Fall is fast approaching and with it comes an opportunity to restore your lawn after the heat of summer. The Blue Crew at Royal Creations Architectural Landscaping recommend the following steps to restore your lawn.
Weed Control
When your grass is struggling and thinning out, weeds take the opportunity to grow and spread. If you are planning to overseed your grass, you cannot put a pre-emergent on your lawn because it will keep your seeds from growing. We recommend spot spraying a post-emergent spray to kill clumps of weeds. If there are just a few weeds, it is easier to just pull them up. In either case, they need to be removed before you overseed your lawn, or they will crowd the new grass out.
Mark Sprinkler Heads To Avoid Damaging Them
Flag And Adjust Sprinklers
Before going any further in your lawn restoration, it is important to mark where your sprinkler heads are so you do not rip them out when dethatching or aerating your lawn. You can buy small flags on thin wires from big box stores and nurseries and use them to mark each head. Marking them gives you a chance to repair any sprinkler heads that are damaged or don’t work properly. In addition, it is important to adjust your sprinkler to water the new seeds you are planting. If you fail to do this, your new grass will have a hard time establishing itself.
Dethatch
Thatch is a layer of dead grass, roots, and debris that builds up between the grass and the soil surface. It can form an almost impenetrable layer that keeps water, nutrients, and air from reaching the roots. Any time thatch is one inch thick or deeper, you need to remove it. Before you overseed, dethatch so your seeds can reach the soil surface and grow.
For a small yard, you can use a dethatching rake to rip out the dead grass and roots. If you have a large yard, you will want to rent a dethatching machine. Dethatching rakes work great, but they are tiring to use. After dethatching your lawn, rake the debris up and compost it or throw it away. Water your lawn until the soil is saturated with water before you move to the next step.
Aerate
Plants absorb water, nutrients, and air from the soil around them. When the soil gets compacted, these things have a hard time penetrating the surface. To fix that, you want to rent a core aerator and run it across the lawn. Watering the lawn before aerating helps the aerator get as deep as it needs to in the soil. Aerators punch holes in the soil and leave the soil they remove on your lawn in plugs. After you aerate, rake these plugs until they fall into the grass. They will dissolve the next time you water.
Overseed
The easiest way to overseed a lawn is to use a push spreader. Set the dispersal rate according to the grass seed package instructions. Walk back and forth in one direction, such as north to south, then walk back and forth in the other way, such as east to west. This provides plenty of seed everywhere in the lawn. Missing a spot leaves a thin area that does not look good.
Top Dress With Peat Moss or Compost
After you seed the lawn, spread about an inch of peat moss or compost on your lawn. Rake it in so the amendments touch the ground. This will provide the seeds with a burst of nitrogen that is slow enough releasing to avoid burning the seedlings.
Fertilize
Now is a good time to fertilize your lawn, too. Pick a fall fertilizer and spread it according to the label instructions. Cover the lawn in one direction, then in the perpendicular direction to get good coverage.
New Grass Needs More Water
Water
After you sow your seeds, top dress them, and fertilize the lawn, water the yard well. This dissolves the plugs from aerating the soil, tells the seeds to germinate, and moves the nutrients from the top dressing and fertilizing into the root zone so the grass can use them. Make sure you don’t let any water run off into the storm drain. That wastes your expensive seed, top dressing, and fertilizer and pollutes streams and rivers.
Care Guide
If this sounds like a lot of work that is because it is a lot of work. Royal Creations Architectural Landscaping can do your fall lawn restoration for you. Simply subscribe to our lawn care program and enjoy your yard. We will even leave a detailed care guide for you to follow to maximize success. Call (816) 825-2524 for the details and to sign up.
Because of ample spring rains, some area residents have not turned on their sprinkler systems for the year yet. However, we have noticed several issues with some of the systems that we have activated for the year. Here are the common problems we have seen and tips for how to fix them.
Backflow Testing
Backflow is when dirty water flows into a clean water line. This then contaminates the clean water line. Contaminated water can be harmful or even deadly. This is why backflow preventers are required on irrigation systems. Backflow preventers should be tested yearly when the system is turned on. A certification is required to perform this testing, and we have someone on staff who can help.
Are Heads Working?
After the backflow preventer is tested, the next step is making sure all the heads are working properly. Mowers will damage heads that do not retract all the way. Sometimes the damage is not obvious until the system is cycled across all the zones. This is a good time to make sure the heads are aimed properly so all the lawn and plants get watered while minimizing wasted water shooting over hardscape or at the house.
Grass and Weed Problems
Sometimes we encounter issues where the grass or weeds have grown over the sprinkler head and are preventing it from going up. A bit of weeding is all that is necessary to get the head up.
Geysers
Geysers indicate the whole head must be repaired or replaced. In some areas, you can even get a ticket for a geyser that causes problems for your neighbors. Even without the ticket, the fountains shooting up can waste a lot of water and can keep the rest of the sprinkler system from having enough pressure to water properly.
Drip Tubing to Flowerpots
If you have flowerpots that need water, you can hook them up to an existing sprinkler system. If you do not want to do this, we can do it for an additional fee when we check your sprinkler system for you.
Lawn Sprinkler Subscription Service
Royal Creations Architectural Landscaping now offers a lawn sprinkler subscription service. We have three levels of service: Fresh Impressions, Lush Landscape, and Royal Treatment. With the Fresh Impressions subscription, we will activate your sprinkler system, inspect it at activation, inspect the system for the summer and adjust the watering schedule if needed, and winterize your sprinkler system. For the Lush Landscape level, add an additional seasonal inspection, a zone diagram, and 5% off any repairs. Finally, for the Royal Treatment level, we add two extra seasonal inspections for a total of four, we remotely adjust your irrigation to add the right amount of water for the temperature six times, 10% off any repairs, and you have priority scheduling. Call the office at (816) 825-2524 to enroll.
In the Kansas City area, we recommend activating your irrigation system around St. Patrick’s Day because this is typically the time of year when the threat of freezing pipes has passed. Starting up your system is more complicated than just turning on the water. Here are the steps we recommend you go through to get things ready for spring.
Fill Backflow Valve
The first step in activating your irrigation system is to charge the backflow valve. Switching it to the on position begins to fill the irrigation system with water. If you have a master valve, which we recommend, it will open to pressurize the main line of your system to be ready to run.
Start System and Audit Zones
You might get wet doing this next step. Turn a zone on and check that the sprinkler heads are in good condition. Watch where the zone spreads water and make sure the sprinkler heads are turned in the correct direction. You want to water the plants, not the concrete or your house. After making sure the heads are watering properly, turn off that zone and start the next one. Continue until you have checked all the zones. You can set up a 1 to 2-minute test cycle also to help make this easier and not have to run back to the controller as much.
Make Repairs
Chances are you will have to make some repairs. Mowers hit sprinkler heads, the plastic cracks, or something else broke during the winter. Complete all the repairs, then return to the previous step. When you are satisfied that everything is working, you can move on.
Set Timer
The timer has two functions. You can set it to tell it what days to run and what time to run. Your sprinklers should run in the morning, before 10 a.m. That lets the water dry off the leaves before nightfall. Plants that are wet overnight are more likely to get fungal diseases.
You also need to set how long each zone runs. The run duration depends on temperature and rainfall. If the temperature is high, run the rotor zones so that each zone runs twenty to thirty minutes, and spray zones five to fifteen minutes. If you see water begin to run off then you can scale back the run times and set another start time for later. Shorter run times and more frequent watering allows the water to soak into the soil, so less runs off. If the temperature is cooler, you don’t have to cycle through as many times. Rainfall also means that you may not have to water one of the days you usually water that week, depending on the amount of rainfall. A rain sensor can shut off the system for a period of time so you don’t waste money watering when it is not needed. Smart controllers can also help conserve water and allow you to adjust controls remotely from your phone.
Summer Adjustments
You should check your system in early summer when it starts to get hot. Adjust the timer to water more often so your plants can survive the summer temperatures. Make sure none of the sprinkler heads have been damaged and everything is running smoothly.
We Can Activate Your Irrigation System
Royal Creations Architectural Landscaping can activate your irrigation system for you. We will go through each of the steps and make sure your system is running efficiently and is set correctly. In fact, we have a new Lawn Sprinkler Subscription Program. The Fresh Impressions level includes sprinkler activation, a system inspection at activation, a summer season system inspection, and winterization. The Luscious Landscape level includes all that plus two additional seasonal system inspections, a zone diagram, and 5% off all repairs. Finally, the Royal Treatment level includes sprinkler activation, system inspection at activation, four seasonal system inspections, six remote adjustments of the sprinkler during the season, winterization, zone diagram, and priority scheduling. Royal Treatment clients will also get 10% off of all repairs. To fully take advantage of this level of service, you must have a Wi-Fi-smart controller, which may require a one-time additional fee. To enroll, call the office at (816) 825-2524 today.
