Gardening With Allen: Now is the time to restore your lawn
By Allen Wilson for the Columbian
Published: September 3, 2019, 6:03am
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After a summer of neglect, my lawn is thin and yellowish to brown. The weeds are still green. What do I need to do to restore my lawn to a thick, dark green?
Not only your lawn, but about 90 percent of lawns I have seen recently need help of one kind or another. They range from brown lawns which have not been irrigated this summer to thin, bumpy lawns to pretty good lawns that have lost their color.
Almost all lawns need fertilizer. Because grass growth naturally increases in the fall, September through October is the most important time to feed your lawn. This the time of year when rapid root growth and a natural thickening of plants takes place. Fertilizer applied now will accelerate this natural process and also restore dark green color.
Lawn fertilizer which contains iron and slow-release, polymer-coated nitrogen are the best. The higher the percentage of slow-release nitrogen, the longer it will last. Full-service nurseries, garden stores and landscape supply companies are the best sources.
If broad-leaf weeds like dandelion and clover are present, they may be dug up or sprayed with a lawn weed killer. A granular weed and feed fertilizer may also be applied.
Coarse grassy weeds can be dug up or spot sprayed with Roundup or other glyphosate products. I realize that Roundup is a bad word to many, but there is no other product which will kill grassy weeds. I feel safe using gloves when handling it.
A good way to avoid damaging lawn grass when spot weeding is to mix a small amount of Roundup at triple strength and then apply it with a paint brush to only the tips of grassy weeds.
If your lawn is thin or has bare spots, consider applying seed to those areas after weeds are controlled. Be sure to apply fertilizer at the time you seed. It is important to prepare before reseeding so the seed has loose soil to root into. The best way to do this is to apply about half-inch of three-way soil mix before seeding. If the whole lawn is uneven you may want to apply this top dressing to the entire area. You can calculate how much top dressing you need by measuring length times width to get square feet. Then divide by 20 and divide the result by 27 to determine the number of cubic yards. Very uneven areas may require extra soil mix.
Three-way soil mix can be delivered by full-service garden stores or other businesses that sell bark dust and other soil products. You can also pick up soil mix if you have access to a pickup truck.
It is very important to keep the newly seeded area moist on top for about three weeks until all seed is sprouted. This usually requires irrigation three times or more per day during dry weather. It is easy to set a lawn sprinkler system to water for five minutes, three times a day. If you do not have a sprinkler system, you can set up oscillating sprinklers attached to hoses. A simple inexpensive water timer can be hooked up to your faucet to turn them on at regular intervals.
If you seed about the time fall rains start they may do most of the irrigating for you. I would recommend seeding by mid-October. As soil temperature cools seed germination becomes slower. Lawns seeded in early September will come up in three weeks or less. By mid-October they require almost twice as long. I recommend seeding at twice the recommended rate to get quick establishment.
