Blog - Cincinnati & Dayton Organic Lawn Care Service

Cincinnati and Dayton Lawn Insects

Posted 5 days ago by Matt Maurer

Cincinnati and Dayton lawn insects can cause problems and destroy healthy grass. Don’t let your lawn look like the picture above. This lawn has been destroyed by bluegrass billbugs. This can happen to any lawn no matter how healthy it is. So what can you do? Protect your beautiful lawn with a preventative insect control. Cincinnati and Dayton lawn insects that cause problems include billbugs, grubs, chinch bugs, and sod webworms. PureLawn is proud to state that they use an EPA reduced risk insecticide that has a low impact on fish, honey bees, and all other non-target organisms. It is the only grub control that was not required to put a signal word on their label.

So when do these insects destroy lawns? You see billbug damage during the Summer and getting a preventative treatment down as quickly as possible is a good idea. The best time to put these down to prevent billbug damage, but also grubs and other insects is right now! Grubs do their damage mostly in the Fall, but we apply a protective insect treatment now that prevents damage from all lawn insects in Cincinnati and Dayton.

White Grub

How do you know if you have grub damage? You can easily pull up the grass like it is sod that is not rooted. It will pull up like carpet because the little pesky grubs chew on the roots of your grass until it turns brown and dies. You can usually find the white grubs in the soil as you pull up the sod.

Receiving a preventative insect control is health insurance for your lawn and will save you from an expensive Fall Seeding or Sod job. Contact us now to get on our list. If you don’t get this treatment down soon you may not be able to prevent billbug damage.

Thanks

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged billbug damage, bluegrass billbug, cincinnati lawn insects, dayton lawn insects, grub damage, insect damage lawn, insect damage to grass, lawn insects cincinnati, lawn insects dayton | No Comments

Natural Weed Control

Posted 11 days ago by Matt Maurer

So what is the best natural weed control in Cincinnati and Dayton lawns? A healthy thick lawn is your best defense against weeds without lawn pesticides. How can you reduce the amount of weeds in your lawn naturally without lawn chemicals? Below are some tips that can help, but if you ever need us to come spot treat the weeds with a herbicide then please just contact us.

Mow High – This is the most important cultural practice. This is especially true if you are trying to have a beautiful lawn without chemicals. Mowing high does many beneficial things like developing a deep root system, healthier lawn, greener grass, and reducing the amount of weeds. The grass “crowds out” the weeds. Will a thick lawn completely crowd out all weeds? No that is mother nature you are fighting and we can’t win that fight. You can work with mother nature though and mowing high is your best way of doing this. Your grass should be 3-4 inches AFTER you cut the grass.
Seed Bare/Thin Areas – Weeds invade where they can. This means areas that are bare/thin, especially edges against concrete, are more prone to weed pressure. What can you do about this? Get some seed down in these areas. The best time to do this is in Sept/Early October in Cincinnati and Dayton. Work the soil with a garden weasel or a metal rake. Spread some seed evenly over the area and lightly topdress the seed with high quality compost or topsoil. Then make sure to water daily for the next 2-3 weeks. Don’t allow the soil to dry out and handpull any weeds that may pop up with the new grass. We suggest using turf type tall fescue grass, but make sure you DO NOT get the older tall fescue, which is called Kentucky 31 or K-31 Tall Fescue. If you would like us to give you a slice seeding quote or deliver you a 50 lb bag of more drought tolerant grass then please contact us.
ID Weed and What Do They Indicate - Weeds are indicators of deficiencies. For example, dandelions are an indicator that the soil is low in calcium and usually high in magnesium. We see this often in Cincinnati and Dayton lawns. We offer a Clay Buster application that addresses both of these issues. Core aeration also helps. Doing both at the same time is great! Our clay buster application is a calcium sulfate treatment that helps raise the calcium levels in your soil and reduce the compaction caused by high magnesium. Have lots of Plantains? Again, your soil is compact. Core aerate the lawn and putting down a clay buster application would help the soil. Knotweed? Again lots of compaction. Lots of chickweed or speedwell? Almost always we see this in bare/thin areas in Spring. Get some new grass seed down.
Handpull - Manual eradication is still legal. We sell Speedy Weedy (handpulling tool) for $34.99 plus tax that makes it fun to pull weeds. It works very well for dandelions. You simply push the long pole into the soil and twist it until the three prongs on the end of the tool grab the root of the weed. Simply pull the tool out of the soil and push the ejector button to release the root and weed into a bucket. Very simple. Contact us if you would like us to deliver one to you for free!
Iron X – Although we do not provide this service yet, there is a product out there that is iron based that selectively controls weeds without chemicals. It is called Iron-X and is made by Gardens Alive. We have currently been doing testing with this product and are hoping to offer this service to our customers in the future. Right now it is a little pricey and we have seen mixed results on many weeds. It seems to work well on dandelions though. Unfortunately at this time this is the only selective organic weed control out there, but we are confident that more prodcuts will be coming to the market that will provide a safer weed control for lawn care companies to offer to their customers. We will continue to test out the new materials for you and offer you only the best, safest, and most effective products available.
Corn Gluten Meal – We put down corn gluten meal in our PureGreen Program twice per year to help reduce the amount of weeds in our customer’s lawns naturally. This acts as a natural premergent and helps reduce some weeds, but remember mowing high and filling in bare/thin areas is still the best method of natural weed control in Cincinnati and Dayton lawns.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cincinnati lawns, corn gluten meal, dayton lawns, natural weed control, organic weed control, weed control cincinnati, weed control dayton | No Comments

Troubleshooting Two Common Lawn Problems

Posted 17 days ago by Matt Maurer

Over the years we see the same problems in Cincinnati and Dayton lawns. Today I will be troubleshooting two common lawn problems in Cincinnati and Dayton lawns.

Too much shade- I see this more often than I would like, but trees are beautiful and expensive to chop down. Save a tree and plant groundcover. If an area of your property where you are trying to grow grass has moss then that is an indicator that this area does not have the right conditions for grass to grow well. Grass, even shade mixes like turf type tall fescue and fine fescues, need 3-4 hours of sunlight per day. If an area is not receiving the proper amount of sunlight for grass you have 3 options:

1) Prune your trees to allow more sunlight

2) Plant shade tolerant plants or a groundcover

3) Keep fighting mother nature and wasting money on seed/sod for this area

#3 option doesn’t sound too fun, so I would suggest options #1 or #2.

Bumpy Lawn- I wish we had the magical potion to apply to smooth out lawns. I would be a rich man in South Carolina playing golf everyday if I had this magical solution. Unfortunately there is none out there. Why do you have a bumpy lawn? There are many causes of this. Mother nature could be the cause. The freezing/thawing of the soil causes heaving over time and can cause an older lawn to have a bumpy feel. Earthworms and moles can contribute to a bumpy lawn. Earthworms indicate a fertile soil though, so don’t kill them off. Trap moles to get rid of them. Old tree roots can be a cause. Poor grading when the lawn was installed could be a cause. Finally you may just have a thin lawn or a yard with clumpy growing grasses such as K-31 Tall Fescue. These clump growing grasses can cause a very bumpy lawn. If your lawn is thin it will have a lumpy feel to it while you walk it or mow it. What are your options to address this lawn problem?

1) Aerate to relieve compaction and improve the soil structure

2) Fertilize the lawn to create a thicker lawn that fills in bare/thin areas

3) Overseed the bare/thin areas in Sept/Early October to create a thicker lawn that feels less bumpy

4) Trap Moles (Moleman of Cincinnati Sara Schmidt is very good)

5) Complete Renovation to address the poor grading issues. Very expensive and not recommended. If you do this then have it done in the Fall and seed the lawn with turf type tall fescue

6) DO NOT roll your lawn. This is a myth that it will help your lawn. It may address the bumpiness problem temporarily, but it will not last and you will cause more harm than good by compacting the soil. Never ever roll your lawn.

More lawn problems to come, but hope this helps.

Matt

Posted in Lawn Tips | Tagged bumpy lawns, cincinnati lawn problems, dayton lawn problems, lawn problems, lawn tips, shade areas, shade lawns | No Comments

Myths of Lawn Care Maintenance

Posted 31 days ago by Matt Maurer

Time and time again I run into customers with the right intentions, but along the way had absorbed some incorrect information when it comes to lawn care maintenance. Here are some very common myths of lawn care maintenance that we will debunk:

If I mow my lawn shorter then I won’t have to mow it as often. FALSE! When you jam your mower through that 5 inches of grass and cut it down to 2 inches you just injured the grass. The turf is going to use all its energy to regrow its topgrowth at the expense of the root growth. It actually grows back quicker and weaker! The grass will grow faster! If you mow your lawn shorter you are harming the grass in many different ways. If you chopped off more than 1/3 of the grass blade you just stunted the root growth. Lawns that are mowed short (2.5 inches or less) are more prone to stresses such as insect, fungus, and drought stress. Lawns mowed at 3-4 inches (after cut) have been shown in University Studies to have double the root mass, which means a lower water bill for you during the Summer and less stress. Another benefit of mowing higher is less weeds or crabgrass pressure. Try mowing your lawn at 3-4 inches after being cut this year and if you don’t see a difference go back to your old ways in 2014.
More is Better. FALSE! We’ve had customers sign up with us and then also put down fertilizer themselves! Why? Because they think if they put down some fertilizer in addition to our Lawn Programs, then their lawn will be extra green and thick. They couldn’t be more wrong. We have formulated our fertilization programs based on soil tests gathered and research done by OSU Turfgrass Department. We are putting down the correct amount of nutrients for your grass. If you put down extra, it not only can be harmful, but it is a waste of money. You can potentially burn up the lawn or have it growing so much it uses all its energy in topgrowth. Again this makes the grass more prone to stresses just like cutting off more than 1/3 of the grass blade. Dumping a pile of fertilizer in one spot doesn’t cause the grass to grow like it is on steroids. It will actually burn a spot in your lawn. Fertilizer is meant to be applied at the proper rate each application and at the proper amount per year. We will take care of this for you. Seed is the same way. Dumping a pile of seed in a bare spot IS NOT helping. Those little seeds need room and oxygen to grow. Depending on what type of seed you are using you should be putting down seed anywhere from 3-10 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Piling it up causes all the new grass blades to be weaker if they even germinate.
Watering your Lawn everyday is good for the grass. FALSE! Your grass is not a flower or a tomato plant. NEVER water your lawn everyday unless you just put down seed. Then and only then should you water daily and for short periods of time (1-2 times per day for 10-15 minutes for 2-3 weeks). Established lawns need to be watered during stress periods every 3-7 days for 60-90 minutes. Place a tuna can in your lawn and fill it up. That is how long your lawn needs to be watered every 3-7 days. This should be 1 inch of water every 3-7 days. By spacing out the waterings you are training your roots to dive deep into the soil between waterings. This will develop a deep root system that equals a lower water bill for you. If you water the lawn for 20 minutes everyday the roots stay near the surface and it can also promote a thatch layer to develop. Quit watering your lawn so often and see how well your lawn holds up this Summer.

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What are those white flowers?

Posted 38 days ago by Matt Maurer

What are those white flowers that you may be seeing in neighbor’s lawns or possibly even in spots in yours? More than likely they are chickweed. Chickweed is going crazy this Spring in Cincinnati and in Dayton. Chickweed is a winter weed that is blooming right now and will then drop its seeds into the soil. After it flowers and drops, it will then naturally die up with the warmer weather. There are many other winter weeds that are flowering right now. Some other weeds that will be dying off soon with warmer weather are deadnettle and henbit. Both look similar, but henbit has more of a stacking of leaves up the maroon stem and a darker purple flower as opposed to deadnettles light purple flower. Deadnettle leaves can also be a maroon/purple color.

henbit

What can you do about these winter weeds?

Bag your mower clippings while you see the flowers to avoid scattering the flowers/seeds of the weeds all over
Hand pull them as best you can to avoid distribution of more seeds into the soil
Apply Corn Gluten Meal in the Late Fall to help reduce the amount of winter weeds
Fill in bare/thin areas where weeds invade in the Fall
Spot Treat the weeds (Call us if you would like us to come spot treat the weeds for you)
Tolerate them knowing in a few weeks they naturally will die off. It is a flower. Just enjoy the beauty of them.

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Why use Organic Lawn Care in Cincinnati and Dayton?

Posted 45 days ago by Matt Maurer

Why use Organic Lawn Care in Cincinnat and Dayton?

How Organic Lawn Care is like a healthy diet plan
Organic Lawn Care is a sustainable way to maintain your lawn. It does not create an environment that becomes addicted to high nitrogen chemical fertilizers. Organic Lawn Care is essentially your healthy diet plan whereas Traditional Lawn Care is a diet of fast food and high sugar pop. Eating that Big Mac and drinking a supersized Coke may release endorphins that cause pleasure briefly, but it is not good for your health to eat this every day. Traditional Lawn Care (the fast food diet for lawns) may look good in the short term, but when your lawn is addicted to those high nitrogen chemical fertilizations it develops top growth at the expense of the roots. If you don’t nourish your root system as you do with Organic Lawn Care then the lawn will stress out quicker from drought, insects, and fungus.

How do Organic Fertilizers work?
Synthetic fertilizers feed mostly the grass with only top growth. They juice up the lawn, which looks good at first, but is not sustainable. Organic fertilizers feed the soil life organic matter. The soil life breaks down that organic matter and releases the nutrients to the grass and its roots as needed. It is a slower release of the nutrients with a more steady growth of the grass, but it is more efficient. An added benefit of organic fertilizers is by adding organic matter to the soil while feeding the grass you are improving the soil structure and feeding the soil life.

Why Organic Lawn Care is safer for children and pets?
“Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides 19 have studies pointing toward carcinogens, 13 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 15 with neurotoxicity, 26 with liver or kidney damage, 27 are sensitizers and/or irritants, and 11 have the potential to disrupt the endocrine (hormonal) system”- Beyond Pesticides, www.beyondpesticides.org

Why Organic Lawn Care will save you money?
What will Organic Lawn Care produce? A lawn with a deeper root system with a better soil structure teeming with millions of beneficial soil microbes and earthworms. How does this save you money? It saves you money by lowering your water bill. Imagine how much you would have to water grass growing on concrete to keep it alive? Now imagine how much you would have to water grass growing in 10 inches of dark rich brown crumbly topsoil. The roots are enormous and dive down deep to extract moisture from deeper in the ground. A better soil strucuture develops deeper roots. A stronger root system means less watering to keep the lawn healthy when stresses occur. Organic Lawn Care produces deeper root systems compared with Traditional Lawn Care and this will reduce your watering bill throughout the Summer.

Posted in Lawn Tips | Tagged benefits of organic lawn care, cincinnati organic lawn care, dayton organic lawn care, organic fertilizers, organic lawn care | No Comments

How does Corn Gluten Meal work?

Posted 49 days ago by Matt Maurer

How does Corn Gluten Meal work? In Cincinnati and Dayton lawns, we apply Corn Gluten Meal during a couple of our treatments in our PureGreen Program. In 1991 at Iowa State University, Dr. Nick Christians patented the by-product from the processing of corn for its premergent weed control properties. How does it work? It actually inhibits the roots of dicot weeds from expansion and the plant quickly dies from dehydration. How well does it work? As a weed control? Don’t get your hopes up too high. As a fertilizer? Excellent. PureLawn does not advertise it as a natural premergent because the expectations are unrealistic. It does help reduce weeds, but many times customers expect Corn Gluten Meal to work as well as chemical premergents. After 3 years of applying Corn Gluten Meal, you will begin to see it working close to as well as a chemical premergent, but that depends on cultural practices (mowing high and filling in bare/thin areas with new grass seed) and also whether you are applying enough per year.

PureLawn is happy to use this fertilizer on lawns in Cincinnati and Dayton. In our PureGreen Program we put down Corn Gluten Meal along with our Custom Blended PureLawn Organic Fertilizers. We are proud to state that our fertilizers in the PureGreen Program are vegetable by-product based and we DO NOT use cheaper manure based fertilizers like our competitors.

We use only the highest quality products available and our personalized service is unmatched. Our Angies List Super Service Award in 2012 backs this claim up. Thanks for your support!

Posted in Lawn Tips | Tagged cincinnati lawns, corn gluten meal, dayton lawns, natural premergent, organic fertilizer, premergent | No Comments

5 Spring Landscaping Tips

Posted 52 days ago by Matt Maurer

Here are 5 Spring Landscaping Tips for homeowners to follow to make their property look beautiful in 2013. This article was published on the Angies List website. The weather hasn’t exactly felt like Spring, but it is finally here. Here are 5 Spring Landscaping Tips:

http://www.angieslist.com/articles/5-lawn-and-andscaping-tips-spring.htm

Posted in Lawn Tips | Tagged Early Spring Landscaping Tips, Early Spring Lawn Tips, Spring Landscaping Tips, Spring Lawn Tips | No Comments

When do I need to get my premergent down by?

Posted 56 days ago by Matt Maurer

Snow in Late March in Cincinnati and Dayton? What is going on? People are stuck wondering when do I need to get my premergent down by? Is it too early or too late? The weird weather this Spring has left Dayton and Cincinnati lawn care companies and homeowners adjusting their treatment schedules slightly. If you have already put down your premergent and are worried it is not going to work because of the strange weather…don’t worry. The premergent, whether you are using a chemical premergent or a natural premergent like Corn Gluten Meal, is going to work just fine.

Premergents must be put down by a certain time to be fully effective, but this is not based on the calendar. So is it too late to apply a premergent to your lawn? No not even close. The effectiveness of the premergents on reducing the amount of crabgrass and annual grassy weeds is based on soil temperature. You want to get your premergents down before the soil temperature is 55 degrees. Another indicator that many use is the blooming of the forsythia plant. According to Ohio Agricultural Research and Developmental Center the soil temperatures are still hovering around 36 degrees. We will be fine probably through April and maybe into May applying premergents this year. This is a little abnormal and it is the complete opposite of last year when it went from 30 degrees air temperature to 80 degrees within weeks. This made it hard to get the premergents down in the proper time, but PureLawn uses one of the only premergents out there that still works after the soil temperatures hit 55 degrees. If we haven’t made it out to your property to apply the first treatment yet, we will make it out sometime in April. There is still plenty of time and we will make sure you see the maximum benefits from our applications.

Posted in Lawn Tips | Tagged cincinnati lawn care, corn gluten meal, dayton lawn care, natural premergent, premergent, soil temperatures | No Comments

Red Thread in Cincinnati and Dayton Lawns

Posted 62 days ago by Matt Maurer

Red Thread in Cincinnati and Dayton Lawns is very common. We see pink snow mold and red thread in Cincinnati and Dayton lawns during the Spring and Fall. Many times coming out of a wet Winter we often spot Red Thread in some lawns in Early Spring. Don’t worry about this lawn disease. It rarely ever does actual damage to the turf, but it can look bad for a little bit. Be patient in Early Spring when it comes to Red Thread.

Our first treatment of nutrients and some warmer weather will help it grow out. If you see this disease later in the season it could mean there is a nitrogen deficiency or the weather conditions are just right for this lawn fungus. Again do not worry. Give it some time and our controlled release nutrients will help it grow out. Our organic based fertilizers help grow out this disease by providing the grass the proper nutrients. Make sure you do not mow wet grass or you could spread the lawn fungus across healthy grass. One helpful lawn care tip to deal with Winter Lawn Diseases is to “fluff” the grass with a rake in the Early Spring to help the grass breath and recover quicker. If you think you have this disease call us for a free lawn analysis.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cincinnati lawn care, cincinnati lawn care tips, dayton lawn care, dayton lawn care tips, lawn disease, pink snow mold, red thread, winter lawn disease | No Comments