SPRING LAWN CARE

SPRING LAWN

CARE By Valerie Smith

With spring approaching, warmer weather signals plants to come out of dormancy and start flourishing again. Pretty soon,

your lawn and garden will be full of color and activity! If you have a warm season lawn, your turfgrass will come out of dormancy and if you have a cool season lawn, snow in your area will start to melt and you’ll enjoy a greener environment.

SPRING MOWING

The timing for the first mow of the spring for your mature, established turfgrass varies depending on the area you live in. Grasses come out of dormancy differently depending on the environment and temperatures your area encounters. For example, if you live in South Florida, your grass may have never entered dormancy at all during the winter. Many homeowners who live in South Florida will mow their lawn every other week during the winter—oftentimes starting in September and resuming a regular, weekly mowing schedule again in mid-March.

Generally speaking, mid-March is about the time for you to begin your regimen for spring green-up and mowing. Mowing heights vary for each grass type, but for all of them, never remove more than a third of the leaf blade at any time.

The first mow of the spring should not take place while warm season grass is dormant. Mowing heights differ per each grass type in the spring, however. Lastly, a good tip for spring is to make sure your lawn mower blades are sharpened so that the mower blades neatly slice through the grass in place of ripping them. If the grass blades aren’t cut neatly, the mower is ripping them and opens the grass up to possibility of disease. Performing regular maintenance on your mower is good practice for the end of the mowing season or before spring takes place.

SPRING FERTILIZATION

Spring is one of the most important times of the year to use a fertilizer. Warm season grasses are coming out of dormancy, so you will want to promote healthy roots and the return of green leaf blades.

Be careful when making your first fertilizer application of the year, though. A lot of homeowners see their grass green-up and immediately pull out the fertilizer and lawnmower. We advise that you typically wait until the last frost has hit. If you fertilize your lawn and another frost hits, your grass will go right back into dormancy, and you’ll have a harder time getting it to green up again. This does more harm than good.

The date of the last frost varies from location to location. In the Florida Panhandle, for example, grass doesn’t ever go truly dormant and reaches its full green-up in early February (depending on how cold the winter was). Even then, you won’t want to apply fertilizer until after Easter once the last frost has passed. Refer to the Farmer’s Almanac to figure out the last frost date for your area in 2022.

You’ll find different options for spring fertilization, including slow-release granular options and liquid fertilizers that can be applied monthly with a hose-end sprayer.

Next, it is important to mention that if you have a warm season lawn, you may start to notice spots of brown or straw-like grass while the rest of your lawn comes out of dormancy. This is usually a sign of disease. You do not want to apply fertilizer to a lawn with disease, because the nitrogen in the fertilizer will feed the disease and promote its growth. Apply a systemic fungicide first and then wait several weeks before following with a fertilizer application.

SPRING WATERING

Dormant, warm season turfgrass doesn’t need much water until the active growing season kicks in and your grass starts to green up. If you have a dormant, warm season lawn, it is not dead—it’s just “sleeping.” Although dormant grass requires much less water than it would while it is actively growing, it will still need water. Once your grass starts to green up from winter dormancy, however, you should resume watering your lawn with about one inch of water per week including rainfall.

If you’re a homeowner who lives far enough south, and your warm season grass doesn’t go dormant during the winter, you may continue to

A pre-emergent herbicide should be applied before a weed grows, while a post-emergent herbicide should be applied if you already have weeds in your lawn. Apply a pre-emergent before seeds germinate to prevent them from growing during the cooler months and reduce any time or effort spent removing them.

water your lawn regularly in the winter. However, if you live in South Florida, for example, you may turn your irrigation off completely during the winter and during the months of June–August, when it rains a lot. The atmosphere in South Florida isn’t usually evaporating much water and the grass isn’t using much during the winter, so frequent irrigation isn’t needed.

The next few tips in this article discuss spring applications for fungicides, herbicides or insecticides. If any of these control products or fertilizers are granular, you will need to water the product in so that your lawn absorbs it. This means that you will already be watering your lawn with the appropriate amount of water during the week of application. The same can be said with any liquid products, as they are either products that attach to the end of your garden hose or require tank-mixing with water.

SPRING WEED CONTROL

The most important thing you can do for any weed issues is to apply a pre-emergent herbicide. A pre-emergent herbicide prevents weeds from emerging from the surface of the soil, as its name suggests. So, if you know you get a lot of weeds in the summer like crabgrass, goosegrass or sandspurs, applying a pre-emergent to keep them from even appearing may be a good idea for you. It will also save you time, money spent on more product, and effort from pulling the weeds that appear in the future. It’s actually not recommended you use an herbicide in the summer or winter, so pre-emergents in spring can be especially useful for this reason.

Pre-emergents should be applied when ground temperatures reach about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The exact dates for these applications differ depending on the area you live in, but generally speaking, pre-emergents should be applied between March 1st and March 15th in the spring.

Apply post-mergent herbicides in May as needed to control summer annual and perennial broadleaf weeds like white clover, knotweed, spurge and lespedeza. Products containing multiple broadleaf active ingredients like SpeedZone Broadleaf Herbicide for Turf are more effective in controlling broadleaf weeds.

SPRING INSECT CONTROL

If your lawn has suffered from insect damage in the past, it is a good idea to apply a broadspectrum insecticide in the spring to prevent the problem from coming back again.

If the insecticide is a granular product, be sure to water it in so that it soaks into your soil. If it is a liquid product, you will either need to attach it to the end of your garden hose or tankmix it. Some of the most common insects in the springtime are white grub worms, chinch bugs and billbugs.

Dormant, warm season turfgrass doesn’t need much water until the active growing season kicks in and your grass starts to green up.

The dead spot in the spring grass is a sign of fungal disease.

Spring Fungus Control

As previously mentioned, if you have a warm season lawn, circular brown or yellow spots may start to show up as it comes out of dormancy. This is a sign of disease, and you may need to make applications of a systemic fungicide. Even if you don’t have disease in your lawn, it’s still good practice to apply it as a preventive measure to keep disease from taking over— especially if you’ve had disease in the past around the spring time. Systemic fungicide applications should take place before you apply any spring fertilizer because nitrogen can help the fungus spread.

Thatch Control

Lastly, if you notice thatch that is thicker than half inch deep, de-thatch in late May. For compact soils, consider aerating in late spring instead.

Thatch is the layer of debris below the grass that accumulates over time. It consists of all kinds of natural matter that eventually forms a semi-solid mat. While a little thatch is fine for the health of grass, it can build up quickly. Too much thatch creates a barrier that keeps important hydration, nutrients and air from getting into the soil.

In most cases, all that is needed to dethatch a lawn is a dethatching rake that can be purchased at hardware stores.These are usually heavy, short-tined rakes with curved blades that dig into your lawn and pull up thatch. Simply rake the grass vigorously enough so that you are breaking through the thatch layer. Your lawn will look a little beaten up if the job is done properly. You can’t “over do” it, but be sure that you aren’t actually raking up the grass or roots in the process of dethatching. Dethatching isn’t necessarily something that needs to be done often or annually—just as needed.

In cases where the soil is too hard and compacted for nutrients, water, or air to absorb, lawn aeration might occasionally be necessary. Lawn aeration punches holes a few inches deep into the sod so that water and nutrients can get into the soil and reach the grass roots. Most lawn care companies offer aeration services, or you can rent a professional aeration machine.

Spring maintenance tips somewhat differ from maintenance practices that take place during the rest of the year because the weather is starting to warm up, and everything starts to turn green again. Although cool season grass doesn’t usually go dormant during the winters, snow in a lot of the areas up north starts to melt and your lawn will receive more sunlight. It is important to partake in spring maintenance so that you can set your lawn up for success for the rest of the year.

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Editor's Note: This article appears courtesy of Valerie Smith for Sod Solutions, which has helped develop and release more than 20 different turfgrass varieties over the past 27 years including Palmetto and CitraBlue St. Augustine, EMPIRE and Innovation Zoysia, and Celebration, Latitude 36 and NorthBridge Bermudagrass. Learn more at Sodsolutions.com.