Now’s the Time to Work on Your Lawn

Taking care of your lawn in early spring is key to having a healthy yard all season long. Best practices for building and maintaining a strong, resilient lawn while optimizing natural resources include core aeration, regular applications of Revive and humates, and top dressing with organic material, mowing at the right height and interval and watering the lawn correctly.  

In this blog, we’ll focus on building a strong foundation for your grass. Subsequent blogs will address mowing and watering guidelines. 

 

While Kentucky Blue grass is the predominate turf grass in our area, many lawns are combinations of blue grass, Perennial Rye grass and Turf Type Tall Fescue. These are considered “cool season” grasses because they thrive in the spring and early summer and in the fall. In the heat of summer, these grasses tend to go dormant; growth slows down and color may fade and there is a tendency to use more water to try and keep the grass looking good. The time to mitigate the effects of summer stress on the lawn is now, when the grass is going into an active growth stage.   

 

Many lawn problems can be traced back to poor soil conditions including compacted, heavy clay content, poor water penetration and shallow root systems. One of the best ways to fix these issues with your lawn is to aerate twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall. Aerating twice a year will begin to break up heavy clay soils, reduce lawn thatch, allow water, air and nutrients to get down to the roots, help build stronger roots and make your lawn more stress resistant. 

Core aeration or “plugging” as it’s often called, uses a machine to extract a plug from your lawn, leaving the remains on top of the grass as it goes. You can leave these cores in place. They will break down over time. If they bother you, rake them up and toss them in the compost pile.  

Core aeration should not be confused with power raking. Sometimes called dethatching, power raking removes the material that builds up on top of the soil. It does nothing to help build the soil your grass is growing in. Power raking can be destructive and should not be employed; aerate instead.  

For small lawns, consider a hand aerator such as this one. It’s a handy tool to have for spot treating chronically compacted areas.  

Once the lawn has been aerated, the next step is to work on improving the soil your grass is growing in. We recommend   a combination of humate, organic material and surfactants applied individually two to three times a year, every season.  

Begin by adding a humate-based soil conditioner. Humates improve soil structure, strengthen utilization of fertilizers and encourage root development.   Bigger roots mean the lawn is under less stress and capable of handling summer heat better. 

 

In addition, top dressing your lawn with Earth Essentials Sheep, Peat and Compost and earth worm castings will add organic material and build soil quality.  

Locally produced Revive acts as a surfactant to improve water penetration and utilization, reduce soil compaction and strengthen nutrient availability.  

These products should be applied individually two to three times a year, starting with ferti•lome HuMic, then Revive, then organic material. Allow ten to fourteen days between each application and be sure to water in each product thoroughly. 

To create the optimal growing conditions, whether it’s the vegetable garden or the lawn, building good soil is a continuous process.  

 

Now’s the Time to Plant Roses

 

Roses are beautiful flowering shrubs, filling the landscape with their stunning color and unique fragrance. Available in a variety of colors, fragrances and repeat flowering or single blooms, there is a rose variety for every garden. 

Provided with the right culture, roses are no more difficult to care for than other flowering shrubs. Start with the basics. Roses need a minimum of six hours of full sun to grow and bloom properly. Roses need a bed of their own, away from trees, shrubs and perennials that compete for sunlight, space and nutrients. Roses need space. They don’t do well when crowded together.   

Roses need well-amended soils to establish strong root systems and achieve vigorous growth and bloom potential. For the best results, use organic material that is produced locally, such as Earth Essentials Sheep, Peat and Compost or Nature’s Yield Compost. These products are formulated to work in our clay soils.  

 

When it comes to roots systems, roses are available in two types: own-root and grafted.  Each type requires a slightly different planting technique. For own-root roses, prepare the planting hole just as deep as the pot and twice as wide. For grafted roses, dig a hole 2” to 3” deeper than the bud union line and twice as wide. This is to allow room to bury the bud union 2” to 3” below the soil line. Once the planting hole is dug, fill it with water and observe how long it takes to drain. If it takes more than five minutes, add more organic material.

Next, add one to two tablespoons of Big Foot Mycorrhiza or Happy Frog Steamed Bone Meal to the planting hole and work it in. The mycorrhizae in these products will encourage strong root development. Remove the rose from its pot, center it in the hole and back fill with amended soil, using enough to create a shallow basin to facilitate watering. Deep water your new roses 2-3 times a week during their first year. 

 

With these factors in mind, selecting a rose bush becomes a question of purpose. Are you looking to augment your current rose collection; start a rose garden; replace a lost or damaged rose bush; add color and fragrance to your garden; build support for local pollinators? There is a rose variety that will fill some, if not all these goals including hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras, climbers, shrubs and even tree roses. 

When we think of roses, it’s the hybrid tea variety that most often comes to mind. Hybrid tea roses represent an amazing pallet of color and fragrance, such as the rose pictured here: Chris Evert.  Depend on hybrid tea roses to bloom consistently throughout the summer season.

Grandiflora roses are very similar to hybrid teas. They tend to be taller and bloom in clusters rather than one rose per stem. Like all roses, grandifloras will attract pollinators. This is Strike it Rich.

Floribunda roses such as Hot Cocoa, are valued for their ability to bloom continuously.

If you want to cover an arbor or trellis, choose a climbing rose. The Fourth of July is an excellent choice.  

Thanks to the knowledge, experience and expertise of The Flower Bin Perennials Manager Billie Jo, all our roses are well-established and, following a brief acclimation period, ready to plant. With their beautiful color and pleasant scent, roses can transform a garden and we’re here to help you make it happen.  

For a list of roses available for this year visit our webpage:   

rose2023.pdf (theflowerbin.net)