About eight years ago, my husband picked up a small wooden plaque at a garage sale and hung it above our pantry door. At dinner, our daughter Sarah’s chair faces in such a way that she looks directly at this plaque.
For about the first four years, she looked at the plaque and saw the small pieces of light wood that were glued to the darker wooden piece of the plaque. At some point, her focus changed and she looked at the wooden spaces instead of the light wood pieces. When this happened, she suddenly saw what she had been missing all those years. The plaque said “Jesus.”
I bring this analogy up in relation to lawn care because sometimes what we focus on makes all the difference. Are you the type of person who focuses on the plants in front of your home or do you focus on the lawn? Do you dare to try to focus on both?
When you look at the lawn, do you see the bare patches or do you see the green patches? Obviously, there are no right answers, just a few questions to think about. We all want great looking plants and a luscious lawn; it just takes a little work and time to get there.
This column is the second in a two-part series dealing with lawn care. For these columns, I have interviewed the Pump family, who own Coon Creek Sod Farm in Hampshire. Rick, Marlene, and their son, Ricky, are third and fourth generation sod growers. They have a tremendous wealth of knowledge regarding lawns and lawn care.
Q. As you know, last year’s drought was particularly tough on lawns. What do you recommend that people do to help their lawn recover from the drought last summer?
A. To recover from the drought, I would slit seed with a bluegrass/ryegrass mix and apply a 19-19-19 fertilizer.
Q. What is slit seeding?
A. Slit seeding involves a machine with rotating knives that slice a groove in the soil so the seed can fall into the furrow. It gives you seed-to-soil contact.
Q. When would you recommend slit seeding?
A. Slit seeding should be done if the lawn is thin and there are many bare spots.
Q. When is the best time of the year to put down seed?
A. The best time to seed is in the spring from April 1-May 31 and in the fall from August 15-September 20.
Q. When would you recommend that the existing lawn be taken out and new sod be laid down?
A. If the lawn is more than 50 percent gone, I would recommend taking out the old lawn, rotatilling, grading, and laying new sod.
Q. How do you care for new sod?
A. Top care for new sod makes sure that it is installed immediately after delivery and given a thorough soaking after being installed. I would recommend an inch of water a week either through rainfall or irrigation for six weeks.
Q. For an existing lawn, how much water does it need per week?
A. An existing lawn requires about an inch of water each week from April through September.
Coon Creek Sod farm is located at 48W679 Allen Road in Hampshire. They sell sod, grass seed, fertilizer, erosion control blankets, and many other lawn and soil products. You can visit their website at www.cooncreekfarms.com or call them at 847-683-2700.
• Kathleen Carr is the owner of The Growing Scene, Inc., a garden center and landscaping company. She can be reached by phone at 815-923-7322 by email at tgsinc12@msn.com or by mail at 17015 Harmony Road, Marengo, IL 60152. Have a gardening question? Please contact her. She will address it in an upcoming column.
1 Comment
Grate advice… brill