Lawn Care For Dummies

G

GatorDave

500+ Posts
I recently bought a house, and with that, inherited my first lawn that I am solely responsible for taking care of. The thing is, I don't have the first clue on how to provide proper lawn care. I know I need to water the grass so it doesn't die, and mow it when it gets too long, and that's about the extent of my knowledge. I read through the lawn care thread from a week or so ago, but that was for people who already have some idea what they're doing. I need purely beginner's advice. So, a few questions:

1. How often are you supposed to water a lawn? Twice a day? How long per cycle?

2. How do you kill weeds that are interspersed within the grass, not just in flower beds?

3. Is it better to bag or mulch when mowing?

4. What kind of supplements/chemicals should I add to the lawn?

5. Any other general tips/advice for a complete lawn care novice?
 
Dave you will get varying opinions on lawncare, mostly over to go organic or not. A great source of information is from a local nursery manager. As for your questions, here are my opinions:

1. How often are you supposed to water a lawn? Twice a day? How long per cycle?
- water your lawn about 1 inch per week. Hopefully you have an automatic sprinkler system for convenience, but hose sprinklers work just as well. To determine how much to water, place a few cups around you yard and water for 10 minutes. Measure the amount of water in the cup. Determine how many minutes it will take to get an inch of water in the cup. Divide by 2. Run the sprinlker twice a week for that amount of time. It is important to spread out your water days to 2 week because it promotes deep root growth. Note: in the hottest part of summer you may want to up the amount of water to 1.5 or 2 inches per week but keep the frequency at 2 times a week.

2. How do you kill weeds that are interspersed within the grass, not just in flower beds?
- you can put down a weed and feed fertilizer, but I prefer to use the pre-emergent aproach. It takes time because you pre-treat for weeds a few months in advance. Also a thick healthy lawn will tend to inhibit new weed growth because the weed sprouts dont get good sunlight under the thich grass.

3. What kind of supplements/chemicals should I add to the lawn?
- I fertilize 3 times a year. Once at first greenup usually in early April, Once in mid-june, once in mid-Sept. I also put down the pre-emergent weed protection in mid-Feb, and mid-Sept. There are other things that can be done, but they mainly are to treat specific conditions found in your yard.

4. Any other general tips/advice for a complete lawn care novice? Use a mower that mulches.
 
I'm kinda in the same boat because I just bought my first home this month and the yard is already full of weeds. The seller said they had one of the nicest yards on the street and it would clear up if we had TruGreen start treating it again. But I'd rather do it myself.

What can I do for all the weeds that are already there? Just pull the big ones and wait until next year to take the pre-emergent approach? Isn't there an organic post-emergent treatment?
 
1. How often are you supposed to water a lawn? Twice a day? How long per cycle?
If you live in Austin, there are now guidelines when you can water. In general, you should water every five days during the summer (provided it hasn't rained) and a typical cycle for an irrigation system would be 30 minutes a station. However, different grasses and levels of shade will also be a factor. Do you know what type of grass you have?

2. How do you kill weeds that are interspersed within the grass, not just in flower beds?
When you get your lawn healthy, you won't have a weed problem. You can put down corn gluten in late winter and late fall; this keeps the weeds from germinating.

3. Is it better to bag or mulch when mowing?
Mulch.

4. What kind of supplements/chemicals should I add to the lawn?
You do not need chemicals. As stated before, weed & feed is a farce created for the lazy & dumb. It will damage your trees and shrubs and provides no real benefit other than a short lived green up of your lawn. Just use a good slow release organic fertilizer when needed. Typically April, July and October would be more than sufficient.

5. Any other general tips/advice for a complete lawn care novice? The absolute best thing you can do is put a layer of compost on your lawn. Also aerating is very helpful. They are both pretty time consuming though.
 
1. How often are you supposed to water a lawn? Twice a day? How long per cycle?

2. How do you kill weeds that are interspersed within the grass, not just in flower beds?

3. Is it better to bag or mulch when mowing?

4. What kind of supplements/chemicals should I add to the lawn?

5. Any other general tips/advice for a complete lawn care novice?

--------------

1) Water one time per week early in the morning (5am or 6am). City of Austin has restrictions; you can only water on Wed/Sat for odd address and Thur/Sun for even address. And only between 7pm - 10am. I actually recommend doing less than 1" per week. Try for 1/2" per week and see how your grass does. I watered mine last year for 1" per week (bermuda) and it was doing well. I thought maybe I was watering too much and have been doing 1/2" per week now and it is in great shape still.

2) Pick them by hand. It sucks. You don't have to do all at once. Rome wasn't built in a day.

3) Mulch. It saves you time (no bagging) and it is good for you grass. You won't have a thatch issue.

4) I used Lady Bug 8-2-4 from Natural Gardener. I fertilize with that in mid to late April. And again in September. I also use Corn Gluten Meal (CGM) as a pre-emergent in November and then again in February. You can buy CGM at Lowe's or Natural Gardener.

5) There are some great threads on this board.
 
You need to get an aerating machine. You can either hire a lawn service to do it, or go rent one at HD or some other equipment rental place. It is basically a machine that pokes holes in your yard.
 
You'll enjoy running the aerating machine.
wink.gif
 
I live in Houston and just ran an aerator on my yard 2 weeks ago...already getting results. The aeration helps loosen they clay and compaction of the soil, allowing for healthier root growth and water seepage to deeper layers of the soil.

I bought the house this past Feb and it was vacant for almost a year. While they had a lawn service cut the grass every 3 weeks, they did not have any sort of fertilization / pre-emergence treatment. Thus, when I moved in, the thatch in my front yard, which is St Augustine, was a problem, along with weeds. In the backyard I have bermuda grass and weeds were a problem there.

I immediately applied corn gluton to both yards, although late, and I dont think it aided a great deal in helping with weed emergence; thus I am stuck with spot treating the weeds as they appear. The thatch was so thick in some parts of my yard that the water would run off without any getting to the soil. I used a thatching rake to remove a great deal of it, along with the St Augustine "runners" that seemed everywhere. Slowly, but surely, the front is coming around and filling in.

As far as bermuda, this is my 1st go-round. Does anyone have any tips as far as overseeding bermuda grass in the winter to get a thicker yard in the spring? Any other tips for a bermuda first timer would be appreciated.

As was mentioned, should you rent an aerator, be ready to really work...that thing will pull you around they yard and wear your *** out...straight lines arent bad, but turns are a son of a *****. Same goes with the thatch rake...be prepared to work hard. Good luck.
 
Thanks for all the help so far guys.

When you're talking about placing cups around the yard and watering for 1", exactly what kind of cups are you talking about? Cups come in all different shapes and sizes, and depending on the diameter of the cup, the volume of water in a cup an inch high can be very different from another. I'm assuming you mean like a Dixie cup?
 
Here's the proper way to figure your precipitation rate.The Link This is the preferred method to figure out how much water your irrigation system is putting down. You then use this application rate along with the ET rate of your locationThe Link to get the ultimate figure of the amount of water you should be putting down. They do have controllers that do that will do this for you.
 
so i had pre-emergent done this year. house is about one year old.

bascially, from some work done (making bare spots with no law to choke out weeds), and the vacant fields next to my lot, I have a ton of grassy weeds, which have grown in quite a lot.

my only option is to pull these, correct? Pulling these patches of grassy weeds seems pretty impossible, the way they are all tangled around. i would think it very difficult to get to the roots.

* I have St Augustine grass by the way. the majority of my lawn is great and greened up about one to two months before anyone else on the block, but the weeds are making me angry.
 
I top dressed with "Turf Topper" from GeoGrowers in April about 2 weeks before I fertilized. That might be more work than he is ready for... but it is a good idea.
 
I have patchy areas of no grass due to too much shade from trees. After pruning the trees, how do I get grass to grow in these patchy areas? Just use fertilizer or do I have to lay new grass squares?
 
Rip,

That link is greatness. It's so convenient how every little topic has it's own link. Even the basic stuff for dummies like me. Thanks.
 
"I have patchy areas of no grass due to too much shade from trees. After pruning the trees, how do I get grass to grow in these patchy areas? Just use fertilizer or do I have to lay new grass squares?"

If you have St. Augustine it will spread over and you would not even have to fertilize.
 
If that patchy area is very big you may want to consider laying down some turf or you will probably have to fight weeds for a while until the St Augustine fills in. If you buy turf, go to a grass seller, not HD or Lowes. You get better quality stuff for a better price.
 
I do have St Augustine and this season (my first spring in this house) it does seem to be filling in better. I guess I will just have to be patient. Sun and water is all SA needs to spread?
 
"I do have St Augustine and this season (my first spring in this house) it does seem to be filling in better. I guess I will just have to be patient. Sun and water is all SA needs to spread?"

SA does not need a lot of sun to thrive and in fact will do much better with some shade in the afternoon. It does take water though. If you want to help along you could lay down some compost; about a quarter inch would be fine. At this point in the season you should not have a lot of weeds germinating so that should not be a problem. You could lay down some additional sod plugs, but at this point it will require a lot of effort to get them established. I would go with being patient and letting the runners spread out.
 
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