Thursday, October 15, 2009

Bent Grass Woes

Bentgrass is not the grass of choice for a home lawn. Golf courses love it for the putting greens because it tolerates being cut short. But bentgrass needs a lot of extra care. It loves to be pampered with extra fertilizer and a lot of watering.
Bentgrass grows in the wild and birds can bring along a few seeds and drop them in your yard. Once started, bentgrass will sprout and spread. The other problem with bentgrass is that a short stem that is cut when mowing, can land in the lawn elsewhere and take hold, form roots and grow. So you can be spreading bentgrass to uninfected parts of your lawn when mowing.
Bentgrass has short shallow roots. This means it tends to dry out easily in drought conditions. On home lawns, people are unhappy that their lawn is yellow or brown in the summer. In dry weather, the shallow roots are just not enough to keep bentgrass green. Unfortunately, it is hardy enough to go dormant in dry conditions, but not weak enough to die out. Once the cooler fall weather comes with more moisture, bentgrass will revive and turn green again.
Bentgrass with its shallow roots will sometimes form a thick mat. The stems of bentgrass often grow on the surface. As they spread out, they will sprout small roots. But the stems will smother other lawn grasses. Bentgrass is a vigorous growing plant and can easily outgrow other turf grasses.
Bentgrass is a weak grass and is often slow to green up in the spring. Bentgrass is often subject to winterkill and you lawn can have large patches of yellow grass that hasn't greened up. Again, the best scenario would be for it to have really died. Unfortunately, it will eventually turn green and live to take over more lawn than before.

Sometimes, once the bentgrass has turned brown, a little tug of a rake will lift the stems and the shallow roots up and leave a large bare patch.
How can one deal with bentgrass. There isn't a product that can be applied to the lawn to selectively control bentgrass.

The best one can do is to rake the bentgrass hard to remove as much of the stems and roots as possible. Then rake the soil to loosen it, add good quality grass seed and then keep moist.

I wish I could say this would do the trick for the lawn. Bentgrasss is very prolific and very vigorous and will likely be back. But this is often a better, less expensive solution than ripping out the whole lawn and resodding.

If you have a lawn/tree/shrub that needs some Tender Loving Care- get The KING OF GREEN, the King of Lawn Care:
or call us at 905.318.6677 or 1.888.TURFKING (887.3546)
If you would like more information, please Contact us
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Copyright 2009 Turf King-Hamilton. All Rights Reserved.


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Fall Lawns Look Great

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Fall is a great time for lawns. The flower gardens have grown to their fullest extent and add a bright and cheery spot of colour. The lawns themselves are enjoying the cooler night time temperatures. The soil is cooler so grass roots are able to grow and take up nutrients and moisture easily.

And if your lawn is not looking as good as you like, fall is a excellent season to start the process to a better lawn next year. A lawn program with a top quality lawn fertilizer is an important key to improving your lawn. A fertilizer that is slow release will feed the lawn slowly- a little at a time. Less expensive (cheap) fertilizers are like expecting your lawn to live off a Thanksgiving feast for the next two months. Better fertilizers don't feed the lawn with a lot of nutrients all at once. They dole the nutrients out a little at a time, just as it is needed. This also helps the environment. If the turf is unable to use the nutrients, they will either get washed away or will leach down below the reach of the grass roots. By using slow release fertilizer, nutrients are not wasted.

Turf King currently uses a 75% slow release fertilizer. The components in our fertilizer will feed the lawn for up to 16 weeks or longer. The organic components take even longer for all of their nutrients to release. Organic fertilizers continue to feed plants over a much longer period of time.
Lawns that receive high quality fertilizers, will keep their green colour and remain healthier and thicker than lawns that receive lower quality fertilizers.

Turf King is the King of Green! Call today for a Free Lawn Analysis. 905.318.6677

If you have a lawn/tree/shrub that needs some Tender Loving Care- get The KING OF GREEN, the King of Lawn Care:
or call us at 905.318.6677 or 1.888.TURFKING (887.3546)
If you would like more information, please Contact us
Follow us on Twitter  http://twitter.com/turfkingofgreen
Join our Facebook page  

Copyright 2009 Turf King-Hamilton. All Rights Reserved.