so seed and prevent at the same time. There are two types of crabgrass that we have in St. Louis, one that germinates around Mother’s Day and one that germinates around 4th of July so it makes sense to use to applications of preventer one in March and the other in late May to early June. If your crabgrass problem is more the late one you can still seed now and after the grass is up and cut a couple of times you can them put down you pre-emergent and still get the results that you are looking for. Warm Season Grass, Zoysia & Bermuda You really don’t need to do anything to warm season grasses at this time. In late March weather permitting a good raking and short mowing will help bring it out of dormancy, but resist the temptation to do too much until the lawn has greened up on it’s own before you fertilize and dethatching or aerating shouldn’t be done until May or June.
October
Your Plants Need Water Now to Protect Them From Winter Damage!
Now that it's fall, watering your trees and shrubs is probably not high on your priority list! But after this hot and dry summer and equally dry fall, your plants need your help! Since rainy days have been few and far between, you need to step in and start watering. We have had people concerned that their plants are looking dull and their evergreens are dropping lots of interior needles and leaves. This is because they are dry and dropping two or three years worth of needles; evergreens always loose a years worth of needles or leaves every fall.
The reason for concern is that if we have a similar winter as last year, your trees and shrubs could be damaged or even die! Plants need to go into winter thoroughly hydrated to help them survive the winter. Plants that go though winter already dry will have problems with leaf scorch, winter burn and even tip and branch die back. Plants that go into winter with good moisture content will resist this kind of damage.
There are a number of other ways to help protect your plants other than just watering, but everything works better when the plants are well watered. Anti-Stress 2000 is a spray for your broadleaf evergreens. It works by helping to seal moisture into the leaves, stems and buds. You apply Anti-Stress 2000 in November when the temperature is above freezing and will stay above freezing for 24 hours; repeat in January or February if we have a warm spell. Mulching is also important for winter survival of landscape plants, but timing is important. You want the soil to start to cool down before you mulch. Mulching for winter protection is best done in late November or early December after 1 or 2 hard freezes. By then, the plants will be dormant and the ground will have started cooling down, The mulch will help keep the soil cool and will be doing the freezing and thawing, not the soil around the roots which can cause damage.
Remember that it's your job to cover for mother nature, if she's not going to provide rain, you need to water and continue to water until we have consistent freezing weather.
