Publisher's Note

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Page added on August 24, 2010

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GARDENER’S CORNER – Lawn Care

In the past I mainly dealt with perennial plants, garden beds and rock gardens in this column. But a healthy lawn is an essential part of the whole landscape. That green space is that relaxed area next to and is as important as trees, shrubs, perennials, vines, etc. If the soil in your lawn is suitable, a healty lawn will develop, be it from laid turf or seeded. It should become a dark rich green in colour. Over watering is the most common fault of a poor lawn even if that soil is of proper depth and good loam. If conditions are ideal, meaning an inch of rain a week and you’ve fertilized it every 2 months or so, your lawn will be a nice even carpet of green. However, over watering causes the roots to remain shallow, a few days of sun and your grass is turning yellow. The answer is only 1 inch of water per week. That promotes good deep root growth where moisture remains longer and your grass will withstand hot dry conditions longer. If your lawn is mostly green with some locations that are yellow or bleak looking, it could be that your soil has to much sand and the water just flows through out of reach of the roots. If water pools on the surface, your soil has too much clay which takes longer to absorb. The water runs off or evaporates before it can reach the roots. One solution is with a spade at the poor grass area cut into the turf 3-4 inches deep and lift a section up and investigate the type of soil that exists. If it is packed, aerating may be enough to break up the surface. If clay or sand appears to be the problem then you may be forced to remove the grass and clay/sand down to about 8 inches, refill with good loam, pack down so on sink holes don’t develop and then re-sod. If the whole lawn is patchy and tired looking your best solution may be to remove the old grass and top layer of soil and replace with good loam and new sod.

A good lawn won’t stop weeds from developing but will certainly reduce them to a point where they can be easily controlled. The most common weeds we have here are dandelions, plantain, chickweed, clover and quack grass. If there is a few dandelions showing ,use a forked probe to pop them out. Do it when the soil is wet to remove as much of the root system as possible, otherwise it will re-grow back. Plantain and chickweed can be dealt with in the same way as dandelions, but clover is best sprayed. Quack grass can be dug up or spot treated with round-up. Watch for it along fence lines, back alleys, pathways, it has broad coarse grass like leaves, grows vigorously with a aggresive root system. By spot treating, I mean to isolate the weed from other plants with cardboard then brush the round -up on the leaves. With a heavy infestation of weeds spraying may be your only solution to deal with the problem, or again remove the top soil, and replace with new good loam and new sod.

Happy gardening

H. Kriaski

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