It’s time to aerate, top dress your lawn
While it is not time to fertilize the lawn, there are other tasks you should do now for a better lawn, including aeration and top dressing.
Rent an aerator from one of the large box stores to create channels in the lawn from the surface into the root system. The idea is to penetrate the soil under the lawn so that oxygen can move into the soil through the penetrations and other waste gases can escape the lawn root area. Equally important to the addition of desirable gases and escape of undesirable gases, the aeration penetrations provide one of the most effective ways to allow organic material to penetrate into the lawn grass root area. Organic material decomposes quite quickly in our soils but the grass and other desirable plants benefit greatly during that process. A lawn that has been aerated and top dressed with organic material, such as compost, benefits greatly. Expect an aerated and top dressed lawn to be more drought tolerant, pest resistant and more effective in growing roots and foliage.
Aeration and top dressing is designed to make lawn grass grow better, but a second task that is well timed for now is designed to prevent certain plants from growing in the lawn and competing with the lawn grass. This involves the application of a preemergent herbicide to prevent the germination of two well-known and unwanted grassy weeds, sandburs and crabgrass. Both of these weeds are grass like and produce a new crop of seeds every summer. The seeds from last year are sitting out there in your lawn area ready to begin their growth and seed production. For effective control of
these weeds, use an herbicide designed for grassy weeds and for growth in the heat of summer beginning about March 1. Some of the products to consider are Dimension and Crew. Control of sand burs often requires herbicides in place over an especially long season, so the products are applied on March 1 and June 1.
The sandburs and crabgrass are summer weeds and have not begun to grow yet, but some weeds have. In many lawns, the winter weeds such as bedstraw, hen bit, rescuegrass, annual bluegrass, dandelions and thistles are green and lush. A contact herbicide can help control some of those weeds already in place. If grassy weeds are growing in your flower garden, you can kill then without hurting the flowers or shrubs by using a contact herbicide for grasses such as Grassbegone. If you have an unwanted growth of bedstraw growing on your lawn, it can be killed by a contact herbicide for broadleaf weeds such as “Weed Free Zone” without hurting your lawn grass.
Confer with your retail nursery and review the write-ups on the pesticide labels to help address your home weed situation.
Another tactic that works well for lawns that are overgrown with the lush winter weeds, such as annual bluegrass or rescue grass, is to mow the lawn every two weeks. Such a mowed winter lawn is usually attractive until May, when the foliage becomes coarser as it works on producing seed.