Reasons For Levelling A Lawn

Lawns often develop indentations over time, these depressions on the lawns surface occur for many reasons, including normal wear and tear such as foot traffic, kids playing, walkways, cars or bikes driving on the lawn and so on. These indentations not only look unpleasant but often cause lawn scalping when the wheels of the lawn mower dip into a depression leading the blades to scalp the surrounding area. Fortunately, levelling lawns is a very easy and simple task.

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Fairy Ring in Lawn

Fairy Ring

Fairy Ring is a name which is applied to a condition which occurs in lawns which results in the formation of circular shaped patterns of either visible mushrooms or bright green rings. Many different species of fungus can create fairy rings in the home lawn, some species will produce mushrooms while others will not.

Turf Grasses Affected

All turf grasses can be affected by Fairy Ring.

Identification

Fairy Rings are easily identified when mushrooms are present and they form a ring in the lawn which can start as a few inches in diameter, and then continue growing until it eventually reaches the edges of the lawn after thoroughly consuming it. Love Your Lawn. The mushrooms will go through stages of appearing and disappearing throughout the year, and the fungus will over-winter itself and re-emerge the following Spring.

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Ticks In The Lawn

Ticks are without a doubt a major menace to both people and pets. The tick is responsible for the very effective spread of many highly dangerous diseases which in some cases can cause extreme illness or even death.

Diseases which are transmitted by Ticks include Lyme Disease, Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness, Powassan encephalitis, Colorado tick fever, Q fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, tularemia and anaplasmosis.

Ticks are generally never a problem on lawns which are kept well maintained. Ticks are very poor travellers and need long grass or bushes to climb – in order to attach themselves to a person or animal which is passing by. Ticks also need a ready supply of water close by as well. Often when ticks are spotted on a lawn they are there by accident, often from falling from a host.

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Take All Root Rot

Take All Root Rot, also know as Take All Disease and Take All Patch, is a severe fungal disease which rots away at the root system of lawn, causing the lawn to first turn yellow, then brown, and if left untreated this lawn disease will eventually kill an entire lawn.

Take All Patch has been found to be most prevalent in St. Augustine grasses, however, it is also becoming widely spread amongst all grass types. The disease first emerges on a lawn in small patches one or two feet in diameter, and then quickly spreads to cover the entire lawns surface.

Lawn damage from Take All Root Rot is most evident by the way it will blacken and rot the stolons (above ground runners) of Warm Season Grasses. Eventually the stolons will easily pull away from it’s roots, revealing the disease by the blackened runner.

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Bermuda Grass

Bermuda Grass is a very popular and favorite lawn in the warmer Southern States. It is very fast growing, easy to repair itself from damage, holds a dark green color and prefers and thrives at an eye pleasing very low height. These characteristics make this Warm Season grass type highly suitable to many applications such as homes, parks and golf courses.

While older strains of Bermuda Grass can be sown from seed, the newer and far superior cultivars are generally always hybrids, meaning they cannot propagate from seed and must be sown from sod or runners. Being such a fast growing grass, Bermudagrass is often one of the most cost effective grass types to pruchase in sod form

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Grass Seeds for Your Lawn

When you look at pictures of houses in any magazine – whether it’s a gardening magazine, a home décor magazine, or even a gossip rag – you always see it surrounded by a beautifully tended lawn. That lawn is a vibrant green, well trimmed and neat, with no patchy brown spots or areas of stunted growth to mar its facade. We can chalk some of that perfection up to photo retouching, of course, but it actually is possible to get a lawn that looks like the lawns in the magazines without the aid of PhotoShop – all you need is the right kind of grass seeds.

The grass seeds used in the lawns you see in your day to day travels are usually not the ones that will get you a lawn like that, though. Grass seeds come in many different varieties, each with its own properties, so while one type may stay a bright green, it might also grow so fast it’s hard to keep it trimmed neatly on a regular basis. Or, if it grows slowly and rarely needs trimmed, you might find that it also causes terrible brown spots all over your yard. So, for obvious reasons, the most commonly used grass seeds are usually not the ones that are going to give you a picture perfect lawn.

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Lawn Fertilizer – Fall Vs Winterizer Fertilizer – What’s the Difference?

Over the years I have defined a difference between a “Fall” lawn fertilizer and a “Winterizer” fertilizer. These two types of fertilizer really address the root growth and winter hardiness of Kentucky Bluegrass.

Physiologically, grass produces an excessive amount of new roots in the spring and also in the fall when the temperatures are cool, soil moisture is high and primary nutrients for root development are readily available.

Roots of Kentucky bluegrass develop from the underground nodes of the rhizomes and from the basal nodes of the above ground shoots called the crown. Roots also develop at the terminal nodes of rhizomes that emerge above the soil as shoots.

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Killing Wintergrass

The weedy grass which invades many home lawns every winter is Wintergress, Poa annua is the scientific name for wintergrass.

This weedy grass has bright green leaves which are soft and produce multiple seed heads, it’s root system is also a massive problem due to it’s spider-web like masses of fine white roots which quickly crowd out the soil profile of the lawn, which in turn leaves less room for lawn roots to exist in the same space. This problem is not only evident in the Winter time when we see winter grass, but also throughout the entire year.

Wintergrass is a real problem when is comes to lawn mowing too. During lawn mowing the winter grass will often slash and look terrible afterwards. So now we know we have a problem that needs to be addressed, lets address it, and kill wintergrass!

Wintergrass can only be killed by a special herbicide which has been specifically made to kill wintergrass. The poison is mixed up in a watering can and to manufacturers specifications and then applied to the lawn. After application, the weed killer is then watered into the lawn so that it can reach down into the root zone of the weeds.

Wintergrass killer acts by poisoning the roots of the weed!

Allow 3-6 weeks for the Wintergrass to die off after applying the herbicide.

Timing is critical when applying this poison. It must be applied as early as possible in the season when wintergrass in a problem – which is Winter. The poison can also be applied before the wintergrass is even seen. So 2-4 weeks before winter begins is one of the very best times to apply this poison as the seedlings are just beginning to germinate and are at their weakest, and so are most easily killed.

Once the wintergrass becomes very mature in the later part of winter, it will be almost impossible to kill the weeds because they can more easily resist these herbicides. So be sure to apply as early as possible.

For more lawn care advice and lawn weeds advice, you may also like to visit Lawn Care Tips and Advice.

Lawn Care In Spring

Spring is when our lawns come back to life after a long cold winter. It’s now that we need to prepare our lawns for the new growing season ahead of us. With good lawn care practices – we too can have a beautiful lawn this season.

So we’re going to go over all the basic tips to get our lawn green and something to be proud of with the least amount of troubles.

Lawn Mowing

Start mowing lawns regularly, don’t hold off. Lawn mowing is important to get the lawn nice and thick, it also has the added benefit of reducing many different types of weeds. This can happen because when we mow regularly – we are removing the new weed seeds before they develop. Regular lawn mowing also enables the tillering effect, which thickens and greens up the leaf of the lawn without creating excessive thatch.

Fertilising

Fertilising lawns is always important and lawn owners must make it part of their year round lawn care regimen. Fertilisers have nutrients that lawns need to stay healthy and continue growing under optimum conditions. Buy a good quality lawn fertilisers and only ever follow the instructions on the fertiliser bag. Don’t ever apply too much, and always water the fertiliser after application, otherwise the fertiliser can burn the leaf of the lawn.

Wetting Agents

Put down wetting agents to aid in the lawn soil to absorb water and to distribute it evenly throughout the soil profile. Wetting agents are cheap to buy so there is no need to skimp on this simple lawn care practice. The results will pay dividends when the lawn thickens and greens up.

Good Lawn Care

Well those are the top 3 lawn care tips for looking after lawns when Spring arrives. Of course there are other things to do, such as looking out for lawn disease and beginning any lawn repairs which may be necessary, but we’ll cover these in our next article.

YOUR LAWN AND GARDEN INTRODUCES REEL MOWERS

YOUR LAWN AND GARDEN CREATES A NEW STANDARD

Reel mowers are often called cylinder mowers, and sometimes they can even be known as roller mowers. They are a fantastic machine for lawn mowing that leave a wonderful smooth and flat finish to the mowed lawn. But reel mowers aren’t used to provide lawn mowing services in most of Australia, and aren’t used by most home owners for a few simple reasons.

When compared to the usual rotary lawn mower, reel mowers are substantially more expensive to purchase, they can also be substantially more expensive to service and sharpen for the average person and business. Also, whereas rotary mowers are relatively straight forward in design, reel mowers are rather more complicated, and this intimidates most users or people considering the purchase of these machines for their lawn care.

The overwhelming benefits of these machines remains, the finish of the cut in unsurpassed, and reel mowers are the machines used on bowling greens to create that wonderful smooth flat finish.

Your Lawn and Garden Defies The Norm

The good people of Perth in Western Australia have been very lucky for a very long time, whereby they can have their lawns mowed with a reel mower as standard whenever they hire a lawn mowing contractor, providing their lawn isn’t too long or with too many bare patches. So the question is, if reel mowing can be standard for Perth, then why can’t the good people of Adelaide have the same quality of mowing available to them. Well Your Lawn and Garden is here to tell the People of Adelaide that they can indeed have this same high standard, and we will be the trail blazers of this new standard.

Reel Mowers Are Not For All Lawns

Your Lawn and Garden would like to advise everyone anticipating this new standard of lawn care in Adelaide, that reel mowers cannot be used on all lawn surfaces or for all lawn types. There are many limitations to their use including

• all lawns being mowed with a reel mower must be cut regularly
• long grass cannot be cut with a reel mower
• rough, uneven or weedy lawns cannot be cut with a reel mower
• cool season grasses cannot be cut with a reel mower

Reel mowers cut at a very low height, and as such all of the above mentioned points will be considered before we can offer this service for your particular property. If we cannot offer this service we will explain why, and what can be done in your particular lawn care that would make your lawn suitable for this service.

Reel mowers are just another reason why Your Lawn and Garden is the best choice in lawn care for the people of Adelaide.