A Stroll Through the Garden: Weed control for your lawn

Over the years I have had many people ask about their thin lawns, including a friend from the pool just recently. I can relate to this issue well on many levels. Seems that as I’m getting older, the hair on the top of my head is thinning. Surprisingly, there are some parallels between the top of my head and a lawn that has started to thin out.

A friend whose lawn I helped years ago had lost her husband. He was the lawn person, and she was not as prepared as he would have been. I remember the day not long ago that she told me she was giving up her home.

I have been taking care of lawns for some time, and I shall use as organic an approach as possible. There are good reasons for these feelings. I addressed this sort of problem in my friend’s yard a few years ago, and it seems the plan I had worked well. Proper timing can make a difference. August to mid-September is the best with April coming in second.

When weeds in a particular part of your lawn seem to take over, sometimes it’s because the nutrient density in the soil has changed. Increases in weed density can also mean the soil is more compacted and there is less water. If you have noticed there are more weeds in your yard and the trees are getting a lot bigger, you also have a problem. This last reason for the lawn doing poorly is that the trees are winning the battle and you will have to concern yourself more with the single pruning cut of the trees or a beautiful lawn.

Using aeration for weed control

The solution that I came up with to help reduce a weed problem began with the process called lawn aeration after you have removed as many weeds as you can. There is a piece of equipment that you can rent called a lawn aerator. This wonderful machine pokes a hole in your soil and leaves these little plugs all over your lawn. These plugs remind me of doggie poo. By loosening the soil, you will allow new roots to go more deeply for the seeds you will plant. This loosens up the soil for grass seed to set their roots. We could stop here but still have bumps in the lawn. There are special lawn forks that can help you get a deeper hole into the ground such as the garden forks and the hollow tine forks. These are not anything like hair plugs that I might put in my scalp to replace my thinning hair.

A good mix of leaf compost, topsoil and garden compost should be spread over the soil. My crew and I have used those 36-inch-wide lawn rakes. Rake your mixed soil over the surface of the lawn so that you can get at least an inch of soil over the areas where most of the weeds were located and the compacted soil. I have also spread a good mix of organic fertilizers over the top of the future lawn we are preparing. The reason I have recommended organic fertilizers is that the traditional fertilizers like 12x12x12 or other salt-like fertilizers contribute towards soil compaction and encourage more weeds. I have recently been reading about other solutions to this challenge when we have small bumps in the yard; look at how to level the yard out. If you can, make 6-feet by 6-feet grids in the yard and have loose soil that you can rake out. Keep in mind that the soil depth is at least 1 inch deep. A board that is 7 feet long dragged over the soil can be used similar to how you would float a concrete surface. This can go a long way in creating a level lawn.

At this point I would spread more of a grass seed mix that would be appropriate for the area with regard to the amount of light and nature of the soil. If you have a lot of clay, I look at grass mixes that include more fescues and rye. In general, if you have a good soil that has an aerated surface underneath the soil that you top-dressed, you will have a good chance at getting your new grass seed started.

Over the years I also normally recommend spreading a thin coat of straw over the grass seed. Hand-spreading different flakes of straw bales over a yard will reduce the water evaporation, reduce the weeds, slow down the birds and help keep the seeds in place.

I hope that you have a great stroll through the garden. If you have an issue, drop me a note at [email protected]. I shall do the best I can to help. A side note — the peregrine falcon picture was misidentified two weeks ago and may be an American kestrel.

Soon you can find this column as a blog on ohiohealthyfoodcooperative.org. Thank you for participating in our column.

Eric Larson of Jeromesville is a veteran landscaper and gardening enthusiast and a founding board member of the Ohio Chapter of Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Tips for controlling weeds in your lawn