A great lawn starts in fall. Photo courtesy Jonathangreen.com
If you’re like most people, you’re into the lawn big time in spring. Fertilizing. Sowing grass seed. Applying crabgrass and dandelion killers. Interest wans during the summer, except for mowing, watering and worry about this or that patch of dead grass.
Then comes fall, and a lot of people think they are done with the lawn for the season, except for mowing and raking leaves. The reality is fall is for lawns.
“The best time of year to take care of lawns is fall,” said John Harrison, who works in product support for Espoma, which has been making natural lawn and garden products since 1929. “Give lawns a checkup and keep soil healthy for the year to come. Plus, feeding your lawn with an organic plant food makes for happy and healthy people, pets and planet.”
If you have to sow a new lawn or patch bare spots, fall is the best time of year to do so, said Tim Duffy, Midwest territory manager of Jonathan Green lawn care products, which has been in business since 1881. “In spring, we’re waiting for the soil temperature to warm up so grass can germinate and you have a lot of competition with weed seeds germinating. In fall, the soil has had all summer to warm up, weed pressure isn’t as bad, cooler temperatures and better rain patterns return.”
Each of these companies has launched programs or initiatives to bring a more reasoned approach to lawn care by marketing natural products. Espoma’s campaign is targeted to families, pointing out its products are safe for kids and pets to play on the lawn. Jonathan Green’s New American Lawn program focuses more on soil health rather than chemicals.
Both of these companies give us something to think about. We dump a lot of chemicals on our lawn. In an online article published in May 2015, Consumer Reports found “the average lawn contains 10 times more chemicals per acre than a typical commercial farm.” It’s long been reported that consumers use more lawn chemicals than golf courses.
What can we do?
- A healthy, actively growing lawn is your best defense against weeds, insects and diseases.
- Fertilize the lawn in September and November. If you leave your grass clippings on the lawn during the summer, you may be able to do away with an application of spring fertilizer.
- Know what you have before you treat it. I can’t emphasize this enough. It’s a waste of money, time and effort to apply chemicals if you don’t know what you are treating. Unneeded use of chemicals also is not good for the environment.