Do you struggle with your lawn?

[Margarita]

Is it just us, or does anyone else struggle to have a nice, green lawn every year?

It's so frustrating. We paid the money for soil preparation, sod, and a sprinkler system, and still we have a hard time keeping the grass nice. We've had to dig out crab grass and dead parts due to lack of water or cutworms. Here we have the "automatic" sprinkler system, and we still find ourselves dragging a hose around to try to save all these problem areas.

We fertilize four times a year and water according to local recommendations. We're using pesticides to kill the cutworms and just aerated. What else can we do?

[Mommytotwo]

Our lawn is pretty nice and we don't have a sprinkler system. We are lucky that it does rain or when there is sort of a drought, the grass doesn't die down.
Maybe you can try a different type of grass.

[Margarita]

Oops, I forgot to mention that. We are required to have Kentucky Blue Grass by our covenants. That's pretty much all anyone plants here, although who knows why. The soil is just not built for it. We have pretty heavy clay here and not much rain.

[heather6773]

our lawn isn't too bad. We have a nice green lawn from all the rain we get. Its hard to keep up with that part.

[Mommytotwo]

I would think that maybe the cutworms are the main problem and that they are the ones affecting your weeds. Is there a spray or something that you could use to get rid of them?

[nicolef888]

Do you have good sprinkler coverage? You may need to add sprinkler heads to get the coverage you need-we had to do that.

How many times/week do you water? We water every other day. The suggested watering schedule in our area is once every 5 days-we tried that and had no lawn lwft-when we went to every other day, it looks beautiful.

[Turtleheadfred]

That's wierd! (Sorry...) Kentucky Bluegrass - which we have here being Tennessee - is a "cool to warm" weather grass that won't stand the heat of summer. It doesn't do well in high heat at all - which is why in my region - it's generally used to overseed with and to keep the lawn looking good inbetween seasons (when it's not too hot and not too cold). General 31 Fescue is an grass used to stand up to high heat and drought - which is what's sold and used in this area for dead on summer because it's SO DARN HOT! In the winter - we'll overseed with a strictly cool weather grass only and that takes care of that.

What's the temperature like where you live? That should be the determination for what grass is planted - because it will really cut down on the maintenance and help the appearance overall. We don't have to water, and only weed-n-feed twice a year... once in the spring and once in the fall - that's it. But again - this is Tennessee and the climate is more indicative for grasses than some other regions.

I don't know if that helps you at all - but I really would look into grasses designed for your specific area and climate and see if you could try doing a blend of Ky Blue with another grass that might be a little less hard to grow for your place!

[Margarita]

We have been treating the cutworms with a granular pesticide. That seems to be helping.

Our neighbor knows quite a bit about sprinklers and yard stuff, so he's been teaching B a few things. B has adjusted a few sprinkler heads and may need to add a couple if it still needs work. We water every other day, too, Nicole.

THF, yeah, weird and stupid!!! I don't know what the deal is with that. Temps here vary a lot, but they do get quite hot. It's frequently 80-90, sometimes up to 100. And we get NO rain and have very dry air, so watering is a MUST.

[Turtleheadfred]

Bless your heart Margs! We always have hot summers (lately hotter than normal) but it's so darn humid that I usually just worry about my garden stuff and don't worry about the grass too much... as do most people unless they've JUST put a new lawn in.

The granular stuff sounds right - that's what I used and it definitely helps. I even use a granular product for fleas, ticks, etc. all around my house and in my puppy's pen area (it's pretty large) just to help keep the critters down, even though they wear Frontline.

Good luck! It's great that you have a neighbor who seems to know what to do too!