How to Make Every Drop Matter

In Colorado, water is a precious resource that cannot be taken for granted. Even during favorable years, gardeners contend with compacted, nutrient-poor soils, dry air, and unpredictable weather that can shift rapidly from snowstorms to temperatures reaching 90 degrees within a week. Because of these challenges, the most successful gardeners, the ones who consistently achieve healthy, thriving landscapes, understand that proactive water management is essential. They do not wait for drought conditions to force a change in habits; instead, they consistently prioritize water stewardship and thoughtful gardening practices throughout the year. 

It’s not about using less water for the sake of restriction. It’s about using water intentionally, in ways that support healthier soil, deeper roots, and plants that are better equipped to handle whatever the season throws at them. When you build your garden around this idea, you’re not just conserving water — you’re creating a landscape that’s more resilient, more productive, and easier to care for.  

From lawns to roses, from perennial borders to vegetable beds, the goal is the same: Help the soil absorb water efficiently, hold it longer, and deliver it where roots can use it.  

That’s where tools like ferti•lome brand Humic and Revive® come in. They’re not gimmicks — they’re part of a soil‑first strategy that helps every gallon go further. 

 

Using Humate + Revive® to Optimize Lawn Watering in a Dry Year  

Humate is essentially carbon‑rich organic matter in a concentrated form. Humate improves soil structure by aggregating fine particles → better infiltration, less runoff. Increases water‑holding capacity. Humate stimulates root elongation and fine root development and helps turf recover from drought stress faster.  Humate makes the soil act like it has more organic matter than it does, which is gold in a low‑water year.  Granular humate is available in ferti•lome Humic. 

Revive® is a wetting agent. Revive® breaks surface tension, so water penetrates instead of beading up.  Revive® improves lateral water movement, so irrigation spreads evenly. Bottom line: Revive helps the water you do apply get into the root zone.  

How They Work Together. Revive® gets water into the soil.  Humate helps the soil hold onto that water and use it more efficiently.    

 

What to do now. Aerate your lawn and apply humate to prime the soil for the season. Follow up with an application of granular Revive®. 

At mid‑season, reapply humate to maintain soil carbon and water‑holding capacity. Follow with an application of Revive®. Repeat these steps in September.  

For established roses, perennials use liquid humate followed by an application of endomycorrhizae.   

The mycorrhizae will penetrate the plant’s root system and help the plant take up nutrients and water.

Milky Spore and the beetle battle

 

Along the front range, Japanese Beetles are well established. If you are looking for an organic solution for Japanese beetle, start by controlling the Japanese beetle grubs that are in your lawn and garden.   

Milky Spore is a naturally occurring bacterium (Paenibacillus popilliae) used as a biological control to kill Japanese beetle grubs in lawns and gardens. It is highly specific, meaning it only targets Japanese beetle larvae and does not harm humans, pets, beneficial insects, or other wildlife.   

Milky Spore is designed to target and eliminate Japanese beetle grubs in the soil. This biological control method will not affect other common lawn grub species, such as masked chafers, or May/June beetle larvae. The key to Milky Spore effectiveness is to identify the grub you find in your lawn or garden.   

Japanese beetle grubs feature a brown head, 6 legs and V-shaped rear end spines. Other white grubs have orange or grayish heads, 6 legs, and a round/bloated rear end.  

If you’re unsure, bring us a sample of the grubs present in your lawn and we’ll identify it. 

If the grub damage in your lawn is caused by species other than Japanese beetles, Milky Spore will not provide effective control. This trait ensures safety for other beneficial soil insects but also limits the product’s utility to areas where Japanese beetle larvae are present in sufficient numbers.  

If grub populations are too low, the spread of Milky Spore will be limited, and overall effectiveness may be reduced. Therefore, applying Milky Spore is most effective in areas where Japanese beetle larvae are present in significant numbers, ensuring that the bacteria can propagate and provide long-term control. It will work on small populations but will need to be applied seasonally. 

 

Milky Spore is applied three times a year - spring, summer and fall. Once the soil temperature warms —ideally between 60°F and 70°F— the spores activate. 

Japanese beetle grubs ingest the spores while feeding on grass roots. Once ingested, the bacteria multiply rapidly inside the grub, causing the grub’s hemolymph (insect blood) from clear to milky white that kills within 7 to 21 days.  

As the infected grub decomposes, it releases billions of new spores back into the soil, naturally spreading the treatment. In areas with large Japanese beetle grubs, the spore can become self-sustaining. 

 

Milky Spore treatment focuses primarily on lawns because turfgrass serves as the main breeding ground for Japanese beetles. The dense root systems found in grass provide an ideal food source for grubs, making turf grass the area where the beetle population is typically greatest. As a result, treating your lawn directly addresses most Japanese beetle grubs living locally. 

However, it is important to note that Japanese beetle grubs are not limited to lawns alone. If you discover grubs while digging in your garden beds, applying Milky Spore to these areas can be just as effective as treating your turf. By extending treatment to garden beds as well as the soil around roses, peonies and other ornamentals, you can effectively reduce the overall Japanese beetle population on your property. 

Along with Milky Spore, it is important to strengthen lawn vigor with proper watering, mowing, fertilization and aeration; a healthy turf tolerates moderate grub feeding.