Seeding, weeding: Spring lawn care tips, resources
By now, perhaps you have mowed the grass. If not, you will soon mow for the first time. Colleagues in Cincinnati mowed their lawns for the first time this season last Sunday, while colleagues in Geauga County (northeast Ohio) had 6 inches of snow.
It’s a great time to assess your lawn and determine what can be done, if anything needs to be done. Lawn aesthetics is up to the individual homeowner. Some are happy with the dandelions, clover, and other broadleaf plants mixed in with grass. Others consider them weeds.
A few items to be looking for this spring include dead areas due to grub damage from last fall and nimblewill and wild onions and garlic, which are easy to spot now.
Dead spots with a grayish color should be inspected closely. If you can pull the dead turf up like a roll of carpet and if you don’t see any grass plants starting to push new growth, it’s likely dead.
Spring is not the best time to seed turf; however, it’s better than doing it during summer. By doing it now, you can get the grass started before it gets too hot. Waiting until fall is the best option but is not always realistic. Putting down sod is, of course, another option.
Here is a great resource on seeding lawns in the spring: go.osu.edu/springseedinglawns.
Nimblewill is a perennial grassy weed that currently is still brown. Patches of nimblewill are easily seen at this time. The grass itself is wiry and spreads in thin lawns. It will eventually turn green and blend somewhat into the lawn.
If you are going to control nimblewill, there are a few options. Two of them include herbicides and the other is to dig out all the nimblewill, as well as any rhizomes in the area, by hand.
Nimblewill resource: turf. purdue.edu/nimblewill.
Wild onions and garlic germinate ahead of the turfgrass and stand out on the lawn like a bunch of tall green grass. They are perennial and form underground bulblets. Both germinate in the fall and spring and die out in the heat of the summer. They will continue to grow and spread if left alone.
Hand-digging is an option for wild onions/garlic, but ensure that you get all the underground bulblets, or they will continue to sprout. The other option is to continue to mow off the tops, eventually starving the plant; the plant also dies in the heat.
There are herbicides available, but they are only post-emergent. In addition, it will likely take more than one application to eliminate them.
Wild onion/garlic resource: go.osu.edu/psuwildoniongarlic.
The first spring fertilization can be applied now. Typically, the first application is combined with an herbicide to prevent crabgrass control. If you have a thick lawn that prevents crabgrass from germinating, fertilizer is sufficient.
Keep in mind that if you seeded last fall or are seeding this spring, an herbicide used to control crabgrass will also prevent the grass from germinating or will damage the young blades. There is a product that can be used for this situation.
Fertilizing lawns resource: go.osu.edu/lawnfertilizing.