Got some rain last night. Not the type one would want…it was fast, heavy and didn’t last long. Typically, these cause the water to run over your lawn and wash away, not penetrate into the root system. A slow, gentle rain is optimum. My neighbors to my east have the brown spots in their lawns again. I say again because they had chinch bugs. These are small insects that attach themselves to your grass, blade by blade, and suck the life out of it. The brown areas start small, but as the colony grows, so does the brown areas. AND, as the colony grows, so does the death of your lawn. I tried to explain this to them, but they felt it was  a lack of water. They watered the hell out of  the lawn and ended up having to re-sod.  Chinch bugs are treatable and their is a way to tell if you have them…..

No rain today…grasses around me are starting to turn brown and need a drink.  Time to water, but not at dusk. Water early in the am, 7am or so and then about 6pm. Too late and the water has no chance to dry and you are asking for mold or fungus growth…and that is a costly matter to take up. Watering also means…….not to the point of runoff. About one inch a week. Now, to measure this, use coffee cans spaced along your sprinkler path and water until it reaches a depth of 1 inch in the can…..

Lawn starting to get that worn down look. Hasn’t rained in 6 days and when you walk on the grass, it doesn’t bounce back…a sign it needs water. We’ll see if it rains tonight. If not, I’ll water it tomorrow..

Lawn is thick and looking great. Rain showers, the off and on type have kept it green and thick. My worry is now for mold or fungus to strike it. Will keep looking at it……

Oh, but what an odor. You apply in the am or early evening. Spray directly on the plants you are trying to save. The odor will keep the varmits away and save your plants, hostas and the like. You’ll smell the odor only while it is wet, but once dry, it cannot be picked up by you. It is made up of organic things like spoiled and rotten eggs. Again, a bad odor when first applied, then goes away from your nose. Apply to the same plant or area, 2x a week for 4 weeks, then once a week during the growing season.

Getting close to cutting the grass every 4 days already. No bug infestations have been spotted. Yet!…..Weather has been cooperative and this enables greening and grass growing….

My hostas are sprouting up quickly and I’ve noticed rabbits nibbling at the edge. Slugs have not been around, yet. I am thinking about trying a new method to keep the slugs out…laying a copper strip around the hostas acts like foil in your mouth…the slugs cannot tolerate this and stay away. I have used chemicals in the past to keep them away. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you which one worked the best…and it’s ORGANIC!

Brown patches in your lawn now, typically mean you have grubs. To be sure, peel back a section of the dead turf…look through the dirt and you might find some juicy white grubs there. If so, here is what to do…apply Bayer 24 hour grub killer with dylox. This is a systemic that is absorbed into the grass…then when the grub bites off some of the root of your grass, he dies. Grubex and Bayer Grub Control will not work now…they are typically June-July applications, while Bayer 24 hour with Dylox is April-May, August-September. Want to know why? Hit me up with an email and I’ll let you know.

take a walk through your yard and check out your flower gardens…weeds popping up? Hit’em with your favorite spot weed killer treatment. Roundup, in the white bottle, kills on contact but leaves no residual killing power in the soil it touches. It becomes inert. I use this in my gardens to spot treat the weeds…but be careful…wind driven spray can carry over and touch a plant you don’t want to kill. Spray close to the weed and if possible, use a piece of cardbaord or paper to shield any of the close plants you don’t want to kill…