Spring Lawn Care: Fix An Ugly Lawn In One Year - Everything You Need To Know
Vložit
- čas přidán 24. 02. 2021
- Getting your lawn off to a quick start in the Spring is a very important step in having a great looking lawn in the Summer and in the Fall. Many of the early Spring lawn care chores can improve the health of your grass plant systems, improve the soil structure of your lawn, and properly defend your grass from weed infestation, fungal diseases, drought and heat stress, and thinning throughout the year.
In this video I have put it all out there; everything that you can and should do to your lawn along with general timing information for various parts of the country. Despite the fact that this video is huge and covers so many topics in detail there is however far more information left out of this video than there is included.
For each topic discussed in this video I have full videos on this channel going into greater depth which I think you will find very helpful; especially since each lawn chore is done for the most part one at a time throughout the late Winter and Spring season.
► ► I have published a full written version of this video over on my website. If you like skimming and jumping back and forth through the material then this article should be handy: turfmechanic.com/spring-lawn-... ◄ ◄
For more detail on any specific topic see the following videos all published here on this channel:
══ Aeration ══
How To Manually Core Aerate A Lawn: • How To Manually Core A...
When To Aerate A Spring Lawn: • When To Aerate Your La...
Core vs Liquid Aeration: • Core Aeration vs Liqui...
How I Wake My Lawn Up In Early Spring: Coming Soon
══ Dethatch ══
What Thatch Actually Is & Looks Like: • What Is Thatch In The ...
When To Dethatch Your Lawn: • Dethatch A Lawn In Win...
Thatch Rakes vs Electric Dethatchers: • Electric Dethather vs ...
Is N-EXT D-Thatch The Best Liquid Thatch Digester: • Is N-EXT D-Thatch The ...
══ Weed Prevention ══
Pre-Emergent Options For Dandelions: • Best Pre-Emergent For ...
How To Prevent Weeds In The Lawn: • How To Prevent Weeds I...
Best Time To Spray Dandelions: • When is the Best Time ...
How Organic Weed Preventers Like Corn Gluten Meal Work: Coming Soon
══ Soil Health ══
How To Check Soil pH With Rapitest Products: • RapiTest Soil pH Meter...
What Pine Needles Do To The Soil: • What Do Pine Needles D...
══ Summer Prep ══
Preventing vs Killing Grubs In The Lawn: Coming Soon
How To Stimulate Deep Root Growth In The Lawn: Coming Soon
The Best Soil Test & Analysis Kits Compared: Coming Soon
══ Fertilization ══
Don't Waste Urea Nitrogen This Year: • Don't Waste Urea Nitro...
The Main Problems With Fertilizing With Milorganite: • 4 Biggest Problems Wit...
When To Start Fertilizing The Lawn: • When To Start Fertiliz...
Liquid Iron For Spring Green-Up: • Will Iron Turn Grass G...
Benefits Of Applying Humic Acid: • Benefits of Humic Acid...
What Potassium Does For The Lawn: • What Does Potassium Do...
Top Alternatives To Milorganite: Coming Soon
══ Seeding ══
Will Grass Seedlings Die In Spring Frost • Will Baby Grass Seedli...
Kentucky Blue Grass vs Perennial Rye Germination: • Kentucky Blue Grass vs...
When To Mow New Grass From Seed: • When To Mow New Grass ...
Grass Seed Application Rates: • Grass Seed Application...
══ Mowing ══
Lawn Mower Blade Cut Quality: • Lawn Mower Blade Diame...
Zero Cost Lawn Repair: • Zero Cost Lawn Repair:...
Surprising Truths About Battery Mowers: • 6 Things That SHOCKED ...
The Best Cordless Mowers of 2020: • The Best Battery Mower...
══ Tools I Use ══
Pro-Plugger Review (For Soil Cores & Transplanting): • Pro Plugger Review: Ho...
WORX 14-Inch Battery Mower Review: • WORX 14-Inch Battery M...
Which Hose End Sprayer Is Best: • Which Hose End Sprayer...
What Do You Get With Sunday Lawncare: • What Do You Get With S...
► ► In addition to the videos topics linked above I've also got a number of products I recommend for spring lawn care. I've included a few links to the products I recommend over on my website here: turfmechanic.com/products/ ◄ ◄
◙◙◙◙ More About Me & Other Related Links ◙◙◙◙
(My Other Channels)
Turf Mechanic Briefs - / @turfmechanicbriefs
Turf Mechanic Vlogs - / @turfmechanicvlogs
My Latest Yard Tour
• End Of Lawn Season Yar...
My Lawn's Change Log
turfmechanic.com/my-lawn-in-2...
All About Me & What I Do
turfmechanic.com/brian/
Premium Content Available Here
turfmechanicpremium.com/
I'm Also On Instagram
/ turfmechanic
►►► Want to fix your lawn for the long haul but don't know where to start? I can help! Click here right now and get started today: turfmech.link/dont-know-where-to-start ◄◄◄
I've been power watching your channel to get ready for the spring. Thanks for passing on all these great lawn care tips!
I love hearing that! Thanks for sharing, I hope you get a great jump start on your season Nathan!
I have good results putting Scott’s with halts in mid March and again early to mid June. This keeps crabgrass out of lawn. I spray for all other weeds. In June halts is gone by Sept seeding. Crabgrass will start growing in Sept too. (Mostly from neighboring yards 😢)
Only issue I see with 1" deep watering once per week is water waste from runoff with compacted soils and grade elevations. The X2 controller I'm getting has a feature called "Cycle and Soak", from the description, "....prevents water waste and runoff in areas with elevation changes or tight soils". This should allow it to water for a certain amount of time, wait, and then run again.
Excellent points Greg, one's I should have at least mentioned in the video too. Aerated lawns don't have as much of this problem, one reason I recommend doing this chore before you start irrigating but if you can't get this done then yeah, that fancy sprinkler sounds awesome! I have steep hills on my property so I could probably use one of those for those areas. Instead I use impact sprinklers on the kills so they get slight intermittent water as the impact sprinkler goes around it's perimeter arc. Other options to limit runnoff and pooling is to apply surfactants to the area to aid in water penetration but I can't stress enough the benefits of core aeration. My local rental company will rent a machine to me for a day for well less than $100; not a bad deal in my opinion.
@@TurfMechanic I agree with your thought process on doing it once a week at 1". Justed wanted to bring up some issues some people might have doing this. I use Air-8 and other surfactants like you mentioned. They work good, but like you said mechanical aeration is important too. I haven't done it on my yet as I haven't seen issues but I plan on doing it this fall for a but kicking!
Good number breakdown
Extremely descriptive and helpful video. We appreciate these more than you know 👊🏽 Really enjoy watching your videos and Allyn hane the lawn care nut’s videos one after another. Between the help received between the both of you guys, I have been growing a beautiful lawn this year, when compared to last. Keep up the great content. Like well earned. 🙌🏽
you know your stuff bro. a lot of info to digest I'm all in
That's one stinking cool comment! This is the perfect time to go all in, mid-march is the perfect starting point! I wish you all the best this year Delynn!
Great presentation Brian. Great content. Tony
Thanks a lot Tony! I'm writing something up right now, check your IS messages in a few.
Don't forget that you can do soil tests through your local extension offices.
Thanks again eh🌺🌷🌸
Can you use prodiamine on horse pastures?
Great video, I have a question. When you mow the lawn, do you have to bag the clippings?
I'm enjoying your videos. Thanks for explaining things more than other channels have been. So much jargon. Only tip, normalize audio levels. Kinda all over the place
Glad to hear you like the content! Also, I totally agree with the audio. I've made upgrades to my audio recording over the past year and am learning how to make it all sound better in editing too. Funny, learning the tech behind making videos is much harder than learning the lawn care ever was for me. Lol - thanks for watching anyway and I hope my material shows improvement season over season. 😊
Corn gluten is the only thing I ever see for weed prevention in my stores. (Ontario, Canada)
Yeah it touch to get a lot of variety of products up there, cool to know corn gluten meal is easily found though. I'll definitely me making some content on that in the coming season.
I have a question for you, which is relevant for spring. How EXACTLY soil temperature is related to germination? I mean, here the soil temperature is officially gets into germination range in April.
However, if I throw some seeds down now, it sits on the top, and doesn’t really care about the soil temperature 2-3 inches below. And on the top, it can easily be 50-60F on a sunny day, even now or in early March.
Is there anything which blocks germination in this case, and only allows it once the soil is warm in its whole thickness, not just around the seeds?
Hey Zoltan, soil temp readings are always a bit wonky. the soil will always be coldest at dawn and warmest just before sunset. Try taking soil temps at these two times of day at about 3 inches deep because even if the surface soil is plenty warm in the afternoon it will also cool off the most by morning meaning the surface temp will fluctuate a bunch. If your surface soil is averaging 45 and not dipping below freezing then some grass types will germinate but the process of germination is actually rooting first followed by top growth. The seedling you see on top pops up after the root digs down in the day or two prior to the seedling sprouting on top. This means the sub-soil, 1-3 inches down needs to be warm enough and soft enough for that baby root to dig down deep. If it's frozen down there (or close to it) then the root won't be able to penetrate or at least won't be able to thrive. Warming deeper soil up is key to getting those seedlings to establish. Early spring seeding is complicated because you have to worry about surface germination temps, rooting ability, weed suppression later on in the Spring, and hardening off the plant for summer. I'll be doing an example of seeding a nasty patch of my lawn in March so hopefully I be able to cover some of your questions in that video(s).
Great content-just subscribed. Just curious, are you located in zone 6?
Thanks a bunch Tony! You are right; we teeter between zone 6a and 6b. Usually we don't get below -5 but once every few years we dip down much lower. Lowest I've seen in my own lawn was -19 about 5 years back.
Great video. Question: Where did you find that mechanical aerator? That would help my compacted soil I think.
For mechanical aeration you either hire the job out, go to a local tool rental company to rent one for the day, or spend multiple thousands on one to own. This year in my lawn I hired the job out to a local landscape contractor because I didn't have the time available to manually get through my entire lawn with my yard butler.
@@TurfMechanic I was talking about the handheld device the kids were playing with during the video. It looked like it poked little holes and pulled plugs out.
@@michaelbroadway2629 ohh that, thats a manual aerater, it's the yard butler and available on Amazon (probably other places too) and it's pretty inexpensive. It's a great hand tool to own and use situational but aerating more than a couple thousand feet with it will take an extreme amounts of time. It's best used for spot treatment or small yards. I'd give you a link but I'm out and about on my phone. Although you also may be talking about the proplugger which I have a video on here. It's another excellent hand tool that you'll find uses for over and over: czcams.com/video/SElSTjgEKTE/video.html
@@TurfMechanic Thanks for the info. Yard Butler. I'll look for it. I have two or three small areas that are terribly compacted and hard as a rock that I thought that device would be perfect for.
Wow great video keep it up.. and on the side note , these instructions are somewhat different that what i hear... will try this spring
Glad to hear you liked the video. And yeah, my recommendations are slightly unique, I stand by them though. Hope you have a great season, no matter where you live it's probably kicking off very soon! 😃
What do you think about putting in a 5-10% clover into your seed mix to avoiding needing to use fertilizer?
The key part of this q that is see is the avoidance of fertilizer. I think adding in a touch of clover is fine if you are OK with that. Most people these days in lawn care want no clover but I see it as a valuable ground cover. I have been talking with my wife about planting a clover patch on the north side of our house along our driveway all year, haven't gotten to it because it just takes time and energy that I haven't had to devote to it. Clover doesn't need much inputs when established and can be great for bee populations which we value as gardeners but when mixed in to lawns at 5-10% the rest of the Turf will still need to be fertilized and mowed just as often imo. Also you should consider weed control, if you ever want to kill weeds it can be hard to kill unwanted weeds without killing off the clover. Hope that helps even though it puts a lot of the decision making on you and your family. 🙂
Great videos! What zone are you in?
Thanks a bunch Don! This video was filmed in zone 6b, Klamath Falls Oregon. Late last year we moved to Southern California so im not there anymore.
Is there a best/ideal time to do the soil test?
winter is common, probably late winter too because most people don't need to or will be fertilizing early spring but knowing what your deficiencies and surpluses in the soil are helps with planning out the year. Late winter usually means soil is a bit softer to dig into and the amount of time to do the test, get results back, and then purchase products needed is adequate. I'm doing my soil tests this coming week, probably starting March 1. I'll definitely be making some vids on this over the next few weeks.
Thanks so much!
My lawn ph is 4.5 should I apply lime ?
I would, that's getting really low
Hey brian, can i use natria in the spring?
I don't see why not. Go for it
🤯
the wind chims throw me off
Woah why do you look so different from your older videos
lol, braces probably. I got them put on in October, had to get a tooth pulled to do it and then could barely eat anything for 60 days. Ended up losing 12 lbs in the process and I've kept it off... that and maybe age is making me look worse. LOL