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!

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

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.



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.

Spring has sprung, and now is the time to start taking care of your lawn.

“I would say with the weather conditions, everyone wants to get out their and start doing something,” says Michael Haupt, the General Manager at Lakeland Lawn Care.

Haupt adds, “This time of the year you are going to notice you will have all different kinds of tunnels going through your lawn with all different kinds of dead grass.”

A problem that can be solved by raking.

“You can definitely get out there and start raking. You’re not going top hurt anything,” explains Haupt.

But don’t overdue it.

Haupt continues, “You don’t want to get into to much heavy power raking. That can do more harm than good to your lawn.”

If you have already completed raking, it’s recommended to put down fertilizer or a crab grass control.

“You want to make sure you get that down by the middle of May because that’s when the ground temperature gets above 55° where crab grass starts to germinate,” says Haupt.

But when it comes to lawn care, that’s not the only important temperature. The average low is below freezing through Mid April.

And if it gets cold enough, a hard freeze or snowfall could eliminate any new grown grass.

Haupt says, “It might be too early to put grass seed down.”

After all, an average of nearly 3 inches of snow falls in April.

Meteorologist: Andrew Thut

by Kate McIntyre, All About Lawns Columnist

It’s amazing what a little fresh air can do for people, pets, and even lawns. While it might not be possible to take your lawn for a nice, bracing drive in the country, you can improve its health with a process called aeration. Every lawn needs to be aerated at some point in its life. To see if yours is due, consider getting a lawn analysis. An analysis will tell you about the general health of your lawn and whether your lawn’s soil could benefit from aeration.

What Is Lawn Aeration?

When you aerate your lawn, you punch holes in the soil. These holes allow more air and water circulation around your lawn’s roots, preventing fungal invasions, and they encourage the growth of healthy microorganisms in the soil. These microorganisms eat lawn thatch, a layer of dead bits of grass on top of the soil that can choke out your lawn. Aeration also makes it easier for your lawn to grow stronger, deeper roots. A good root system is essential for your lawn’s survival in times of drought.
To get your lawn aerated, you have a couple of options. You can contact a lawn care service that will come over and aerate your lawn for you, or you can rent an aerator from a home improvement store and tackle the job yourself. If you opt to aerate yourself, be sure to make a couple passes with the aerator to ensure that you have gotten thorough coverage.

When Should I Aerate my Lawn?

The best times to aerate your lawn are the spring and fall. If you have warm season grass in your lawn, spring is preferable because the grass is gearing up for rapid growth and can recover quickly from aeration. Cool season lawns grow most vigorously in the early fall, so that is a prime time to aerate them. You should avoid aerating in the heat of summer, or if your lawn is very dry. Plan on giving your lawn a good watering two days before you want to aerate.

Some lawns are better candidates for aeration than others. Lawns growing in clay soils usually need aeration around twice a year because the clay compacts easily. Lawns in sandy soil usually need to be aerated much less. Once a year should be sufficient.

Aeration is an easy way to improve your lawn’s health. By aerating just once or twice a year, you can ensure that your lawn’s roots are strong. You will see the result of healthy roots every time you look outside: an emerald green carpet of thriving grass.

About the Author:
Kate McIntyre is a writer in Portland, Oregon. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Oregon State University.

To Get The Best In Lawn Aeration In Green Bay, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Appleton & Fox Cities Please Give Lakeland Lawn Care A Call.  Visit Our Website at www.LakeLandLawnCare.com to receive great coupons and discounts too.

Chances are good, that you have either experienced first hand or know someone that has had their lawn destroyed by grubs. We are pleased to inform you that there is prevention for this problem. We like to call our preventative grub control application “insurance for your lawn”.

White grubs eat the roots of grasses and other plants. Where grubs are few, turf may look healthy because grass plants may develop new roots as fast as grubs eat the old ones. Depending on the grub species, grub populations averaging five or more per square foot can damage the root system and cause unhealthy, turf above ground. Damaged turf will readily “roll-up” like a rug.

Turf grass roots normally grow rapidly in the spring and fall, and slowly during summer. Therefore, problems with grubs are greatest in summer because roots don’t recover normally. Inadequate soil moisture may increase the problem since the few healthy roots have no moisture to take up. For this season, grub damage typically shows up during the normally drier months of August and early September, although grubs may have been feeding earlier in the summer depending on the grub species.

There are two approaches to controlling grubs: preventative (before the damage occurs) and curative (when lawns show damage). Sometimes both approaches are needed to adequately control grubs. Preventative treatments must be in place when eggs are laid. This will provide up to 95% control of white grubs. Curative treatments provide effective control of young white grubs; larger grubs are more difficult to control. Curative insecticides offer 50-75% control.

If you are interested in more information on grubs and our services to control these pests, please contact the office. A quote for the preventative application can be given over the phone. If you are interested in scheduling this service, be sure to contact the office before the end of June. The technicians will be applying the preventative application during the end of June thru mid-July.

This year Mason even got his picture taken and posted on the Green Bay Packers home page!

Here's Mason Picture On The Packers Website!

Event To Benefit The Angel Fund For Children With Cancer

Packers running backs coach Edgar Bennett, along with many Packers players, coaches and scouts, will return to the lanes at Ashwaubenon Bowling Alley, Wednesday, June 10, for the sixth Edgar Bennett Celebrity Bowl-A-Thon.

The event will raise money for The Angel Fund for Children with Cancer Inc., an organization dedicated to giving financial and social support to families residing in Brown County whose children are receiving treatment for cancer or for bone marrow failure.

Registration for the evening begins at 6 p.m., with the bowling event and silent auction to start at 6:30. The silent auction will feature autographed Packers and NFL memorabilia.

The Green Bay Packers are proud to have Kraft Foods return as a corporate and food sponsor for the event.

Area businesses and individuals are encouraged to support the effort. Lane and individual sponsorships are available as a way to join the fun-filled evening and bowl with a member of the Green Bay Packers family.