Whether you’re trying to start new grass or whip a sad lawn back into some semblance of decency, the weeks between Labor Day and early October are the year’s best. The warm soil, cooling temperatures, and more frequent rain add up to ideal grass-seed sprouting (usually). It’s also the perfect time to […]
Runoff from farms and factories is a key source of water pollution that ends up draining into the Chesapeake Bay, where it’s long harmed the health of aquatic life. But runoff from the fertilizers that go on our ample acreage of home lawns also is a contributor – an estimated 14 percent of […]
I detect a growing sentiment – apparently a corollary to the native-plant and save-the-pollinators movements – that we all should stop growing lawns. It seems to go beyond just shrinking lawn space in favor of something more useful into a belief that lawns are downright evil. I’ve gleaned smatterings of that the […]
You might assume that a bag of grass seed contains all or mostly grass seed, but if you pay attention to the labels, you’ll find that’s usually not the case these days. Many bags of retail grass seed contain only half grass seed with the rest made up of fertilizer, coatings, fillers, and […]
The lawn-care pros who care for so many of our yards have no magic secrets on how to grow a nice lawn. They just know what conditions and measures lawns need to thrive – and when and how to deliver them. Any of us can do the same thing… if we learn […]
A lot of lawns went brown during the weeks-long hot, dry spell in July. That’s normal and is a lawn’s way of “hiding out” in survival mode until conditions improve. A good rain or two typically brings a lawn out of summer dormancy, and it goes on to green up and start […]
I got an email from Cathy in Camp Hill wondering what to do about her 70-by-70-foot lawn that’s so overrun with weeds that there’s barely any grass left. “I’m die-hard eco-friendly,” she says, “and I really don’t want to use anything toxic to the birds I feed or the insects they eat.” […]
I’ve always thought that people lean too heavily on lawns, mainly because it’s the default choice when 1.) they can’t think of anything better to do with the space, or 2.) they’d rather not invest in the work and expense to do something else. I have nothing against lawns, but unless we really […]
Do you really want or need that perfect green carpet of a lawn? An alternative is “good-enough grass” that’s a lot less expensive and less difficult to attain but still decent enough to keep you from dragging down the neighborhood.
June beetles don’t have the notoriety of Japanese beetles when it comes to grub damage in the lawn, but they’re trying…