Your Questions by The Lawn Coach. Lawn Tips, Lawn Advice and Lawn Care help for all your lawn care needs. by The Lawn Coach. Lawn Tips, Lawn Advice and Lawn Care help for all your lawn care needs.

Your Questions by The Lawn Coach. Lawn Tips, Lawn Advice and Lawn Care help for all your lawn care needs. by The Lawn Coach. Lawn Tips, Lawn Advice and Lawn Care help for all your lawn care needs.

First Time Bermuda Grass Grower

Good Morning Mr. Brown~~

I live in Hampstead NC, and this is the first time I have ever tried to take care of our Bermuda grass. It is full of purple and green clover, and many many other weeds. My husband passed away in Jan of this year and he was unable to do the pre-emergent treatment when it needed to be done, however the grass was not in good shape anyway. I put weed/feed on in early April (twice) and also fertilized it twice. I have lots of bare spots and I have been pulling weeds all summer to no avail. One gentlemen, not a lawn man,told me he thought it was "trench" (or something that sounded like that ) bug eating the roots. He said his lawn looked just like mine (poor guy),and he got some sort of granular stuff to put on it. Since I am not sure what to do, I don't want to just do a trial and error until perhaps I might find the answer. Any help that you might offer, I will be so grateful to receive.

Do I need to try to kill all the weeds first? I have been trying to read up on what to do...but, I do need your help.

Thank you,

Joy

Hi Joy,

Taking care of a lawn can be a frustratingly difficult experience for several reasons. First, there’s a lot more to it then most people realize. Second, there is a lot of contradictory information that can be confusing if you don’t have a background in this.

There is certainly a chance that you have “chinch” bugs, but they won’t stick around forever. At this point, I wouldn’t worry too much about them. The damage is done, but I doubt it’ll get much worse.

The weeds are a nuisance, but there are a few options. You can spray them with a selective herbicide OR you can just live with them. There’s no law against weeds, so why stress out over them? The “Green” and “Organic” movements afoot are trying to change the perception of a good lawn from being a perfect carpet to being a mish mash of various plants, all mowed to a uniform height. There’s a really good point there. If you fertilize and encourage healthy turf, it will look nice even though it’s not uniform. It’s all a matter of perception and expectations.

I’d recommend asking around for a good lawn company to take care of things for the next season while you have time to read up some more, and to pay better attention to what needs to be done, and when. I could go on for hours on what you should do, and when, but a) I’d bore the pants off the rest of the visitors to this site, and b) there are way too many variables for me to consider.

If you decide to do it yourself, I’d recommend starting with a photo consultation. You can find that here:

PHOTO CONSULTATION

In a situation like yours, you can simply plan to do a few of these over the next year to better understand your lawn and what it needs. After a season, you likely won’t need to do it anymore.

Let me know what you think.

C.J. Brown

Friday, September 19, 2008

Please Support
“The Lawn Coach” Website