Question: Lawn needs help, what to do?

[MOturkey]

Thought I'd take advantage of the expertise on this board and ask what many of you probably think is a pretty simple question, but you have to understand that for many years my idea of intensive lawn management has been mowing once a week whether it needs it or not. We have lived at our present home about 7 years, and now that I'm in the mowing business, and actually have some decent equipment to work with, I'd like to make our lawn look as good as possible on a limited budget.

We recently had three trees removed because of power lines and the fact that one tree was leaning toward the house. The front lawn is a southern exposure, so until some of our replacement trees grow substantially, it will receive virtually full sun. Like most of the lawns around here, I think every type of grass imaginable has been planted there. Mostly, it is fescue, but there is also bluegrass, and an area of what I believe is Bermuda, along with a good assortment of native grasses and weeds thrown in for good measure.

My question is what can I do this late in the season to improve the quality of our lawn, without going to the expense of complete reseeding or sodding. Should I fertilize now, or wait until later? What about weed control? Any recommendations? Crabgrass? Yep, I have some of that too. Any help you could give me would be most appreciated. Thanks, Neill

 

[bobbygedd]

why would you consider sod expensive? sod is only expensive to a client, and labor drives that bill waaaayyyy up. you may want to consider sod, it's a "sure thing", and you can probably get it very cheap if you use your landscaper discount, and pick it up yourself. my price here to buy, is 16 cents a sq ft.

 

[sodzilla]

If you have crabgrass I would put down a pre-m this spring. If you don't try to get read of the crabgrass it will only get worse. Do a normal fert/wc program then slitseed it in the fall. If you seed in the spring you can't use a pre-m because your seed wont germinate.

I'm kind of going through the same thing you are myself. We bought a house last year that was a foreclosure. It sat empty for a year before we bought it. The lawn and the landscape looked like hell. Crabgrass everywhere. If demension doesn't do the trick this spring I'm going to hit the bad spots with roundup and slitseed everything in late summer/ early fall.

 

[mow2nd]

Lime, Lime, Lime.................can't go wrong with Lime

Pre-emergent NOW and again in 8 weeks

End of March Spray weeds

by the way, crabgrass is a summer grass or weed, so you will not see any right now.

Summer comes.............Lime again.........dont be shy