Summer in Northeast Ohio is one of the best times to enjoy your yard. Ongoing upkeep is the key to having the lawn you desire.
Is your lawn summer ready? If not, here are four helpful summer lawn care tips.
Tip #1 Watering Your Lawn
Are you seeing patches of grass with red or pink strands? You are most likely experiencing Red Thread disease in your lawn. Red Thread is a lawn fungus, or disease that affects your grass. It’s a fungal infection you can recognize thanks to the pink or red “threads,” or stromata, that show up in a spiky or wispy formation in your lawn, usually in patches. These threads are also sometimes called antlers due to their shape.
The fungus, Laetisaria fuciformis, that causes Red Thread doesn’t affect the roots of the plant, so it does not kill the grass. Instead, it lives in the thatch and soil and is spread via dead plant material.
Red Thread lawn fungus is not the same as “pink patch,” although many aspects look similar. Pink patch is caused by Limonomyces roseipellis.
Tip #2 Mowing
Mowing regularly not only ensures a more attractive lawn, it helps your grass grow better by giving it more direct access to sun and water. Most of the grass in Northeast Ohio is cool season grass, meaning it grows best in early spring or fall. Some of the most common cool season grasses in Ohio include Kentucky Bluegrass, Bentgrass, Ryegrass and Fescue. This type of grass is best kept at a height of approximately two inches.
Tip #3: Fertilizing Your Lawn
Fertilizing your lawn is an important step in summer lawn care. This is also a good time to add weed control and pest control, if needed. An ongoing fertilizer regimen keeps feeding your lawn what it needs to stay healthy. A regularly fertilized lawn will have more healthy grass and less weeds, strong roots and a better chance of sustaining through heat waves and dry spells.
Tip #4 Weed Control
Not sure how to control the weeds in your yard? In Ohio, lawns are often invaded by nutsedge, an aggressive plant that can spread quickly. Because nutsedge grows through underground tubers, it can be very hard to eliminate. Often the best way to deal with nutsedge is core aeration and overseeding. Core aeration is the process of making small holes in the lawn. When followed by overseeding, or adding more grass seed, it can often edge out the weed by adding more of the healthy grass that’s desired.
Let Grass Master Help
If maintaining a healthy lawn is important to you, why not let the experts at Grass Master help? We can handle your lawn maintenance during all seasons for you, apply our knowledge about lawn care and give you the beautiful, healthy lawn you’ve always wanted.
With our Deluxe Lawn Care Program, you get six visits, starting in the spring and ending when grass goes dormant in the fall. It’s the most comprehensive Northeast Ohio lawn care fertilization package. With Grass Master, your lawn will get the best treatment from trained service technicians. In addition to mowing, you get fertilizer, weed treatment and insect control.
Contact us for more information on the Grass Master Deluxe Lawn Care Program.
