Lawn Care

One of the frequently asked questions we get here at McKenzie’s is “How can I get rid of weeds and have a beautiful lawn without using chemicals?”

While some people think that you can’t have a beautiful lawn without chemical fertilizers and herbicides, they couldn’t be more wrong. Weeds grow when lawns are not healthy and killing weeds with herbicides only covers up the symptoms but does not solve the problems. Chemical control is also expensive and will lead to an endless cycle needing to apply the herbicides and fertilizers over and over each year because you haven’t built up the health of your turf to resist weed and disease invasion. It is also a good idea to avoid chemicals if you have children and pets that will be exposed to these poisons in the lawn.

In order to grow a beautiful lawn that will be the envy of the neighborhood and not use dangerous chemicals, there are two steps. First, build a healthy turf and second, organic weed control.

The first thing to consider is that your lawn is a living thing. Now this may sound obvious to you, but really think about it. Just as the best way to prevent disease and illness in yourself is by practicing a healthy lifestyle on a daily basis, the same is true for your lawn. You can best reduce and prevent weeds and other lawn problems by making sure your lawn is healthy. And just as the couch potato is not going to turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger overnight, a sick lawn cannot be turned into healthy turf overnight; it takes years of good organic practice. But don’t let that discourage you; if you start following good turf building practices today, you will notice a difference before the end of the season and even more so next year. And I promise, putting your lawn on a good diet will be easier than following one yourself!

This is one of the most important steps for growing healthy grass. While dandelions love a pH of about 7.5., grass loves a pH of about 6.5. Correct the pH and you not only create a healthier environment for your lawn, you build a hostile environment for the weeds.

You may buy pH test kits at most home and garden stores and they may be adequate, but for a more reliable test, you may have it professionally tested. This may be an especially good idea for your first test as many professional tests will also include other useful information about your soil such as estimated nitrogen release, potassium, phosphorus, etc.

Once you find out the pH of your lawn, you need to correct it if it is below 6 or above 7. Add lime if it is below 6.0 and gardener's sulfur if it is above 7.0.

The goal of watering is to nourish the lawn's root system deep in the soil while not encouraging disease or wasting water and thus money.

Water deeply two to three times a week. Daily watering encourages shallow roots that are not able to stand up to stress and heat.

If possible, water in the morning hours. This conserves water by avoiding high evaporation hours in mid and late day. Also, watering in the evening encourages disease as the blades of grass sit damp for several hours.

Just about any lawn will benefit from twice yearly aeration, but if your lawn suffers from very high use or has a heavy clay soil, you may want to consider more frequent aeration.

Aeration loosens the soil so that the water and nutrients you apply to your lawn can enter the soil and again encourages deep root growth as the roots can more easily penetrate the soil.

You can easily rent a machine to do this job, hire a professional, or if you are only working with a very small area, you can even can do the job using only a pitchfork. To do this, insert the pitchfork at a 45 degree angle to a depth of approximately 4 inches. With the fork in the ground, wiggle the handle a bit to loosen the soil.

Mowing can be a hard and time consuming chore, but it is one of the things we love to do at McKenzie's. Here are some tips you should know.

Make sure to keep the mower blades sharp. A clean straight cut is less stressful to your grass blades and minimizes the exposed cut and thus evaporation.

Most homeowners mow the lawn too short. Unless you are using a specialty grass such as bentgrass (like the golf courses use), you will do your lawn a favor by leaving it a bit longer. In the northern climates particularly (like Spokane), a taller lawn will stay greener and healthier especially in the hot weather. Warm climate grasses may do slightly better in hot weather if cut a bit shorter so they do not accumulate thatch.

Thatch is a thick buildup of grass roots and rhizomes. A thick layer of thatch will prevent both water and nutrient movement into the soil where roots benefit. Contrary to popular belief, allowing grass clippings to fall into the yard doesn’t contribute to thatch. Grass clippings are primarily made up of water and are easily digested. In fact, allowing grass clippings to fall into the yard will benefit the health of the lawn as long as you don’t mow an excessive long length of grass blade. What does contribute to thatch buildup is overuse of fertilizers and shallow watering. Extra nitrogen (from fertilizers) creates plant growth faster than it can be decomposed. Light watering causes roots to remain near the surface and not grow deeply into the soil.

You can guess from the above information, that the first steps in preventing thatch forming is the appropriate use of a balanced fertilizer and deep, infrequent watering. Additional steps include keeping the soil pH between 6.0-7.0. This will encourage decomposition of organic material. Another method is to topdress the lawn, i.e. spread a thin 1/8 inch layer of soil over the lawn, this again will facilitate decomposition and prevent thatch. Research has shown however that the single most important step to preventing thatch is aerating the lawn. By removing plugs of turf by core aeration, rain and irrigation will add a soil layer to any thatch layer and thereby increase microbial breakdown without topdressing. Aeration also allows water and fertilizers to reach farther into the soil, thus encouraging deeper root growth. Finally, avoid pesticide use. Many pesticides will affect earthworm and microbial populations and again decrease organic breakdown of the materials that can contribute to thatch buildup.

If despite your efforts, you suspect a thatch buildup, cut a 2 inch, pie shaped area from the lawn. If the thatch layer between the soil line and the beginning of green vegetation is 1/2 inch or more, you need to remove the thatch. The best way to remove thatch is by power rake. These machines can be rented or you can hire a lawn care professional to do the job. The optimum time for thatch removal is in late summer or early fall when the grass is growing well and will recover most quickly.

There may be no subject in lawn care filled with more myths and misinformation than the area of dealing with spots caused by dogs. You are likely to have heard, if not believe the following misinformation

1. The urine of female dogs is more damaging than the urine of male dogs.
2. By changing the dogs diet, you can greatly reduce or eliminate dog spots.
3. Giving a dog tomato juice or adding salt to their diet will eliminate dog spots.
4. Adding baking soda to the dogs water will stop dog spots.

Dr. Steven Johnson, director of Prudue University Veterinary School, recently did a study to address the issues of dog spots on lawns. While he found all of the above theories to be inaccurate he also was able to explain the bit of truth behind them.
Dr. Johnson found it to be the nitrogen in the urine, a natural by product of protein breakdown, that is the problem. Just as any homeowner who has ever split a bit of fertilizer on the lawn knows, nitrogen can burn and kill the grass when in too large of quantity. The stool of dogs can do the same damage, but it is frequently removed by the homeowner and breaks down at a much slower rate, releasing the nitrogen more slowly. The urine of female dogs does not contain more nitrogen, however, the habit of males is to mark the territory. When they do this they typically urinate small amounts in many places, thus a smaller amount of nitrogen is exposed to a given area.
Because nitrogen is a natural by product of protein breakdown, you will not significantly alter the browning effects of the dogs relieving himself by changing his diet. The effects of adding salt or high sodium foods (such as tomato juice) increases the dogs fluid intake and thus dilutes the dogs urine, but may harm the health of your dog.

1. Maximize your dogs fluid intake by always having fresh clean water available, add fluid to the dogs dry food and/or add some canned food to the diet.
2. Train your dog to use areas of the yard such as a gravel or barked section where there is no grass.
3. Fence your yard to keep out strays and remind neighbors of leash laws.
4. If you see the dog eliminate, water the area thoroughly.