From: klier@iscsvax.uni.edu Subject: Re: Rye seed mix? Date: 19 Mar 92 07:00:29 GMT Nancy Bulinski writes: > The backyard is a mess... part mud, part weed, one small part > grass. First of all, why is the backyard so awful? Probable causes that need to be corrected before you get the Jerry Baker MasterLawn include: low soil fertility soil compaction diseases insect pests pH problems too much shade too much heat grass beat to death by kids and/or dogs and/or mail carriers being mown too short too frequently If you have cultural problems, correct those first, otherwise you're just throwing your money away on seed, etc. The common things I see going on in lawns are soil compaction, nutrients, shade, wear and tear, and lousy mowing. Unless you've got some major problems, most of the disease and insect problems will go away once you've established a healthy lawn. Is the soil clay-ish? Doesn't drain well, sticky and heavy to dig? Most of the time, "lawns" on clay are very vulnerable to soil compaction. You can rent gizmos called power aerators, or you can walk around in golf spikes, or you can use a manual aerator, but if it's very bad, you're probably better off nuking the remaining grass & weeds with a non-selective herbicide like roundup, tilling it all up, working in as much organic matter as possible, and starting over with seed. As much as you can, avoid walking on clay soils when they are wet. Or even damp. Turns 'em into brick. If you can see tracks where the kids laid out a baseball diamond, or Fido's footprints from when he's been on border patrol, you've got at least some compacted areas. Mom's yard still has traces of my old baseball diamond. Noticed it last fall. Gotta do something about it... (Oh! My back!) Most lawn fertilizers are WAY too high in nitrogen (the first number on the bag) to establish a healthy lawn. Use a balanced fertilizer, like 10-10-10 or such, not 40-1-1! "Lawn fertilizers" promote all top and no roots. Not a healthy way to grow plants. Figure 2-4 lbs of nitrogen per 1000 sq ft per year, divided between early spring and fall. Once you've got a decent lawn, (assuming you reapply the lawn clippings as compost), you can cut back to maybe 1 lb N/1000 sq ft, and give it as 10-3-3 fertilizer or something similar. Nitrogen is always lost from a lawn (assuming no N fixation from legumes), but P and K should hang around pretty well. My inlaws couldn't understand why they couldn't have a nice picture postcard lawn. They had 18 mature oak trees on a normal size city lot, so it was a miracle any light made it down to the soil at all. Even fescues couldn't handle it. I talked them into hostas and lily of the valley and mosses. Lawn mowing is a real art if done well. That means keep the mower blade sharp, so it cuts instead of shreds or pulls. It also means cut the grass when it needs cutting, not when you want to cut it. AND DON'T SCALP THE LAWN!!!! If you're growing kentucky bluegrass or a mixed bluegrass/fescue/ryegrass lawn, mow to about 3" in the summer, 2" in spring or fall. Never remove more than 1/3 of the grass height at a time. That means some weeks you mow a couple of times, sometimes you don't mow at all. (HINT: Tall grasses will shade out crabgrass seedlings...) I prefer to keep my lawn (well, it's just a patch -- too much other interesting stuff) at 3-3.5" all the time, and I try not to remove much more than 1/2 at a cutting. Also, figure out what you need. KY bluegrass does fine in sun or part sun, but there are very few shade tolerant cultivars (A-34 and Baron are two of these). Fescues are generally good in shade, but tend to scorch in sun. Perennial ryegrass is not perennial enough in the upper midwest. I prefer to plant a grand mixture of cultivars and species rather than just a single kind. I figure that gives the lawn a chance to undergo some natural selection. So I usually make up a shady mix and a sunny mix, and apply liberally to bare, worked up soil in the appropriate areas. Just for luck, there's always some shade- tolerant species in the sunny mix and some sun-loving species in the shady mix. I also often toss in some annual ryegrass for quick cover, just because it's so depressing to not see ANY green. Cuts erosion, too. In general, if you've got to do major lawn reseeding, the time to do it (in the North anyhow) is the fall. The seeds will germinate better, establish faster, and the weed competition is much less. And one of the main secrets to weed control in ANY situation is to get the desirable plants growing thickly enough fast enough to outgrow the weeds. Agronomists call this "canopy closure". If your lawn is in bad enough shape that major renovation is required, do the planting this fall (like late August/early Sept in this area). Till then, either ignore the weeds and bare soil, plant some annual ryegrass (cheap! cheap!), or start the renovations now (esp. on bare soil) by tilling and planting a cover crop like buckwheat or oats that you can till in and increase the organic matter in the soil. (Nah, she's never had to work on clay soils! Just watch her faint when you tell her the spot she's been assigned for research is clay....) Good luck! Kay Klier