Top Five Lawn Mistakes + Fall Lawn Care PART TWO

In part two of this two-part episode, Zane Raudenbush, turf and herbicide specialist within the Davey Institute, shares fall lawn care tips to help homeowners maintain and prep their yards for cooler weather. 

In this episode we cover:  

• Why is it important for homeowners to take care of their lawns in the fall? (:33)
• What can homeowners first do to take care of their lawns for the fall? (1:59)
• Do homeowners use a different fertilizer in the fall? (2:58)
• Is pH important for grass? (4:57) 
• How long does it take for pH to change? (7:43)
• Reseeding and seeding lawns in the fall (8:46)
• How do you know if you have high quality seeds? (10:48) (11:38)
• What prep work should homeowners do before seeding? (13:36)
• How can you plan seed watering with weather patterns and other factors? (18:56)
• Zane's opinion on aerating (19:53)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To learn more about fertilizing, overseeding and aeration best practices, read our blogs, Should I Fertilize My Lawn In The Fall? Yes! Here’s Why And How, and Lawn Aeration and Overseeding Aftercare.

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Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com. 

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!

Transcript

Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer. Welcome to part two with our friend Zane Raudenbush. He is a turf grass and herbicide specialist for the Davey Institute in Kent, Ohio. Today I wanted to talk, Zane, about some of the jobs we should be doing in the fall and why it's important, so important, which you have taught me over the years, so important to be focusing on this season to really improve our lawns.

Zane Raudenbush: Yes. Thanks for having me back, Doug. I'm excited to discuss fall lawn care because to your point, what you do in the fall really does set you up for the following season. Many people think, "Oh, what I do in the spring is going to set me up for summer," but it's really what you're going to do right now in the fall because the fall's a great time where we still have elevated soil temperatures, and those soil temperatures are what are going to drive growth and germination of seeds if you're someone who's going to do renovations or overseedings, but the nighttime temperatures are cool, so that pressure from diseases--

It's really just optimal growing conditions for growing cool season grasses, which is what we have in this area. This is a time after the yards have been beat up and tattered from a hard summer, this is the time to get them back into shape. Trying to do some of this work in the spring, you'll see can be doable but more challenging. In the spring, it's the opposite. Cooler soil temperatures. You'll have competition from annual grassy weeds. Yes, fall is the premier time.

Doug: What's the first thing we should be thinking about?

Zane: First thing in the fall that you should be thinking about is fertilization. Fall is the ideal time to fertilize your yard strictly because thinking about the tale of the two seasons, spring versus fall, you all know in the spring, the plants don't need any help growing, right? If you mow your own yard, you know the hard way that even unfertilized turf really grows quite vigorously. The shoots grow quite vigorously in the spring.

The fall is a nice time to fertilize because the plants are going to take a lot of those nutrients and allocate it to a lot of root growth. Versus in the spring, you'll see they're very focused on shoot growth and you just end up baling hay on your yard. Fall is a great time to fertilize because the plants are going to put a lot of effort into preparing for winter and growing a more robust root system without stimulating all this unnecessary shoot growth.

Doug: Is it a different fertilizer for the fall or the same?

Zane: It's a good question. You'll see a lot of places market a winterizer, which usually has more potassium in it. There's been some interesting research, Doug, that has shown that at times, maybe that could have a negative effect on the disease snow mold, applying too much potassium fertilizer. In general, for me, I'm going to try to give the plants what they need from a soil test. If you have never conducted a soil test on your property, now's a great time. Go out, collect a soil test because it's going to tell you a few things.

One, it's going to tell you if there's any nutrients that are deficient in your soil. If they're not deficient or there may be even optimal, then you don't need to apply. Collecting a soil test now is going to show you if any nutrients are deficient. If they're at optimal levels, you don't need to apply those nutrients. Typically a soil test is going to tell you the levels of phosphorus, the levels of potassium, calcium, magnesium. You can see if those are deficient.

It's also going to tell you the soil pH. If you have an acidic pH somewhere below 6.5, liming might be something that is suggested to try and increase the pH, might be trying to increase magnesium and calcium levels. Fall is the ideal time to do that. Lime takes a long time to break down in the soil. If you can apply it in the fall, you have all winter and spring for that material to begin breaking down and neutralizing the soil. A soil test in the fall is a good time. It's going to help you select the correct fertilizer to use. It can also tell you if you need to lime the soil.

To answer your question, Doug, I don't cookie cutter the fertilizer recommendations. I try to tailor them to the specific property. In general, one thing that we don't necessarily test for is nitrogen. In the fall, I like to apply two applications at about three quarter pound of nitrogen.

Doug: We've talked about pH before. I was under the impression that the pH is really important. Is it?

Zane: The verdict isn't out on that, Doug, in the turf grass community as to how important pH is. Grasses are not as sensitive to pH as some other crops are. In general, I would say no. pH is not as important to growing quality turf grass as some might think. You have a pH somewhere between 6.0 to 7.0, you're pretty optimal. You'll see sometimes on a soil test report, you might have a pH of 6.3. That would be a soil that some might recommend that you would lime to try to increase the pH. From my experiences, it usually does not result in any higher quality.

You'd be better off to take those dollars that you're going to spend on lime and put them into something else, maybe a quality overseeding or an organic fertilizer or compost top dressing or an aeration, something of that nature. pH becomes a problem at the extremes. When I start to see the pH getting below 5.5, I start to get concerns that there could be aluminum toxicity. That's where you really could begin to see issues on the turf. If I start to get pHs approaching 8.0, then I'm starting to wonder, is sodium somehow entering the system? If you have irrigation and you're using water that contains sodium, that's another thing that can lead to the pH being high.

Turf grasses are not as sensitive to pH as some other plant material is. To answer your question, I don't think pH is as important as it's been made out to be, but it is something to pay attention to.

Doug: Let's say that I do have to add lime. What am I looking for as far as lime? Is there a special type or what would you recommend?

Zane: Yes, good question. There's really two types of lime sources. You have a dolomitic lime and calcitic lime. On that soil test report, it's going to tell you your calcium and magnesium levels. Dolomitic lime contains both magnesium and calcium carbonate. If you were deficient in magnesium, Doug, you could use a dolomitic lime source, kill two birds with one stone. You're going to increase the soil pH and you're going to be adding magnesium. Versus if you're using a calcitic lime source, all you're doing is adding calcium and increasing the pH. That's where a soil test report can sometimes help you to tailor which lime you're going to use, a calcitic or dolomitic lime source.

Doug: About how long does it take? I guess it's probably case by case, but how long does it take to change that pH? It's a long process, right?

Zane: It is. It's on a logarithmic scale. You honestly may not ever be able to change the pH of your soil, depending on the amount of free acid that is in there. That's where, again, I sometimes treat pH with kid gloves because I have applied, in my tenure, lime to properties over and over and over again, and we've tested them over and over and over again, and really not moved the pH. There are things on your soil test report that will tell you how sensitive your soil is. It's called the buffer pH. That tells you how easily you will be able to move your pH. There are ways to, from the soil test, glean is this a soil that's going to be pretty receptive to liming, or is it a soil that is not going to be receptive to liming?

Doug: Oh, that's interesting. From what you were saying when we started off here with soil temperatures and that sort of thing, that leads me right to reseeding or seeding a new lawn.

Zane: Yes. When I think about this time of year, that really is its greatest asset. It is the prime time to seed areas that maybe you lost turf in, or if you want to do a renovation, we're in the prime time window, again, because the soil temperatures are still elevated, but the air temperatures at night are cooling down. It's just optimal conditions for growing turf. The other part, too, if you were going to do all this in the spring, you would see that you're going to have competition from annual weeds, so a lot of the summer annual weeds will come up with your crop, the foxtails, the crabgrass, the spurges, the knotweed, so on and so forth, versus in the fall, you're just going to maybe deal with some winter annual weeds that aren't nearly as competitive.

The other thing is that seeding in the fall, you're going to get this period of cooler temperatures and moisture for growth. They're going to go into dormancy. Then, again in the spring, another period of cooler temperatures and moisture for growth before you're in the dog days of summer. You seed in the spring, you throw them right into the fire, right from the start. It can be a recipe to deal with some poor quality. Then another thing is if you're going to take the time to do all this prep work, make sure you're selecting a high quality seed mix.

I often go to properties where they bought a cheap bag of seed and that's really what they got was a bunch of low quality turf grass varieties or species. Unfortunately, these are perennial plants. You establish them in your yard. If they have poor quality, they're going to be there forever until you get them out of there.

Doug: How do I know if it's high quality or not?

Zane: This is a good question. Go to someone that specializes in selling turf grass varieties. This could be sod farms, garden stores. The stuff that you can get at the big box stores is usually-- not always because there are some quality stuff at the big box stores, you got to go know where to look, but those are usually tailored towards getting grass up and getting a turf grass stand fast. You might see a lot of perennial ryegrass, annual ryegrass, and some of those mixtures, plants that are going to germinate quick, establish quick but maybe they are not as well adapted to shade or heat or pests, diseases.

For me, we're typically going to go deal with a wholesale seed distributor and select high quality varieties.

Doug: Should it be just all pure seed? I see sometimes they sell a filler with it.

Zane: Yes, there are different schools of thought here. Has a lot to do actually, Doug, with the seed supply. On years, out West in Oregon where they're producing all this seed, if they have a bad year and the supply is short, you will see more seed that has fillers and additives because the supply is not there. They still have a volume to move. On years where the supply is really good, you see less of those filler type materials. Some of those are beneficial though. Some have fungicides on them that protect against a disease called damping off. Some can help retain moisture.

Personally, I like to just get the straight seed without any of that material on there, but certain years you may not have the ability. If I had my choice, I want to get just straight pure seed. Then when you look on that seed tag, this is really important for the listeners, by law, there's a section there that says other crop seed and weed seed. It will list that in percentages. You want those numbers to be zero if possible. Typically, this is where cheap seed falls short. There's other contaminants in that seed. That's why they paid less for it. That's why it's a bargain.

Doug: Another lesson on you get what you pay for.

Zane: Yes. You've put a lot of effort. When it comes time to seed, usually there was a lot of work that went into that. We're talking the difference if you're going to pay $80 for a bag of seed, now maybe you're paying $100. I recognize it is more, but these are perennial plants. You might manage them for the next 20 or 30 years, so you'd hate to skimp on this thing that you're going to take care of for decades.

Doug: Let's talk about the work involved in putting seed down. For many of us, it'll just be patches or just adding a little bit of extra fresh seed in there. What is the prep work we should be doing?

Zane: Great question. Let's talk maybe first about the patchwork. Maybe there's a scenario where an area of your yard you lost. Maybe it's a weedy grass species. Maybe you had a party and people trampled the yard down and killed it. You got these small patches, 5 feet by 5 feet, 10 feet by 10 feet of dead looking grass material. To prep those, you want to try to rake out all that dead debris that's there. I like to use a metal leaf rake and try to rake up as much of that material, try to get as much of the bare soil exposed as possible. Where you and I are, Doug, right now, if you would do that, you'll see that your soil is like a rock.

I like to try to break that hard pan up a little bit. I think the best tool to use if you have one, it's called a garden weasel. I don't know how to describe it, but it usually has six sets of tines that are offset in a V and you just roll it. It will just break the soil up ever so lightly, the upper surface. Break that soil up or you could just use a metal leaf rake and really get after it. You're trying to remove that hard crust that's there and give those plants a little bit better seed bed. Then from there, you can sprinkle your seed down. If you want to take it to the next level, you could put some type of covering over them.

This is where there's different schools of thought. Some people like to use straw and a high quality straw is a really nice cover. Sometimes the downside of straw is I see people overdo it. They really put a lot of straw down and you'll go back a year or two later and you can still see those stems on the surface. If you get poor quality straw, you just bringing in a bunch of weed seed. Personally for me, I don't like to use straw if I can avoid it. I've done plenty of successful seedings just doing what we just did. Remove the dead plant debris, scratch the soil, put the seed down, and then I lightly will tamp that seed in, just like my foot, just lightly step it so it presses that seed into the soil. Then the key is to water it.

That really is a piece that some people don't want to do or don't do, but if you can water it every day, this time of year, most of those plants will germinate in 7 to 10 days, and you're really quickly off to the races. If right now, Doug, you and I were to plant grass, looking at our 10-day forecast, the germination clock does not start until the seeds absorb water. If you plant grass seed and it doesn't rain, the germination clock, the 7 to 10 days that we're talking about, will not start until they absorb water. That's one of the first things you should do if you're going to plant any grass.

After you get the grass down, get it water. Give it a good soaking. From there, ideally you'd water it every day, just enough to really keep the soil surface moist. If you want to use a cover, you could use straw. I personally like to get garden soil. I'll just get a bag of garden soil and put a little layer of garden soil over it. That helps to hold some moisture. It's also dark, helps to keep things warm, especially if you're doing this stuff in the spring or late fall and you need some temperature. That's the patchwork where you got dead plant material, you're trying to get it quickly established.

If you are just looking to do an overseed where you've got established turf, you're just trying to make sure it stays thick, get some new plant material in there, in that scenario, I like to mow the yard down a little bit shorter than my normal mowing height. Maybe take it down to an inch and three quarters or two inches. This'll be a temporary stress for the turf, but it's going to open that canopy up. If you're doing it right, you can tell. Looks like I scalped it a little bit because you are, you're trying to get that out of there. Ideally, you'd bag that material or rake it off or blow it off. You don't want to leave clippings everywhere, but mow the yard a little bit shorter and then overseed that property.

Actually, you want to go at a higher seeding rate. This is a common misconception. People will apply low rates of seed, but because of all the competition from the surrounding plants, less of those seeds are going to survive. You actually want to go at a higher rate. We're talking anywhere from 10 to 16 pounds of seed per 1,000 square feet versus a traditional bare ground seeding rate might be 8 pounds of seed. Then from there again, keeping it watered.

If you don't water it, you're just not going to have great establishment. Watering is a key piece, Doug, of having good success with overseeding operations. If you can't water, then mother nature's in a lot of control of how great your success will be.

Doug: I like to time anything that I'm planting, any seeds, with the rain. I know in this situation with the grass that I'm going to have to keep it moist. Yes, the first day I might water, but if I know rain's coming, that's going to come into my whole plan for planting.

Zane: Yes. I would encourage you, if you're someone who's going to renovate your yard, to plan it in a way around the watering. If you have a big property and you go, "I want to renovate my whole yard," I would ask you, "Well, can you water it all?" If you can't, then maybe we need to parse that up and maybe make this a two or three year process where, hey, let's focus on an area that you can water, like maybe your front yard. Maybe we'll do the backyard next year and the side yard another year because without the ability to keep the seed bed moist, you really invite in the opportunity to have a failed seeding and a poor establishment.

Doug: What about aerating? What is your opinion of aerating?

Zane: Aerating can be a beneficial process, but aerating at times could potentially create some issues because aeration disturbs the soil and if you have disturbance sometimes that can hurt soil structure. It can create opportunities for weeds, so I like to propose aeration in areas where I see it's needed, which is generally going to be heavy compacted soils. If there is high quality soil that's not compacted, again I might take those dollars and put them into other parts of my property.

Aeration really is a process that's beneficial on soils that receive a lot of traffic. If you're somebody that really uses your yard a lot, like our backyard our kids are on it all the time and the soil does get compacted, so it's one that really would benefit or does benefit from aeration. If you're someone with a huge property, big frontage, don't really use the lawn and the quality is good, there's probably a good chance that aeration maybe should be focused on the parts of your property that you are using, areas around gates, doorways, sidewalks.

Aeration, this is the time to do it though in the fall. Again, those plants are going to put on a lot of root growth. The only thing I would say is if you're someone that is contracting an aeration is to try to have some moisture in the soil. You'll see if you try to do aeration right now trying to get those tines to go into the soil it's like trying to go through concrete. If you have a sprinkler system, it's best to try to run it, I wouldn't say the night before, but maybe two nights before it's scheduled aeration to have the soil a little bit moist. That'll help you pull a deeper more quality plug.

Doug: All right, Zane. Well, that's about it. we're out of time again. I could talk to you all day about this.

Zane: I enjoy it, Doug.

Doug: I enjoy it too. It's great information, and part two was as fun as part one because I don't have to do much. You carry the ball. Now, are you one of these guys that are yelling out in the backyard, "Hey, you kids, get off my lawn," so you don't have that compaction? [chuckles]

Zane: I do when I've planted seed. Keeping the kids off of my freshly planted seed is a challenge, but no, we use our property a lot. I really enjoy watching my kids out there. I think that's one of the greatest things about turf grass is it creates these open spaces for recreation. That's what it's all about, being outside.

Doug: Great stuff, Zane. I'm going to leave it right there. Thanks again.

Zane: Yes. Great to see you, Doug.

Doug: It's always great to talk with Zane. I've learned so much about lawn care from him. Now, tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster, and I want you to do me a big favor. Subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss a show. If you've got an idea for an episode, maybe a comment, we've got two ways to reach us. You can send us an email at podcasts@davey.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at D-A-V-E-Y dot com. You can also click the link at the end of our show notes to text us a fan mail message. Your ideas might be on a future podcast. We'd love to hear from you. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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