Fertilizer Ramble, Continued

Last week’s column was my March ramble but there was so much more to discuss that it seems to have spilled over into April.

It looks like we’re in for a slow start to spring but at least we’re outside. The winter storms are over, though the prognosticators say April is still going to be a wild ride. The lawn boys are out in full force, and as dedicated stewards of our fragile East End environment there are things you can do to keep your lawn people (and yourself) truly green.

A smart person will ask their lawn service people a few questions. First ask how many pounds of nitrogen they put on your lawn every year in terms of pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet. If it’s more than three, it’s too much.

Ask if they remove or leave behind the clippings. It’s not uncommon for lawn and landscape firms to remove the clippings and apply up to four pounds of nitrogen a year. They’ll tell you that if they leave the clippings behind, the lawn will look awful. And if they use less fertilizer, the lawn will look terrible.

Well, for the past dozen years I’ve been managing a 6-acre bluegrass lawn with less than two pounds of nitrogen per year and we never pick up a clipping. There’s no secret or trick. It’s simple, no more expensive and it works.

We split the fertilizer into three applications, with the first going down in mid-May, the second in mid- to late-June and the last in early fall. The June application is 100-percent organic.

We cut the grass at 2½ to 3 inches and never remove the clippings. When the grass is cut at the right time, the clippings quickly dry and we use mulching blades, which chop the clippings so finely that they sink to the soil and decompose. By returning the clippings to the soil we’re able to reduce our fertilizer use by about half—down to two pounds.

Now, this type of lawn care does take some skill. It requires the grass to be cut when it needs to be cut and not every Wednesday. Even with the reduced fertilizer, there may be some weeks when the lawn needs to be cut twice. But there may also be some weeks when the lawn doesn’t need to be cut at all. Every Wednesday just doesn’t work. Taking away the clippings just doesn’t work. Four pounds of nitrogen just isn’t necessary.

One quick aside on lawn fertilizer. There are some 100-percent-organic lawn fertilizers being sold where most or part of the nitrogen comes from corn gluten. If you’re using a product like this (look at the label), you can’t do any spring lawn seeding as the corn gluten also acts as a pre-emergent that will stop the grass seed from germinating.

Now that’s the easy part. Here are some toughies for you to answer.

Do you need to apply grub control every year? Do you need to control crabgrass every year? I wish I knew.

I’ve always suspected that those who have Merit applied to their lawns every year could probably get away with every other year—if they have no indicated grub problems. The same also probably holds true for crabgrass pre-emergents. If you apply them every year and you have no “breakthrough,” or spots of crabgrass, showing up late in the summer you could probably skip a year.

I posed this question of frequency of grub and crabgrass controlling measures to one of the country’s top turf specialists a few years ago. And even though he’s a big proponent of low maintenance lawns and reduced use of fertilizers, he wouldn’t go out on a limb and say it was safe to do applications only in alternate years. I’m still suspicious and curious.

Broadleaf weed control is also an area of contention with me. Many lawn services and landscapers will tell you that your lawn needs to be sprayed or treated twice a year to control weeds such as dandelions. The reasoning is that if you spray in the spring, you kill the weed plants already in the lawn. Then if you spray or treat again in the fall, you kill any weeds that have crept in during the summer and established themselves.

Left out of the equation is that when they spray twice, they bill twice. Is it necessary? Probably not.

On the 6-acre bluegrass lawn that I mentioned earlier we only applied one broadleaf herbicide in the fall. We get no spring dandelions in the lawn at all, in spite of the fact that the property is surrounded by meadows and fields that are a sea of yellow dandelions every spring. Once in a while a few will pop up during the summer—maybe a dozen in an area of nearly 270,000 square feet. They get hand-pulled. It’s your lawn, your health, our world.

Lastly, a note about mail-order nurseries. In my review of mail-order plant sources many weeks ago, I mentioned that Wayside Gardens was one of the firms that had been part of a recent flurry of failed businesses and buyouts.

The buyout company that is reorganizing and trying to pump new life into Wayside seems to be on the right track. They’ve rehired John Elsley, who was with Wayside before it got into trouble.

If the name doesn’t ring a bell, John is the venerable plantsman who came to the United States from the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew in London. He came here to work at George W. Park Seed Company (Wayside) and more recently was with Beaver Creek Nursery and Klehm’s Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery.

Many plants, including perennials and roses, bear his name and breeding magic so we can only hope that his efforts bring the stature back to Wayside that it once had. The spring catalog is a start but not great. But the company did manage to get me to part with $350.

Next week we switch from green to yellow, lots of yellow. Keep growing.