Lawn Fertilization Tips for Spring in Tulsa

After Tulsa's wintery weather this past month, it might be hard to think past the cold, but believe it or not, it's never too early to start planning ahead. With these simple lawn fertilization tips, your grass can get a head start on looking great sooner and staying lush and green longer! Good fertilization builds a healthy foundation from which your lawn will grow and also protects agains stressful conditions later in the hot Tulsa summer.

Test Your Soil's pH

Depending on what kind of grass you have, it's typically time to start fertilizing your lawn once soil temperatures start reaching 60 degrees. Fertilization isn't a one-size-fits-all practice but is intended to correct and optimize the chemical and nutrient conditions that are unique to your soil. Start by having your soil’s pH tested to see what nutrients might be lacking.

Even the best-kept lawns have now spent the past few months under the strain of a cold winter. Testing your soil's pH will tell you how to provide good nutrition to get back up and running this spring. You may need to replenish nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium in order to build strong roots and turf.

Prepare for Spring Fertilization with Lawn Aeration 

You will also want to prepare your lawn by aerating. This helps remove thatch or dead grass and breaks up compacted soil to ensure that the nutrients can penetrate deep into the earth. Aeration also helps achieve better drainage and makes more room for oxygen—it's all about building the strong and healthy root system your lawn needs to thrive. While you're at it, you might consider overseeding to help fill in any gaps in grass coverage left after the winter.

Combine Fertilization with Pre-emergent Weed Control

Springtime isn't just about fertilization. Remember that the same nutrients that kick start your grass are also favorable for other organics hiding in your lawn, even weeds! Get ahead of the curve by utilizing pre-emergent weed control to prevent these troublesome plants from establishing themselves. There are even some weed control and fertilizer combos, including some organic options like corn gluten meal. These convenient solutions can both strengthen your grass and kill weeds at the same time.

Protect Your Work with Good Mowing Techniques

When it is time to start mowing, don't forget to start out with a higher blade height around three inches, cutting no more that a third of the grass blade at a time. This will help reduce strain on your lawn in this crucial time of growth and replenishment, keeping the soil cool and preventing weed seeds from getting sunlight. Make sure you do not over-stress the grass by scalping the lawn with an overly short blade height.

Make a Lawn Fertilization Schedule

When your done, it's time to sit back and watch your grass grow! We advise fertilizing your lawn again six to eight weeks after this initial treatment, so keep a fertilization schedule to know what's up next and don't hesitate to contact our Tulsa Lawn care specialists. You're well on your way to a vibrant and beautiful Tulsa lawn this spring!

Aeration, Dethatching, Overseeding - Tulsa Lawn Care Terms Explained

Have you wondered about terms like “core aeration,” “overseeding,” and “dethatching”? Even knowing what lawn fertilization really includes can sometimes be a challenge. Today we’ll hopefully clarify these lawn care terms a little more, as well as offer some helpful tips on how to best handle these different aspects of turf care.

Core aeration. From time to time, this lawn care process can be called coring, aerating, or aerifying. During aeration, small plugs of soil and dead grass, or thatch, are removed to relieve compacted soil. Soil compaction is frequently more of a problem in high traffic areas or where heavy machinery has been used. Over time and without enough nutrients, soil can become compressed and not allow for adequate drainage. Without proper drainage and enough oxygen, the root system will be superficial and the lawn weak. The small holes made during aeration permit more water, air, and nutrients to reach the roots, helping them to grow deeper and stronger, creating a healthier and more beautiful lawn.

How to aerate. For cool-season grasses, the best time for core aeration is in late summer or early fall, and for warm-season grasses the best time is late spring. For problematic lawns and those with heavy traffic, you may want to aerate the lawn every year or so, but for lawns without many soil compaction problems, aerating every several years is good. You can often rent a mechanical core aerator at your local lawn and garden store, or Oklahoma Landscape in Tulsa can handle all of your aeration needs.

Dethatching. Thatch is dead grass, stems, leaves, and other organic material that collect just above the soil. This thatch will look like a tightly woven layer of debris. While some thatch is good for the lawn, too much will create a barrier and will prevent proper drainage and prevent oxygen and nutrients from reaching the root system. Too much will also allow for more insects and disease. Thatch should be able to naturally decay, but sometimes there can be an excess of thatch that can severely harm the lawn. More than about ½ inch of thatch is too much for your lawn to be healthy.

How to dethatch. Aerating the soil is usually the best way to dethatch because while eliminating the thatch, it also relieves soil compaction. If you would like to just dethatch, you can rent a power rake or a vertical mower. A vertical mower is frequently better for the lawn because it cuts grooves into the thatch and then pulls them up without pulling up too much grass. Like aerating, the best time to dethatch will depend on your type of grass variation. Mow your grass slightly shorter before detaching. When the thatch is pulled up, rake the thatch and remove it from the lawn.

Overseeding Tulsa lawns. This is the process of planting new grass seeds over the existing turf to fill in bare or thinning spots of grass. This is sometimes called reseeding or just seeding your lawn. Overseeding is needed because over time or with the intense heat of summer, lawns can begin to become bare or overrun with weeds. Seeding your lawn with new grass, especially new varieties of grass, will help it be more resilient and more resistant to disease, drought, insects, and weeds. Planting these new grass seeds over existing turf can really help to improve the condition of your lawn, making it more vibrant and thicker.

How to overseed your lawn. There are a few steps to overseeding your lawn including preparing the ground, choosing a good seed variety, spreading the new seeds, and fertilization and watering. Check out our blog post about How to Overseed your Tulsa Lawn this Spring for tips on how to overseed your lawn most effectively. A part of the overseeding process may also include aerating the soil to allow the new seeds to grow correctly.

Lawn fertilization in Tulsa. Fertilizers deliver food to your lawn, particularly nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to aid the lawn in building strong roots. Lawns need regular fertilization to be healthy. Slow-release fertilizers are best because they feed the lawn over time.

How to fertilize. During about every season, Tulsa lawns can use a good lawn fertilization treatment, depending on the type of grass you have. A combination fertilizer and weed control treatment can help to avert the spread of weeds while feeding the grass. There are organic fertilizers like compost or corn gluten you can use also. See our article, Lawn Fertilization in Tulsa – Tips for a Green, Lush Lawn, for more information on fertilizing.

Keep in mind that the Tulsa lawn care experts at Oklahoma Landscape can take care of all your lawn care and maintenance needs, giving you a beautiful, hassle-free lawn this summer.

Use These Simple Tips To Control Weeds in Your Tulsa Lawn

Controlling weeds in your Tulsa lawn or garden can be one of the most frustrating parts of lawn care. How can you protect their lawns from being overrun by weeds? Notice these five Tulsa weed control methods.

Have a good offense. One of the most effective ways to forestall weeds is to stop them from having enough room to grow and propagate. Keep your lawn healthy and thick and thus crowd out weeds.

“To minimize weed problems in my lawn as a homeowner, I mow my lawn high and optimally fertilize to keep the lawn as competitive as possible,” Richard Zollinger of the North Dakota State University Department of Plant Science told the Mother Nature Network.

Overseeding you lawn with new grass varieties can aid your lawn in being healthier and fill in any bare or thinning spots of grass.

Healthy soil also adds a great deal to growing thick grass, so if your soil has become compacted, aerating the soil can break up the thatch and dirt that may prevent your grass from getting the amount of nourishment it needs.

Mulch, mulch, mulch. Adding mulch to your garden or flowerbed will help to block needed sunlight from weeds, preventing them from growing. In turn, mulch will help the soil stay cooler and help prevent water loss. Mulch comprised of 1” thick bark, outdoortheme.com suggested, is one of the best methods of weed control. Finer mulches can still allow weed seeds to sprout, the website said.
Newspapers have proven effective in preventing weeds from getting needed sunlight, especially for more weed infested gardens. Spread a layer of newspapers about 2-4 sheets thick, overlapping somewhat, and spread a light layer of dirt or mulch over some of the paper to help keep the newspaper in place.

Pull out weeds before they seed. Some weeds may have to be manually pulled out, and it’s good to pull these before the weeds bloom and disperse their seeds. If you don’t have time to completely pull out the weed, cut the top off of the weed to stop it from seeding until you can root out the whole weed.

Use organic herbicides. There are many organic herbicides you can use to help kill weeds while not harming the environment. Concentrated vinegar has been used to kill weeds, although it may also kill over vegetation it comes in contact with as well. Several applications may be required. Avoid eye contact with vinegar and be careful even with more organic herbicides. Baking soda has also been recommended in killing weeds when it’s poured directly onto the weeds. Borax has also been noted as an effective weed killer, Dr. John Anderson noted on Hubpages.com, as well as boiling water. Be careful with any type of weed killer, whether organic or not, and follow all labels and instructions.

Call Oklahoma Landscape. The Tulsa weed control specialists at Oklahoma Landscape can effectively control any weed problems you have while keeping your lawn vibrant and healthy. We offer a 6-step weed control and lawn fertilization program to improve the health of your lawn and keep it weed-free. Oklahoma Landscape provides complete Tulsa lawn care and lawn maintenance as well as comprehensive landscape design.

Fall is the Best Time for Overseeding Tulsa Lawns

Is your Tulsa lawn looking a little worn-out? Grass starts to get old and look weary, thin, and brown due to heat or simply the passing of time. In this weakened condition, weeds can easily take over a lawn.

Overseeding your Tulsa lawn with new grass seed can help to revive your landscape and make it look vibrant and new again. Overseeding is the practice of spreading a layer of new grass seed over your existing turf.  This new layer of grass will fill in any bare spots in your Tulsa lawn and help it to stay healthy.

There’s also another benefit to overseeding your Tulsa lawn in the fall. “…overseeding with a cool-season grass in the fall ensures that you will have a green lawn during the winter months,” the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources division noted.

When is the best time to overseed or reseed? Fall is an opportune time because the soil is still warm enough for seeds to germinate in. Meanwhile, the air temperature is getting cooler, making it more difficult for weeds to grow and choke out the new grass. Cooler temperatures also mean a decrease in insects and disease to harm the new seeds. Thus, with adequate watering and fertilization, the new seeds can start to germinate before winter.

By overseeding your Tulsa lawn, it will become more resistant to diseases, weeds, and drought. Thus, a healthy lawn will need less water, fertilizer, and pesticides. So, a little overseeding now will be a big help in having a thick and green lawn in the spring.

Before you overseed, you will want to cut your grass lower than you usually do to allow more room for the new seeds to grow and to allow more sunlight to reach them. Remove any clippings and thatch in the lawn. It’s helpful to aerate your lawn, removing core patches of dead grass and soil, to allow more oxygen, water, and nutrients to reach the roots.

After you spread or broadcast your new seed over the turf, lightly rake the lawn to help the seeds germinate in the soil. Apply a good fertilizer to the lawn to help the new seed grow strong. Many also recommend spreading enriched soil or a thin layer of compost over the seeds to supplement the soil, but it’s important to apply just a thin layer so as to not smother the new seeds before they can grow.
Watering is vital. Water the lawn immediately after overseeding, keeping the lawn damp but not flooded. Continue to irrigate the seeds several times a day for several weeks. After the seeds have begun to grow, you can water less frequently. Wait to mow the grass until it reaches about 3 inches high.

These simple steps to overseed your Tulsa lawn will help get it ready for winter so that your landscape can look lush and beautiful in the spring and remain healthy. Oklahoma Landscape in Tulsa offers complete overseeding services as well as fertilization and weed control to help maintain a green an attractive lawn.

Revive Stressed Tulsa Lawns with Fertilization and Weed Control

People associate lawn care in Tulsa with spring and summer, but the fall is actually the optimal time to take steps toward a healthy, greener lawn. Fall gives homeowners time to repair the damage caused by intense summer heat and help prepare the lawn for winter. Lawn fertilization and weed control in the fall can help Tulsa lawns be healthy and green in the spring.

Rout the Drought
This summer’s drought has left many lawns in Tulsa straw-colored and dormant. Fall lawn care can help your lawn recover. During a drought, you should continue to fertilize your lawn every eight weeks with a slow-release fertilizer. A lawn that has the proper nutrients grows dense, deep roots and recovers from drought faster. A regularly fed lawn will also be healthier and thicker than an unfed lawn. Couple feedings with infrequent, deep watering to promote deeper roots, which provide a larger reservoir of water to draw from.

After the drought passes, keeping this feeding schedule up through the fall should help your lawn green up quickly. If brown patches remain, fall is the time to consider raking those spots out and reseeding to get your lawn healthy for the following spring.

Feed the Need
Even lawns not stricken by drought need nourishment in the fall – and autumn feeding can make a big difference. Fall feeding can bring a dramatic improvement as the lawn recovers from summer damage. Lawn fertilization in Tulsa can help store vital nutrients your soil so that underground root development can continue until the ground freezes to ready the lawn for fuller growth in the spring. Two feedings — timed around Labor Day and Halloween — are recommended for Northern lawns, while Southern lawns are best-fed four-to-six weeks before the first frost occurs in your specific region.

Let It Breathe
In order to grow, a lawn needs air. As a rule of thumb, if you can’t see the grass due to leaf coverage, then it’s time to remove the lawn debris from the yard. Clearing leaves and clippings in the fall will help by removing clutter that keeps air and sun from reaching the growing grass. Heed caution if mulching leaves, as a thick layer spread onto the lawn actually does more harm than good.

One great way to let your lawn breathe is through core aeration in Tulsa, which promotes deep root growth. Aeration removes cores of dirt, thatch and grass and reduces soil compacting that can keep grass from developing roots deep enough to absorb rainwater. For best results, choose an aerator that removes plugs of soil, with the remaining holes at least 3/4″ in diameter, 3″ deep and no more than 3″ apart.

Overseed
Once the lawn is aerated, look for weak spots in it. Drought, thatch, insects, disease or seeding too lightly at first planting can make lawns thin or patchy. Overseeding — the spreading of grass seed directly onto soil within an existing lawn — can improve a lawn’s appearance dramatically and eliminate the need for a total lawn renovation.

Fall is the prime time to overseed because the warm soil promotes rapid seed growth and typically, fewer weed problems emerge at this time of the year. If the thatch layer of dead roots and stems below the green blades is more than 1/2″ thick, you should de-thatch the lawn before overseeding. If the presence of tree roots has resulted in an inadequate topsoil layer, spread a layer of topsoil no more than 1/4″ over the lawn.

The day before you overseed, mow the lawn slightly lower than normal. Be sure to use fertilizer when you seed. For the next several weeks after overseeding, keep the top inch of soil moist to permit growth.

Performing these simple Tulsa lawn care steps in the fall will help you have a beautiful lawn in the spring. For more information on fall lawn care and tips on preparing your lawn for winter, visit http://www.oklahomalandscape.com or call 918.299-LAWN.

Courtesy of ARA Content.

Weed Control in Tulsa - What is the Best Defense?

Lawn Care Tulsa

Weed Control…Tulsa homeowners know that to have a beautiful, healthy lawn you have to keep weeds in their place…virtually nonexistent, right? But what does that involve? Consistent lawn care all year round is the best defense against weeds. With a thick, healthy lawn, there’s less of a chance of weeds taking over.

For broadleaf weeds, you can start by using a weed herbicide to kill the weeds; and then after they turn brown, you can remove the thatch. But removing the weeds is only the beginning of consistent lawn care and a subsequently healthier lawn.

Aerating your lawn in the fall (for cool-season grasses) and in the spring or early summer (for warm-season grasses) can greatly improve the health of your lawn. Core aeration, as it’s sometimes called, breaks up compacted soil that over time can harden, keeping the roots from growing and preventing rainfall, fertilizer, and other nutrients from penetrating the soil. Aeration is done by making small holes in the grass and soil or by removing small core patches of soil and dead grass, or thatch. These small holes allow oxygen, water, and nutrients to reach the soil and grass roots. Oxygen helps prevent diseases and increases growth, and with enough room in the soil, roots can continue to grow and flourish. Thus, this simple procedure can greatly increase the health of your lawn, giving it the strength and thickness it needs to choke weeds out.



Weed Control

Fertilizing your lawn in the fall, just after aerating, will allow the nutrients to reach the soil and roots. And with temperatures cooling, there will be better conditions for the soil and grass to repair and rebuild itself.

Overseeding your Tulsa lawn with cool-season grass varieties in the fall will help to fill in any bare patches of grass and strengthen your lawn with new grass seeds. This will help grass stay healthy and more resistant to diseases and weeds. Again, a healthy, vibrant lawn is the best defense against those pesky weeds.

While herbicides can help keep weeds at bay, truly healthy lawns require a regular maintenance program of aerating, fertilizing, and overseeding to have effective weed control.

For more information visit, Weed Control Tulsa.