Lawn Care Tips

We have hired a couple of local Flickers for our lawn care needs. I photographed the fellow while he was hard at work in our back yard. The gal was is our front yard last evening. We are waiting for them to bill us (pun intended).

Aereation
If your lawn soil is compacted, your lawn might not be getting the air it needs to thrive. Lawn aeration attends to this problem, pulling up plugs of soil and allowing water and nutrients to reach the roots of your grass.


Lawn aeration strengthens the roots, and strong roots equal a lush, green lawn. Aerating once or twice a year will generally do. With a lawn aerator, lawn aeration can be an easy do-it-yourself project, but any good lawn care provider can aerate for you as well.

Aerate the highest traffic parts of your lawn most frequently. Heavy foot traffic can make soil practically impermeable, and lawn aeration can go a long way to solving high-traffic-area problems like slow growth and low resistance to wear and tear.

Lawn Grubs
Some lawn areas are more attractive to June bugs laying eggs. More eggs are deposited at night in warm soil areas such as next to sidewalks and driveways and often near outside lights. Open areas free of trees and shrubs are preferred and moist soil is favored over dry soil. This year egg laying is likely to be concentrated in watered lawns since most unirrigated lawn areas are dry. The ultimate irony - in most years highly managed turfs are more likely to get hit with grubs.

Grubs are the immature stages of some beetles. In our area the highest populations are annual white grubs. Grubs are whitish, "c" shaped and wormlike. The adult is the tan 3/4 inch June beetle.

Damage will usually occur in August through October. Grubs feed on grass roots until the grass dries out and dies. The turf can easily be pulled back like a carpet. Turf can survive some feeding. Less heavily watered turf should be scouted for grubs in early August. Peel back the grass. Just a couple grubs per square foot are not a problem to an otherwise healthy lawn. Ten or more per square foot are necessary to justify treatment.

Home gardeners have some options for grub control: Don't water during July and August. If the weather is hot and dry, cool season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass will go dormant. If a few grubs are detected, water and fertilize appropriately so turf can recover from some feeding then reseed or resod areas damaged.