Almost everybody here would advise you do to it yourself - nobody cares as much about your lawn as you. It will look better and you'll save money. The guys here are an amazing source of knowledge on all things lawncare. I started taking care of my lawn just about a year ago and in that time I've learned a ton on this forum. Many of my neighbors compliment my lawn and joke that they're going to hire me for theirs.

Never be afraid to ask questions. No matter how basic of a question it may be, everyone will be eager to help, and you'll likely get an essay of a response from Morph and/or dchall, among others.

>>you'll likely get an essay of a response from Morph and/or dchall, among others.

You bellowed, my Prince? :-)

I saw this earlier but didn't have the time to work with it, and later on...well, the dahlia needed some tending.

1, Aeration) We don't generally recommend aeration except to solve a very few, very specific issues (it's great to slowly, over time, bring down a high point in the soil if you rake the cores away somewhere else). It doesn't do a very good job of aerating the soil, nor does it really do a thing to loosen it up.

Most of the aeration in soils comes not from a few very large holes but from billions of microscopic pores in the soil that are opened and maintained by bacteria and fungi. Earthworms do more in my lawn in one day than a double aeration could do. And beetles and other smaller insects provide still more of the work.

Basically, for the stated purpose, aeration is a faint, weak, and very poor substitution for what nature is supposed to be doing and, in many lawns, isn't--because the balances are wrong.

If they fertilize for you, they probably put down a Summerguard-type fertilizer that contains insect control. Which zapped the insects that were trying to make homes in the ground, weren't harming the grass, and were trying to aerate for you.

I don't specifically dislike the Scott's program, but do dislike some of the entries in it. Insect control isn't required unless you have a specific problem with them that's damaging the grass (and very few insects damage the grass at all, with rare others damaging it so slightly you won't notice). Only a small number of species eat grass to the point of causing damage, and not if other insect species that hunt them are in decent numbers.

Synthetic fertilizers don't do anything in particular that's positive for the soil, and can be a negative influence if overused, or if soil conditions are already poor. You need to add so much of them that they become a problem because they don't work well in soils with poor biology.

If you're getting the idea that this all dovetails together, you're right. Your grass' health is directly related to your soil biology, which includes your insect crew, and precludes using anything that kills the biology or damages it.

Recommendation: Consider using Milorganite as a feed; it's about two thirds organic, one third faster nitrogen sources, and helps your soil biology. Later on you can branch out in things you feed with, but there's much to be said for Milo as the best of both worlds. It also tends to really green up the lawn as it has a great deal of iron in it.

Optimal feeding dates for most lawns are Memorial Day (and no earlier!), Labor Day, October 1st, and then use any good synthetic when grass growth stops for the season but is still green. That's usually around Thanksgiving for me, but it varies a lot.

Using Milorganite, you can feed a lot more than that (organics are much more flexible), but you don't have to if you don't want to. Those four feedings (three organic, one synthetic) will thoroughly feed the lawn and start building the soil.

1, seeding) Seeding has to be done at the correct moment--when the evening weather just starts to get the slightest bit cool and you know summer is coming to an end. For me, that can be August 15th to August 25th, with anything in that range being the absolutely perfect moment to seed. However, the seed is tolerant, so going a little early or a little late isn't a problem.

Here in eastern Pennsylvania, that makes the best seeding dates August 15th to September 1st, but if you go a week either way that's not usually a problem.

Post that seeding, watering is key; seed absolutely has to be kept damp (which is your job!) Watering once a day is a bit on the trim side but it'll probably produce tolerable results. Twice is great. Three times is really great, but maybe a little overkill except for a complete renovation where you remove the old lawn. Four times only for renovations.

The date and watering are the only two considerations for getting seed to sprout. If there's Kentucky bluegrass (KBG) in the mix, full sprout will take a month. If not, two weeks.

Once it sprouts fully, pull back slowly on the watering by removing one watering every 2 weeks. When down to once a day, go to twice a day, and so on, until you reach once a week or the weather is providing that for you (which by that time it should be).

2) Depending on the age and care level given to the lawn, that may or may not be normal. Photos always help.

Spot spraying weeds with something like Weed B Gone is cheap and easy. Some weeds won't respond to it (like crabgrass) and need a different herbicide, like Weed B Gone with Crabgrass Control. Or Chickweed and Oxalis control. Photos of your weeds will help others (I'm terrible at it) identify what you have and what single product will take them all out.

There are no major biology problems with spot spraying an herbicide, although it does disturb things a little. I consider that to be a minor consideration.

Bare spots in a lawn that contains Kentucky bluegrass will close themselves pretty quickly if they're well fed and watered correctly (once a week maximum for an established lawn, an inch at a time). Clump grasses, like fescue and rye, will require reseeding.

While I'm a fan of KBG, the only real reason is personal preference. If your bliss leads you to fescue or rye, that's great.

I know David is going to post that photo of my lawn again. :-)

timtsb and morpheuspa,

Thank you very much for detailed and convincing reply to my question. I will post bare spot picture tomorrow.

I am an agriculture graduate (plant pathology); the idea of taking care of my lawn myself is exciting (and more over saving money makes it more interesting). Of course, I will post a lot of questions as and when I need advice.

Awwwww jeeze! An aggie! Let me start by saying you're going to have to forget or ignore most of what you think you know about growing grass. I went to an ag school in California and took a few classes in general horticulture. They are all very well intentioned, but as far as knowing what's best for the plants/soil, they leave a lot to be desired. Of course I went to school there a full 20 years before the discovery of 100,000 species of microbes in the soil, so hopefully they are beginning to learn that you cannot use pure chemistry to solve biological problems.

Mechanical aeration is another process you can just forget about. It is used on golf courses to good effect, but those are very special landscape installations with extraordinarily high traffic even when the soil is saturated. Home owners do not have that. If you treat your soil properly, the fungi in the soil will aerate it for you. And their population numbers billions per tablespoon, so use them! What they need is the proper environment to thrive. One such environment is inside a bread bag sitting in the sun. If you've ever tried that experiment, once a mold spot forms on bread, it is only a matter of a few days before the entire bag is full of mold hyphae. The same thing happens in your soil if you can get the moisture corrected down deep. If you think you have hard soil even after a rain, then you can spray something like baby shampoo (any clear shampoo) at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet followed by 1 inch of water or rain. Repeat if needed on 2-week intervals until the soil becomes soft when moist and returns to hard when dry. What that shampoo does is allow the moisture to soak down deep into the soil cooling it and creating the perfect environment for the beneficial fungi to thrive. They essentially fill the soil with those hyphae which results in that softness when moist. It's a biological process, not a mechanical or chemical process.

It is likely your weeds are sprouting from too frequent watering. As you have undoubtedly learned, you sprout seeds by watering them and keeping them moist until they germinate. If you interrupt the continual moisture and allow the seed to dry completely, it may not sprout. But if you purposefully prevent the seed from remaining moist for more than a day or two, you can halt the germination of seeds (until Mother Nature steps in to help). This is done by deep and infrequent watering. Deep means 1 full inch all at one time. Infrequent means almost never. In the hottest heat of summer (temps in the 90s every day with low humidity), you should be watering once per week. With temps in the 80s you can back off to once every 2 weeks. Temps in the 70s you can go once every 3 weeks. What this means is that Mother Nature will sometimes provide all the moisture your lawn needs for months and months at a time. I have/had a house on the Texas desert that did not get any irrigation until mid July this year. Then it was once a week until 2 weeks ago I believe I have stopped watering for the year. If you're watering more often than I am, something is wrong.

Most grass should be mowed at the highest setting or one notch lower. Bermuda, centipede, and creeping bentgrass should be mowed on the lowest setting. There are some dwarf varieties of St Augustine and fescues that should be mowed in the mid range. There's not sense getting caught up measuring 2 5/8" versus 2 7/8 like some people do. Just get in the right ball park.

Morph covered fertilizing pretty well.

If you do those three things (watering, mowing, and fertilizing), you're going to be alright. Note that Scott's only does one of those things and you weren't satisfied. It is very likely that the watering or mowing wasn't quite right and that's causing the issues. However, if they are applying insecticides and herbicides, that's not good for the soil biology that morph and I are such big fans of.

I will try to post a picture of Morph's lawn. Hope this works because I just posted another picture in another message and the link was broken. Maybe a temporary Dropbox issue. I'm going to leave it alone for a day to see if it fixes itself. Anyway, here is why Morph is considered to be an expert at lawn care.

{{gwi:81154}}

Morph's lawn is the green one ;-)
The major differences between his lawn and the others are that he waters and mows like I just mentioned, fertilizes like he mentioned, and he pays a lot of attention to soil chemistry. A minor difference is that his varieties of KBG have the Elite improved moniker. Still, his grass is alive and theirs is dead looking. The Elite varieties don't give him that sort of protection. Watering and mowing is something you have to do regardless of the fertilizer you use, so you may as well do them right.

>>Morph's lawn is the green one ;-)

So I keep telling people. The guy who actually owns that lawn just keeps yelling, "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:-)

>>The Elite varieties don't give him that sort of protection.

Quite the opposite. Even in season nine or ten, they're still a little more water-demanding than the surrounding lawns. Mine is pure KBG, theirs has a great deal of fescue and rye.

I should post photos. We're about to exit a six week mini-drought. My lawn is noticeably wilted (not a drop in eleven days and rather hot and windy). The neighbors' lawns are going into a very rare (and problematic) September dormancy.

The gardens are showing the stress as well, but in that case it isn't as obvious.

It's condition specific, but aeration can be used to great effect. Turf health is like personal health. Think of aeration and other mechanical methods as "surgery." You can avoid or possibly cure (over time-if your the type who enjoys watching paint dry) health problems with proper feeding and conditioning, but sometimes "surgery" is more expedient and a better alternative. Just another tool used as a means to an end,. "Surgery" should not be a lifestyle, proper maintenance should be.

As promised pictures are uploaded (seperately)

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