Summer Lawn Care and Gardening Essentials
Summer Lawn Care in July & August
You are surely enjoying the longer days, warmer temperatures, and the opportunity to spend time outside enjoying your lawn and garden in summer. However, summer lawn care and gardening are especially important. Your garden may need more maintenance during the summer than at other times of the year. Here's what you need to know about what yard maintenance and summer lawn care are required during the months of July and August.
July Summer Lawn Care
Mosquito Treatment
By July, the mosquitoes will really be getting intense. Just because your yard has been treated in previous summer months does not mean that you can skip mosquito treatment this month. Mosquitoes can easily come into your yard from surrounding areas.
If you live near ponds, bogs or anywhere that water may collect, it won't take long for mosquitoes to find their way into your yard. Therefore, it is essential that your yard is treated every month during summer to keep mosquitoes at bay.
Mite Treatment
Mites are tiny garden pests, but they can cause significant problems for your yard. They are especially damaging to your lawn, which makes mite control an essential part of summer lawn care.
There are a number of different kinds of mites, but all of them can cause serious damage. Mites may even make their way indoors to shed and lay eggs. Mites tend to attack your yard most when it is dry, so regular watering can be an important deterrent to these pests, but it isn't sufficient to prevent them. We are skilled at recognizing what type of mites may be affecting your yard and using the proper treatment to destroy them.
Deer Deterrent
It may be nice to see a deer at the perimeter of your yard every so often, but you are likely to find them much less charming when they are trampling your garden beds and munching at your vegetable and flower gardens. Since deer are superb jumpers, the average garden fence will do little to keep them out.
Regular spraying with a deer deterrent is the best way to prevent deer from damaging your yard. Even if you haven't had trouble with deer so far, as the days get hotter and the tender growth of spring becomes more sparse, deer may be more problematic for you.
Lawn Fungicide
No matter how well you take care of your lawn, fungi may cause problems for you. As the days get hotter and your lawn is under more stress, attacks by fungi become even more likely.
Once a fungus has become established in your yard, it can be very difficult to eliminate, so it is best to regularly apply fungicide to prevent problems before they begin. Different types of fungicide are required depending on what kind of fungus is growing in your yard. We can identify which fungi may be detrimental and apply the proper fungicide to control it.
Ground Cover Applications
Ground covers are a great way to reduce the amount of water and mowing required to keep your garden looking its best, but ground covers are not without the need for care. Ground cover applications can prevent weeds from growing up through the ground cover and will also fertilize ground cover so that it grows strong and lush.
Arbortect Injections for Elms
Elms are lovely trees common in our area, but Dutch Elm Disease is wreaking havoc on these beautiful trees. We can prevent problems before they begin by applying arbortect injections.
This fungicide is highly effective at preventing Dutch elm disease and will not damage the tree at all. Without it, you risk your trees being infected. This disease is much harder to treat once it has become established than it is to prevent, so it is best to be ahead of it with these injections.
Maintenance Pruning
Your trees and shrubs are growing quickly in the warm months of July, so it is very important to keep up on maintenance pruning. Without regular pruning, trees and shrubs can become unsightly, grow into inappropriate spaces, or even develop long branches that may fall under the weight of winter snow and become a threat to your home, yard, and family.
While we can certainly perform a heavier prune in the fall and winter to eliminate potentially dangerous branches, it is much better for the health and the aesthetics of the tree to remove problem branches along and along. Regular pruning will also help to maintain the shape of trees and shrubs so that they'll look their best all summer long.
August Summer Lawn Care
Continue with Deer Repellent and Mosquito Repellent
Both deer and mosquitoes are likely to only get more intense in August, so it is important to continue with repellent protocols. The heat and rain mean that mosquitoes reproduce rapidly while drying up greenery means that deer are more likely to be attracted to your lawn than at other times.
Lawn Care Application
Your lawn takes much more wear during this summer, which can make it harder for it to grow well. By August, there will have been several months of warm weather for disease, pests, and weeds to grow into your lawn, so a lawn application to keep pests and problems at bay is even more important this month than at other times.
You want to make sure your lawn has an opportunity to grow deep, strong roots and fight off disease now before the weather starts getting cooler and growth slows down in the fall.
Magnolia Scale Program Application
For many of us, Magnolia trees are the crowning tree in our yard with their beautiful white blossoms, gorgeous dark foliage, and lovely structure. Scale insects are a unique sort of insect that can cause a lot of problems for your gorgeous magnolia trees.
Magnolia scales suck sap from your Magnolia, which can deplete their resources and weaken or even kill the tree. Magnolia hybrids, which are often even more highly treasured, can be attacked more viciously than other magnolia trees. It is very important to treat Magnolia scale before it takes hold. Since young Magnolia scale insects emerge in late summer, August is the perfect time for treatment.
Core Aeration
By August, your lawn will have taken quite a beating. The weight of snow over the winter and increased lawn mower use and foot traffic as you enjoy your lawn in the summer means that your grass and the soil beneath it have been beaten down significantly.
Compacted soil does not allow essential nutrients to make their way down to the roots, which can compromise the health of your lawn. Grasses may even die completely when soil becomes compacted. Therefore, it's very important to aerate your yard in August by punching holes into the soil to let water, nutrients, and oxygen access the roots.
Quick Tips on How to Take Care of Your Lawn in the Summer
Lawn maintenance during summer is more intensive than at other times of the year. Our monthly treatments will keep your lawn in the best possible shape, but there is also weekly maintenance that you can do to improve the health of your lawn. Here are a few lawn care tips for summer:
- Avoid driving over your lawn. If you are short on parking and want to have fun summer parties, it can be tempting to encourage your guests to simply park on the lawn. However, it doesn't take much driving on the lawn to seriously compact the soil and damage grass roots, so it's better to lay down mulch or gravel for parking than have people park on the lawn.
- Water regularly. Summer lawn care requires much more water than it does at other times of year, so make sure you water whenever the grass gets dry.
- Mow when grass gets long. Mowing too often can compact the soil, but not mowing often enough makes for a lawn that is less dense and lush, so be sure that you mow whenever the grass starts to get long.
- Consider increasing shade. If you notice that certain parts of your lawn become dry and brown much faster than others because they receive sun all day long, it may be a good idea to consider planting trees that will be leafy during the summer heat and lose their leaves in the winter when your grass is less likely to be damaged by the sun.
Be Sure to Schedule Ahead of Time
We are more than happy to make sure that every detail of your lawn and garden are taken care of throughout the hot summer, but this is one of our busiest times of year, so it is ideal for you to schedule ahead of time. Even a delay of a couple of weeks can make a big difference in how healthy your yard is and how good it looks.
Delays in preventative treatment for insects, fungus, and weeds can give these pests time to take hold, which will require a lot more work to get rid of them than it would have to prevent them. Be sure to schedule as soon as possible so that you can feel confident that your garden will get the best care throughout the summer.
Maintain a Great Yard During the summer with Kinnucan Tree Experts & Landscaping
We have been providing superb landscaping care to the North Shore since 1970. We know exactly what is required to keep your garden and lawn healthy and beautiful throughout the summer. Contact us now to schedule your July and August lawn and garden maintenance.