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Lawns may deteriorate over time due to excess thatch, soil compaction, or a combination of the two. Aeration helps to manage thatch build-up and reduce problems arising from soil compaction. Lawn aeration can help build a thicker, healthier lawn with better resistance to weeds, diseases, and insects.

What is Aeration?

• Core Aeration is the process of making thousands of small holes in the turf. These holes allow fertilizer, water and air to reach the root zone quicker, resulting in new growth and increased root development. These holes also open up the soil and help reduce thatch build up and soil compaction, allowing your lawn to breathe and grow.
• This process is usually done with a walk behind or ride on machine. 

Why do I need Aeration?

• Aeration helps lawns by breaking up the thatch layer. Too much thatch may house insects and diseases, prevents pesticides from reaching the pests in the soil such as grubs or crabgrass seed, and reduce the effectiveness of fertilizers and watering.
• Aeration also reduces compaction problems. Compacted soil reduces the amount of oxygen to the roots, restricts root growth, and limits water absorption. Deeper roots improve nutrient and water intake, which encourages grass growth and results in a denser turf that helps to crowd out unwanted weeds.
• Like us, your lawn and soil need to breath!

When is Aeration needed?

• When soil is compacted
• When the thatch layer is more than a half inch thick
• Before overseeding turf

Spring vs. Fall Aeration, Which is better?

• If you have cool-season grasses (which we have in our area) such as kentucky blue grass, fescue, and rye grass; it’s best to aerate in fall vs. spring. Reason being that in spring weed seeds are germinating and aeration may encourage their growth as well. Plus in spring your lawn may become too saturated because of spring showers to pull proper cores of soil.
• Warm-season grasses such as bermuda grass, and st. augustine grass  is usually best done in springtime.

Following your Aeration service.

• Although recently aerated lawns may look rough and in poor condition. If lawns are  aerated when grass is actively growing in late spring or fall, lawns will quickly recover with proper mowing and regrowth.
• Allow 2-3 weeks for the plugs of soil to dissolve and dissappear. Or for faster results you may set your mower at a lower height (be careful not to scalp your lawn) to help break up the plugs of soil.
• Fertilizing your lawn following an aeration service will encourage a quicker recovery.

Remember, regularly scheduled fertilizer applications can only go so far in making your lawn beautiful. Aerating your lawn on an annual basis will ensure that your lawn is growing at its full potential!

With the recent high temperatures, lovely sun, and lack of rain we are starting to see signs of summer stress in lawns. Lawns in our area grow best in temperatures around 70-75 degrees, and require on average about 1 inch of water per week. So you can see why a week of sun, no rain, and temperatures reaching the upper 80’s can send your lawn into distress mode.

The most common signs of summer stress are brown patches, streaks, etc in your lawn. Pay special attention to any items that may irritate your lawn during this time such as leaving a kiddie pool on the grass for too many days, high foot traffic areas, dog spots or even mowing the lawn when your grass is very brittle may cause the tops of the grass to turn brown because essentially they are breaking right off.

Also areas closer to your driveway, sidewalk, and road dry out much faster because of the heat transfer between the two, so look for the first signs of summer stress in those areas.

What is the best thing to do to prevent your lawn from stressing out? It’s simple. Water, water, water. Remember we are getting closer to the time of year that you can not depend on nature for you lawns water supply. If your lawn is not receiving enough water to survive it will go dormant. When your lawn goes dormant it is its defense mechanism to survive. Once your lawn goes dormant it will take much more water to bring it back to a beautiful lush green lawn that you had in spring. 

Below are some photos of lawns that are suffering from summer stress.

Kentucky Bluegrass Going to Seed

Are you wondering why your lawn looks like a wheat field? If so, your not alone. In Wisconsin kentucky bluegrass is common because of its ability to adapt to our different climate changes. However, for about a month in late spring/early summer your lawn may look like the picture above. What is happening is that the Kentucky Bluegrass in your lawn is going to seed. This process is sometimes brought on by a recent rise in temperatures and or a period of drought. This early summer stress causes the grass to sprout out these seedheads that cover parts or even your entire lawn. Don’t worry it wont last long, but a few simple tips to make this undesireable time to pass more quickly are; apply regular scheduled fertilizer applications, water your lawn long enough to soak the deep roots, and do not mow your lawn too short. This is one of the most common misconceptions a homeowner will make. “If I mow lower, maybe I can mow the seedheads right off”. WRONG! What you may do is scalp your lawn, cutting off any or all the green leaf that is left, and this will leave your lawn looking very sad and stressed.

To read more about kentucky bluegrass seedheads in your lawn, click on the link below.   http://www.greeen.msu.edu/news/article/seedheads_in_lawns

Save time and money with an Irrigation System.

The days of long soaking rains of spring are over. So counting on mother nature for your lawn’s water supply is no longer dependable. You may be one of the fortune ones that we all envy and have an automatic irrigation system or you may be one of the majority that drags around the trusty old sprinkler and hose, but either way you do it, your lawn needs water to survive.

As a rule of thumb, your lawn requires about an inch of water per week. So depending on how you want your lawn to look, its up to you and mother nature to do the rest! We all know that it is possible to water too little however, it is also possible to water too much. Your lawn needs a good combination of moisture, nutrients, and air to grow.

Check out the link below to read more about good water practices. http://www.allaboutlawns.com/lawn-maintenance-care/watering/how-much-should-i-water.php

If you haven’t visited our Facebook page, you missed out on a chance to help out a local charity.  Last week we held an online contest to donate to one of three charities in the area.  The three charities were House of Hope, NEW Foster Care, and Families of Children with Cancer.

We had 60 total votes, with Families of Children with Cancer winning the contest with 31 votes.  They will receive 31 childrens books that were picked out by Mike and Jenny’s kids, Ashton and Mason.  The books will be delivered next week.  Ashton and Mason had a great time choosing the books!  Thanks again to all who participated.



Everybody loves the idea of spring blowing away the cold and snow of winter. Even though spring has brought another 17″ of snow to Green Bay. That was a bit of a kick in the pants, but it will soon go away and show some green grass again. At least that’s what it should be in the spring. Sometimes when the snow goes away, it leaves behind some pretty bad looking grass. We actually saw a bit of already this year when the old snow melted before the new snow came.

Voles

One of the main questions we were hearing about at the home shows this year was voles.  Many people make the mistake calling them mice, because they look similar, but they make a very easy to diagnose damage pattern.  Voles leave trails of dead grass across your lawn.  Sometimes they can cover a wide area.  Generally the damage is superficial and after some raking will regenerate in a couple weeks.  If you have had some bad damage or extensive areas damaged, you may need to do a little overseeding to get back to where you were the previous year.  There isn’t a great deal you can do to prevent them besides poison baits and traps.

Salt Damage

Salt damage can be the result of de-icing practices along roads, driveways and sidewalks, or from the damage or pet urine in a commonly used area.  Turfgrasses are not very tolerant of excess salts and will burn when too much has been left behind.  In some instances drenching the soil can leach the excess salts through the soil profile, but heavier soils (like clay) will make that difficult.  Too much water can be bad for your grass as well.  Spreading gypsum throughout the damaged areas will release the salts from the soil profile and help it leach faster after watering.  Application of gypsum prior to the snow season can also minimize damage.  If you are patient, your lawn will recover with watering.  If you are impatient and need recovery quick, and overseeding may help, but that will still take a few weeks to see your new seed germinate.  Patience is a virtue, but it can be painful.  Hang in there.

Snow Mold

Snow mold sounds worse than it is.  We generally see snow mold in areas that have prolonged areas of deeper snow cover.  Snow mold generally has a circular shape and can coalesce into larger colonies.  Snow mold is not a problem that will cause long lasting effect, it just looks bad for a few weeks.  The management of snow mold is as easy as raking out the the infected area to break up the matting with a possibility of overseeding.  No fungicides should be needed.

Now with all this information you can tell it to your neighbors and bask in the limelight of their awe….which is not likely, but it would be nice.