Lawn Care - 2022 Edition

These warm day in late March have some of my neighbors out on their lawns raking and blowing. And I see some lawn care companies out on my local streets.

So what should the proper lawn care strategy be at this point of the year (late March). I am tempted to do nothing for a couple of weeks and let things actually warm up a bit before doing my spring clean up.

I had some noticeable grub damage last fall and after a few years of not treating will have to do something. Should I put down an insecticide early spring or wait until May/June to apply a preventative.

And of course: first fertilizer application and crab grass prevention. Rule of thumb has been to wait for the forsythia to bloom for crab grass. But should a spring fertilizer go down first?

You pit one lawn care company against the others, let them bid until the total yearly bill is as much as you'd pay at home depot for the 5 bags of stuff to do it once yourself... then you wait until you have to cut.

& you don't have to worry about the weird striping that would happen if you did do it by yourself.

My strategy.

Whatever you do make sure preventative maintenance is done with your equipment. Safety first. If you own Stihl equipment for example, check everything. Especially your kill switches. If God forbid something happened you need to be able to stop the Stihl.

Had some warm days so raked out winter accumulated leaves from mulched beds. Then my lawn care consists of deciding which part of last year's lawn will not be lawn this year.

I live in what used to be cold climate grass area with zoysia possible. I had some zoysia that had spread around the neighborhood in patches when we bought the place. Now it is pretty clearly and consistently zoysia sustainable. Now I am not saying I exactly like the stuff but it is lower maintenance by a long way and it chokes out most broadleaf undesirables. So I have been taking patches and moving it around other parts of my front lawn where the weeds have been tough to control.

The back has been fully naturalized now so (I don't care what my neighbors think) there' some meadow grass, naturalized black-eyed susans of various varieties, milkweed, and the aspens and serviceberries that I have scattered back there. The suburban wildlife loves it. Now I'm spreading redbud into the front and increasing the unmowed area there as well. No weed treatment, no fertilizer, no fungus treatment, no insecticide. It doesn't piss me off that the neighbors don't do anything about their dandelions and violets drifting my way anymore either because I don't fight that battle anymore. I found a new way to win it.

So my advice is to reduce that lawn and increase the natives (and I used to be an assistant greenskeeper to an MSU agronomist club pro).

Saw an article the other day that says to wait until consistent temps in the 50's for a few days to let the little creatures that overwinter in your garden leaves and mulch have a chance to get out and start doing their thing.

kingstonlake wrote:Whatever you do make sure preventative maintenance is done with your equipment. Safety first. If you own Stihl equipment for example, check everything. Especially your kill switches. If God forbid something happened you need to be able to stop the Stihl.

Good advice. I have a Stihl ('Merica!) MS250. Thought I would leave the lawn alone for now and just cut up a bevy of fallen tree stuff that accumulated over the winter. Backyard fire and Scotch are in my future.

Jake from State Farm wrote:Saw an article the other day that says to wait until consistent temps in the 50's for a few days to let the little creatures that overwinter in your garden leaves and mulch have a chance to get out and start doing their thing.

Also good advice. I took it - post #6.

If you’re interested, I can loan you my lawn-sized Spartan helmet template. You just pour gasoline within the template, taking into account the well-marked areas intended for negative space that will complete the helmet look.
Mine is so big and so beautiful, I hear pilots landing at Lansing often request the runway that goes right over my house so they can show their passengers. It’s a feel good moment, fer sure. Many of them, in fact.

Snow today - maybe I should bump the snow blower thread.