Gerry's Blog - Turf King

The first Dandelions of the season are a marker in the lawn care business.

I drove to a stop sign and saw some yellow flowers in the lawn across the road. Are those dandelions already? So I crossed the street to take a closer look.

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Sure enough, they are dandelions. The first of the hordes have arrived. This piece of lawn is on a slope and faces south. So it means that this patch of lawn is in a warm and sunny spot.

The first blooms of dandelions are one way to tell if the season is early or late.

When first dandelions blooms are seen on the 27th of April - this means that this season is about 7-10 days later than normal. In some years, when the weather is earlier than normal, dandelions can be seen as early as mid April

Of course, it seems like it has been a long time since we have had a normal season.

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For information about dandelion control

Turf King is your premier lawn care provider in Hamilton, Halton, and Haldimand. Www.turf-king.ca

Kathy has concerns about grub problems and whether to lay down a new back lawn.

Thanks for your email, Your comments on lawn care are appreciated

I understand your concerns. Yes you are right about the chemicals being banned, up to 5 years ago, we would apply Merit for grubs- it worked -95% effective- was less poisonous than table salt, but because it is a chemical , Mr McGuinty decided it can't be used on home lawns.

The only treatment for grubs is what we call nematodes- Testing at the University of Guelph- Turfgrass Institute- show that they are about 50% effective. So that is in their outdoor laboratories.

In a home lawn- under less than ideal conditions- I feel we are going to be lucky to get 50% control.

The problem -even if we do get 50% control, the animals may still come around to dig up a lawn that has grubs- they may say- the buffet here is not as good as before , but I'm still hungry enough to dig around to find my midnight meal.

While sodding will give you a new lawn that looks great and will give it to you instantly. This does not solve the problem with grubs.

Grubs that may be in the lawns right now, will soon mature, pupate, turn into adults. The adult beetles will then fly around, mate, then the females will lay eggs. Because these are flying insects- they may lay their eggs in your lawn or they may go to the neighbour's lawn. Or the adults from a neighbour's lawn may come over and lay their eggs on your lawn. No one can predict which lawn will have eggs laid on it this summer.

The other day, someone said that they had not had grub problems for the last 10 years. Other folks seem to get grubs for the last 3 in a row. Certainly we have seen an increase since Merit is no longer allowed.

The best solution is repair the damage - by fertilizing to help the lawn to recover from the damage. And to seed to help the bare or damaged spots to fill in.

Of course there are several ways to seed the lawn. The important thing with seeding is to ensure that the seed has good contact with the soil so that it will keep moist and germinate. Often with animals digging, there is enough spaces and enough dirt showing to let the seed fall into the soil.

Turf King often does lawn repairs by aerating and overseeding.

With seeding, the main thing is to make sure it stays moist. We recommend watering new seed once or twice a day after the seeding.

Greg says, "I do not know what a spot or blanket treatment means."

Thanks Greg for asking that question. Blanket or spot refers to two different types of spray applications that are available used within lawn care programs. Generally, in reference to weed treatments.

A blanket spray - means the whole yard is treated,

A spot spray means that the areas with weeds are treated and not areas where there are no weeds.

With the organic products, the product cost is more. So, blanket treatments require a lot more product than spot sprays. If the lawn is in good shape, a spot spray is usually adequate. A very weedy lawn will likely need a blanket spray- at least to start.

In the past with the old pesticide the cost of product was not as much- in fact very insignificant. Spot spraying was not done because of cost but because people had issues with the use of pesticides.

Dandelions- a Lawn Care Golden Opportunity

Spot spraying originally was something that the lawn care industry instituted to meet the needs of the customers. When pesticides were used to control weeds, people would feel better if less pesticides could be used. So lawn care companies would spot spray lawns instead of blanket spraying the whole lawn whether it needed it or not.

Back then, spot spray programs would generally reduce pesticide use by 50% or more. In general, spot sprays would not do quite as good a job as a blanket spray, but people were willing to have a few weeds knowing that there was less pesticide used on their lawn. When spot spraying, the lawn care technician may not treat an area that appears to be weed free, but there may have been small weeds starting unseen below the grass.

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