Essential Spring Lawn Care
Essential Spring Lawn Care for a Beautiful Summer Garden
As winter turns into spring, maintenance of your lawn and garden will steadily increase. The plants in your garden are striving to grow, so it's an important time to pay attention to spring lawn care, flower beds, shrubs, and trees.
Now is the time to make sure that what you want to grow is growing and the pests and weeds that you want to avoid are being gotten rid of before they start. Here's what we will do for your landscape in the months of April, May, and June:
Spring Lawn Care Tips for April Through June
April
Ornamental Treatment
Many of your ornamental trees are coming out of dormancy. That means that it's time to stop treating with dormant oil and begin fertilizing in preparation for spring growth. Deep fertilization early in the spring gives trees fuel to shoot out new growth.
This is especially important for flowering ornamentals that you want to look their best, such as roses. It's best to use a slow-release fertilizer that will keep providing nutrients as growth continues into the summer.
Lawn Treatment
It’s time to begin spring lawn preparation to prevent weeds and to encourage vigorous growth. Treating with both a fertilizer and a weed killer enables your grass to have a strong head start to outcompete weeds. There's nothing like seeing the first burst of new green grass growth in the spring, so you want to set your lawn up for success with a lawn treatment now.
Lawn Renovation
As your lawn begins to reveal itself from under the winter snows, you may realize that it needs more than standard spring lawn care treatment. Americans tend to be very hard on their lawns. Not only do lawns have to endure freezing winter temperatures and scorching summer heat, but they also take a lot of abuse in the form of foot traffic and often pet waste.
It may be best to do some deeper treatment of your lawn every few years to keep it looking its best. Here are a couple of spring lawn care tips to bring life back into your spring lawn.
- Slit seeding. Seed scattered over the top of the grass can have a hard time getting its roots into the soil past established sod. Furthermore, all of that seed laid over the surface of the grass is extremely attractive to birds. With slit seeding, we make very thin slices into the soil that won't hurt your existing lawn but provide a good starting place for new seeds.
- Core aeration. Lawns become compressed because of foot traffic and the weight of winter snow and ice. Grass also tends to become compressed as it grows together and forms a thick mat. Core aeration is an essential part of spring lawn preparation because it breaks breathing holes into the surface of the lawn to give roots oxygen.
Pine Fungicide Application
Pine trees are vulnerable to a number of fungus infections that tend to take off in the spring. These fungal infections may sit dormant through the winter and attack as soon as the weather gets warmer.
This fungus can weaken branches or entire trees, causing them to collapse. A fungicide treatment in April will keep your pine trees free from disease as the summer heat comes on.
Elm Bark Beetle Sprays
Native elm bark beetles may not do much damage to trees all by themselves, but they can transmit Dutch Elm Disease, which can do a lot of damage to Elm trees. Therefore, It is a good idea to treat for elm bark beetles in the spring as they are emerging.
Spring Root Fertilization
Whatever you want to grow this spring, it's a good idea to get in a deep fertilization as spring comes on. Great fertilization makes all the difference in giving you a beautiful, lush garden no matter what you want to grow.
Turn on Irrigation
Throughout the winter, your plants probably have not needed very much supplemental watering. However, as snow melts and the days get warmer, plant irrigation needs will increase. So as to avoid depriving your plants of thorough watering at this crucial time, this is a good point at which to turn on an irrigation system.
Weekly Maintenance Begins
In the last week of April, it will be time to begin a weekly spring lawn care schedule and maintenance of your landscape. From now until plants go dormant again in the winter, there will be all kinds of debris, trimming, mowing, and other tasks that should be performed to keep your property looking its best.
May
In May, a number of the treatments that we began in April will be continued:
- Ornamental treatment
- Lawn care application
- Pine fungicide application
There are some new things that we will also begin in May:
Ground Cover Application
Ground covers can often be a bit low slower to get started in the spring than grass, so it's a good idea to wait until now to apply fertilizer and weed killers. Since ground covers are tyically better at competing with weeds than lawns, it isn't as important to treat early and better to wait a little bit to avoid burning ground cover roots.
However, by now, weeds may start to try to compete with ground covers. Groundcovers typically don't need much fertilization, but it's a good idea to give them a good fertilization in the spring to spur new growth.
Magnolia Scale Program Application
Magnolia trees are generally quite robust, but there are a few things that can quickly do serious damage. Magnolia scale robs the tree of its sap, which it requires for sustenance. Furthermore, it releases a waste product known as honeydew, which can make a tremendous sticky mess anywhere it drops.
Places where honeydew is often dropped develop a disgusting condition known as scooty mold. Treatment of Magnolia scale in the spring is essential to keep this pest from getting a hold and doing damage to your beautiful magnolia trees.
Foliar Treatment
Now that most of your plants are developing strong, mature leaves, it is time to consider foliar fertilization. Foliar fertilization fertilizes plants directly to their leaves, which can provide more rapid fertilization and beautiful vegetative growth that can't be achieved with root fertilization alone.
Around now, leaves will be big enough and plants will be growing robustly enough for this fertilization treatment to be appropriate.
Chlorosis Treatment
Chlorosis is when leaves yellow because they are not getting enough chlorophyll. All kinds of things can cause chlorosis, but wherever chlorosis is present, it is clear that plants need care.
Poor drainage, compacted roots, alkaline soil, damage to the roots, and nutrient deficiencies may all result in chlorosis. We will determine how to treat the discoloration and make your plants beautiful and green again.
Deer Repellent and Mosquito Application
Spring often brings a resurgence of pests. Mosquito repellent prevents mosquitoes from beginning their life cycle on your property, which will reduce the number of mosquitoes you have all year.
While deer may be a lot more charming than mosquitos, they can do an incredible amount of damage to your garden in a short amount of time. Deer repellent keeps deer from making your ornamentals into lunch.
Install Summer Annuals
In late May, it will be time to put in some of the gorgeous summer annuals that you've been looking forward to all winter, so make sure that you start thinking about what you want to plant or ask us about our recommendations for annuals for your specific environment.
June
As we move into summer, we will continue many of the things we've been doing throughout spring:
- Ornamental treatments
- Lawn applications
- Pine fungicide
- Foliar treatment
- Annual plantings
- Application of dear and mosquito repellents.
We will also do some important new maintenance this month:
Grub Applications
As summer takes hold, grubs begin to burrow under your lawn and plants. This is the time to apply a grub application treatment to get rid of them before they can damage your lawn or garden. Grubs can do a lot of damage before their presence becomes visible on the surface, so it's important to take an offensive against them early.
Mite Treatment Program
All kinds of mites can wreak havoc on your garden as the days get warmer. Mite infestations can be hard to get control of once they have had time to get started, so you want to begin your mite treatment program now, before they really get going in the summer.
Maintenance Pruning
By June, some of your trees and shrubs will be grown out enough to require shaping, so this is a good time to begin maintenance pruning. While very large cuts shouldn’t be made while the sap is running in the summer, more minor trimming is appropriate.
Get Started with Spring Lawn Care Services
If you want to get the most from your lawn and garden this summer, contact Kinnucan Tree Experts & Landscape Company to plan a spring lawn care schedule. We can take care of everything to have your landscape looking its best.