LAWN HEALTH CARE

LAWN NUTRITION

Soil Tests

Compost Tea
Our tea is brewed on site, is full of life and ready for your lawn, trees, shrubs and flowers. While compost tea is not a fertilizer, it promotes microbial activity in the soil. Essentially, these microbes digest the nitrogen and release it in a form that allows the roots to absorb the nutrients. They provide the link between the fertilizer and the plant. Synthetic fertilizers tend to be like a simple sugar to microbes, quick to eat and burn. Organic fertilizers tend to be like whole grains, taking a while for the microbes to work through, which is why organic fertilizers are naturally slow-release, taking a while to be used by the plant. The more soil activity, the healthier the plant.

Granulated Compost
Our granulated compost looks like a dry fertilizer and can be easily applied on any soil, including trees, shrubs, flowers and lawn areas. Similar to our compost tea, our granulated compost packs a punch of microbial activity. Slower to release, our granulated compost is a great alternative to top-dressing with bulky, traditional compost.

Fertilizer
We use the highest quality, natural-based fertilizer, custom blended on site, for our nutrient programs. Our annual program ranges from 3 to 5 treatments, depending upon your geographic location and site conditions. If preferred, lawn weed and/or insect control can also be incorporated into your nutrient program.

Core Aeration
Most lawns will benefit from core aeration once each year. High traffic areas may require two aerations each year. After aeration, many lawns will benefit from an application of our granulated compost or compost tea.

Liquid Soil Penetrant
Compacted, hard soils cause unhealthy plants, lawns and trees. They stay soggy when wet, and turn rock hard when they dry out in the summer. When soils are "tight", necessary air, water and nutrients cannot move through the soil. Disease occurs. Roots are stunted. Beneficial micro-organisms can't survive. Plants are stressed and weakened. Even when you are doing everything else right, soil compaction will ruin all your efforts.

Our liquid soil penetrant treatment breaks apart tightly bonded clay particles. This creates "space" in the soil, allowing roots, water and oxygen to permeate. Once you get oxygen into a clay soil, beneficial microbes will be able to survive. These microbes are needed to turn old roots and organic matter into all-important humus. Once you have humus, you'll have much better soil quality and structure.

What can you expect? If you have decent topsoil that has become compacted, our treatment should be able to give some immediate relief in terms of aeration and drainage. Follow up applications will keep the soil opened up and allow the natural microbial processes to restructure the soil. Each succeeding application should give deeper penetration. Adding our compost tea will help speed up the soil bioactivation.

For poorer topsoils with more clay content (normally hard when dry and somewhat sticky when wet), we do another application 2 weeks after the initial application is watered in. We suggest applying the soil penetrant every 2 months after that. These dense clays have very tightly bonded microscopic soil particles, no airspace and often, no organic matter. Each application will loosen some of these bonds and create small pores. Eventually there will be enough airspace in the soil to support soil microbes and allow deeper rooting. Then the soil starts to crumble and improvement becomes more rapid. It can take 6 months to a year before improvement is obvious. When your soil has improved, 1 or 2 applications a year should be sufficient.

• Reduces soil compaction
• Breaks up clay deeply
• Improves soil structure and humus formation
• Can be applied any time during the growing season
• Increases earthworm activity
• Helps bioactivate all soils
• Safe to use around sprinklers
• Excellent for slopes
• Reduces the need for mechanical aeration
• Saves time & money
• Improves rooting by loosening soil
• Improves air and water penetration
• Improves nutrient efficiency
• Reduces water run-off and standing water in wet areas
• Completely biodegradable
• Helps save water
• Reduces plant stress and disease
• Improves drainage & helps prevent erosion

LAWN PEST MANAGEMENT - LAWN WEEDS

Broadleaf Weeds
While we perform many one-time treatments to control broadleaf weeds in lawns such as dandelions and clover, we recommend our year-long nutrient program with weed control for best results. Healthy turf and soil is always the best natural deterrent to new weed invasions. We then use the technique of ‘spot spraying’ for weeds where possible rather than spreading a blanket application over the entire lawn in playing ‘catch-up’.

Crabgrass
Again, the best deterrent to seeds from crabgrass getting a chance to germinate each year is a healthy, thick lawn. However, if crabgrass pressure is heavy in your neighborhood, we can always include our crabgrass preventer in your lawn care program to help keep your lawn looking great and weed free all season.

Lawn Insects
When necessary, we may recommend insect control with your nutrient program to address turf pests we are seeing in your area, including billbugs and sod webworm.

Fungal Problems
We have solutions for common lawn problems like fairy ring, snow mold, brown patch and other fungi.

Voles and other burrowing rodents
We have two options to address these destructive pests:

• Natural rodent repellent treatment We apply a safe, organic, liquid repellent that discourages such rodents from staying in the area that can last for months.
• Instant Rodent Control (with link to burrowing rodent section of ProGuard)