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Speaker 1: And welcome back. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berline. I'm here with Sarah Geiger-Beam, landscape designer with Wimberg Landscaping Company. WimbergLandscaping.com. You can find out more about her and her work. You're also owner of Verdigris Plant Farm.
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Speaker 2: Yep.
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Speaker 3: Lots of plants.
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Speaker 1: Lots of plants. Lots and lots of plants. And a beekeeper and a former Peace Corps volunteer. And soon, coming up, we have Craig Grabo joining us. And he's a turf expert, and we're not.
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Speaker 3: I am not, but I've been sort of in the orbit of the turf people.
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Speaker 1: You have more than me.
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Speaker 3: At Spring Grove and at the golf course. So I saw some of it, but I was never responsible for knowing what to do.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, when it comes to turf, I have to admit I'm pretty ignorant, and it's willfully ignorant. I have chosen not to learn about turf until today. Well, lately I've been boning up a little bit. But I am looking forward to talking to Craig and learning what I can about making sure my turf is as good as I can make it.
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Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So what's your next plant?
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Speaker 3: I have honey locust. They are starting to turn fall color here.
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Speaker 4: And I.
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Speaker 3: First of all, honey locust is a favorite plant all the time for me. Yeah. But I love how the fall color comes on on the honey locust because they have those fine leaves and it just sort of starts filtering in on the edges and glittering and getting this wonderful effect. And yeah, I just, I love that plant.
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Speaker 1: It's one I like too because the leaves are so fine that You don't really have to rake at all?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: You just mow and they're gone?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: At my old place, I had a honey locust shading a patio. And in many ways, I think it's just the perfect patio tree for that reason. You just blow it off very easily. The only thing, the downside about having it by your patio is that those little leaves, they track in on your shoes. So you got to be careful about that. But yeah, the sort of, filtered light from all of those very small leaves, it's not quite as dark underneath of those trees as other big leaf shade trees.
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Speaker 1: Right. So you can get away with growing more underneath.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And they just have this elegant sort of cascading.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's different forms too. There's like the upright where it's almost like an elm.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: There's some that are broad and round and And even a few like shorter ones that level off for street tree use and things like that. It's a legume, so it can grow almost anywhere. It's really tough.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. You can put it in a parking lot island. It's street tree. Just a great tree.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: By the way, if you would like to call and opine on our plants, 800-823-8255. Tell us we're wrong.
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Speaker 4: Right.
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Speaker 2: 800-823-8255.
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Speaker 1: And any other question you might have for us, just call in and and, uh, ask us and we'll, we'll make up an answer.
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Speaker 4: Yep.
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Speaker 1: I want to mention Aster Oblongifolius or the, what is it called? Odor, uh, aromatic Aster.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
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Speaker 1: Aromatic Aster. And, uh, you know, I think there's two out there. My favorite is Radon's favorite. We use it at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. Uh, it's tough as nails. Just put it in a site, a sunny site and, uh, let it go. Uh, the deer won't even bother it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: You know, it, it, It has sort of a sticky, resinous sort of feel to it. They won't eat it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But right now it's covered in flowers and gorgeous.
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Speaker 3: I am growing October Glory.
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Speaker 1: That's another one of the same species.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I got a 72 tray of it and I stepped it up. And they're blooming from the 72 tray, basically, because I only stepped them up a few weeks ago. So it's like, that's impressive, you know?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And they're healthy looking and just beautiful little purple flowers.
00:04:38
Speaker 1: What's your next plant?
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Speaker 3: I have flowering dogwood.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Again, we're on the beginning of the fall color here and the berries are turning red and the leaves are starting to get red. Around here, we do have a lot of leaf symptoms on our flowering dogwoods. So it's kind of hit or miss with the foliage on that, but it looks like it's going to be a good year for dogwoods.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if they liked the extra moisture this year. That's kind of what I'm thinking.
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Speaker 1: Probably, yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't have great fall color on the dogwoods every year, but it looks like it's going to be a good one.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and people think of it for the flower, but the fall color is a twofer. Yeah. And the berries, while they last, are awfully pretty too.
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Speaker 3: And the fall color plus the berries is really cool.
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Speaker 1: It's really nice.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:05:27
Speaker 1: My next plant is a black-eyed Susan vine.
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Speaker 3: Black-eyed Susan vine?
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Speaker 1: Vine, Thunbergia alata. So it's not a black-eyed Susan, but it has a flower that looks sort of like one.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 1: And it's a vine that is a pretty aggressive grower. It'll cover some space in the course of a season. I used it in a container this year and it wasn't a great idea because I thought it would be my spiller.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
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Speaker 1: Which it did, but it has been pretty sparse in its bloom. Until about now.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 1: It's starting to come in better. And that's the look I was looking for all along. So I don't think it's great for container use. But if you have an old fence or something and you just want that annual vine color, it's a good one. It's a good one for that.
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Speaker 2: Well, good. Yeah. Nice.
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Speaker 1: Again, these pictures of these plants are on Let's Garden with Scott Berline, the Facebook page. What's your next plant?
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Speaker 3: I have Henry Eiler's coneflower, Rudbeckia subtomintosa, I believe, Henry Eiler's. It's a variety of the sweet coneflower that... the, the Ray pedals, the yellow part of, of the flower are curled up like little flutes. And so instead of having a flat pedal, you have, um, like a little, like a thread almost coming off of yellow. And what it does in the garden is it's just like a visual exclamation point. So all the part that the pollinators come to that's in the middle of the flower. So it's just as functional for pollinators as the straight species. However, as a garden plant, you just get a little bit more oomph from that flower design-wise. It's a taller plant. It's a little more striking.
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Speaker 1: It's what, five or six feet tall?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it can get five or six feet tall.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a beautiful plant. Again, a good one for pollinators. It's a very fun plant this time of year.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:07:28
Speaker 1: Black pearl pepper. It's an oldie but a goodie.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: This is one of the first ornamental plants. peppers, I think, that came out. And it's got really nice dark black foliage and beautiful, literally pearl-like black peppers that right now start to turn red. And it's a spectacular combination.
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Speaker 3: The ornamental peppers are cool.
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Speaker 1: I like them all. I really do. But this one is my favorite, I think, at least right now.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. I love fall containers with ornamental peppers in there. It's a little different than just the standard mum container that you see in the fall. But yeah, I have designed containers with that as a center and, you know, other things lower around it for just, you know, little focal point.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to go to another one. Lab Lab, which is a great Latin name. Hyacinth Bean Vine.
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Speaker 3: Delicos Lab Lab.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. To get a full appreciation of that, you do need to go to the Garden with Scott Burling Facebook page. and have a look, I have pictures of it there for you. And it's just a great, strong-growing annual vine. And it's got kind of purplish foliage. And then it's a legume, so it has pea-like flowers. And they're pretty well-produced. They're pretty prolific with the flowers. And then also this beautiful bean pod. That is, I don't know what color you'd call that. Purple would be, it would fall under purple some way. Really a rich purple. And I did not know this, but it's an edible. Yeah, I was thinking something that visual would have to be poisonous, but no.
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Speaker 3: And I am 90% sure on this, but it's been 15, 20 years. I think that we used that as a cover crop or as a green manure in paraguay that was one of the the ones that we could get there that we uh recommended to cover the ground to prevent erosion between crops and it's a legume so you know you can cut it back and it fixes nitrogen but i've grown it um i used to have it growing along the top of a wall that was painted white one of those walls that's like above a driveway okay And it spilled down over the white wall and it just looked fabulous.
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Speaker 1: That's so cool.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:00
Speaker 1: Well, that wraps it up for our favorite plants right now. I think we did a decent job of that. Hopefully the listeners did too. We'll take a break. Craig Grabo is in the house. He'll join us in about 15 minutes. So you don't want to miss that. We'll be talking about turf and other things. 800-823-8255 is our number. Stay tuned.
00:10:32
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00:12:53
Speaker 1: And welcome back. I am suddenly by myself. I went down to get Craig. He and Sarah are both, you know, taking, using the facility. So I'm sitting here alone and I'm thinking I kind of like the sound of my voice when I have a cold like this. Yeah, Craig, come on in. Sit down.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: We have Craig Grabo joining us here in just a few minutes. We'll be talking about turf, and that'll be great. Sarah, I was just saying, I like the sound of my voice when I have a cold.
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Speaker 3: It's like deeper and more mysterious.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Less coherent, but more deeper. Let me try this, okay? I'm Batman. Was that good?
00:13:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could do like voiceover work. You'd have to stay sick, though.
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Speaker 1: I'm Batman. By Horizon Phones. Something like that.
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Speaker 2: Anyway. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: There's potential there.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: That was very silly, and I apologize to everybody. So let's talk about a few things that we should have done last week. I'm going to launch first with weed, as I always do.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:59
Speaker 1: Always weed. Visit your local independent garden center. Get some nice plants that are in bloom. That way you'll have an extended season of bloom all year round. And I've got one more, and I think this is a unique one. Is get out and look at all your shrubs and trees and make note of what you might want to prune in the fall, you know, when we get into true pruning season. So right now you can tell branches that might be weak because the leaves aren't growing well. There might be only a few of them.
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Speaker 3: Good point.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:32
Speaker 1: You know, you can mark them with a crayon or with a piece of tape or whatever you need to. And that way, when you come back in the dead of winter, you know, during the dormant season to prune your trees or shrubs, you have some. Some roadmap on what to do.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good idea.
00:14:48
Speaker 1: Is that a good idea?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:50
Speaker 1: I thought so. I was proud of myself.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:52
Speaker 1: What's your idea?
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Speaker 3: I'm taking my tropicals in.
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Speaker 1: Oh, already? Yeah. Okay.
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Speaker 3: Not all of them, but some of them I've already brought in. And I'm going to take them in earlier this year because I think I waited too long last year.
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Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
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Speaker 3: I don't want to be scrambling, battling a frost.
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Speaker 1: And, you know, they're heavy. You do it at the wrong time. They're heavy. It's cold.
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Speaker 3: Yes.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: You know, it just gets to be a miserable job.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: The last few years bringing in my tropicals before frost was just a comedy of errors. So I'm trying to spread it out because I have quite a few. And, you know, a lot of the plants, I can wait until the frost kind of knocks them down and do that. But I think I'm just going to bring them in before that happens.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: And for most people like you that has a heated, not a heated garage, but an unheated attached garage. Yeah. That stays, what, in the 40s or something?
00:15:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I put a space heater in there with a thermostat near freezing so it doesn't get below freezing.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, they can get cold, but you don't want them to freeze.
00:16:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker 1: And you can just kind of, they kind of hibernate like the fat bears.
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Speaker 3: Yes.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: In your garage.
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Speaker 3: You don't want them to dry out too much.
00:16:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:16:11
Speaker 3: And you also don't want them to stay soggy.
00:16:13
Speaker 1: Right. Just splash them with water once or twice during the winter. You can put them in your basement too, I guess. It's just basements are colder or not, not as cold.
00:16:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a lot of lifting.
00:16:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, up and down stairs.
00:16:27
Speaker 3: I've got some big tropicals.
00:16:28
Speaker 1: You do. You're lucky you have an attached garage. I do not.
00:16:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: My garage gets as cold as the outdoors. And it's crazy cold. I mean, people in warmer climates don't realize it. We could leave food. We can go to the grocery store, come back, and just leave it in the car when it's in the wintertime.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:16:44
Speaker 1: And it's going to be just fine.
00:16:47
Speaker 3: Some days.
00:16:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you have any other jobs that you want to do right now or should have done last week?
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Speaker 3: You know, I not garden related. I am pressure washing my house right now, which is sort of garden related because it's like, I have to do this in order to plan what I want to do for the front area. And you know, what does this area want to be? Um, so I'm, I'm getting that done before it gets too crazy cold. Um, But yeah, just thinking about down the road what I want to do with that space. That's what I'm thinking about right now.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:17:25
Speaker 1: You know, and this is a good time of year to just assess what you want to do during the winter.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: You know, hardscape wise, fencing. I know you're going to do some fence work. And those are all jobs. Any of the jobs that you can do when everything else can't be done.
00:17:41
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:17:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm thinking about there's some volunteer trees along the tree line that need to come down. I still have a log to cut up from one of our earlier storms. And I am thinking about how to make my garden work better for me. Feng shui? Well, not so much feng shui, but like material handling. So my dad was a forklift mechanic. So I think I just think in terms of material handling and I have a bad back. So I don't like to do a lot of lifting.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: No.
00:18:13
Speaker 3: So I'm going to redo the gates on my fence so I can get equipment in there and, you know, just work better.
00:18:20
Speaker 1: I think that wraps us up on what we should have done last week. And I know there's things, other things we should have done last week that I didn't remember. And that's why they didn't get done last week. But that's just the way it is with gardening. You do what you can. You do what you can remember. And then what you didn't remember, you're going to have to go back and fix.
00:18:42
Speaker 3: You just keep moving forward.
00:18:44
Speaker 1: The National Garden Bureau came out with some new All-American selections just this week. So they came out with some pretty cool stuff. And again, I think I put a link No, I did not. But I will put a link on the Let's Garden with Scott Burline Facebook page. But a couple of cool plants they put out there. Vinca soiree. How do you say that? Soiree?
00:19:08
Speaker 3: I don't know. Oh, soiree?
00:19:10
Speaker 1: Soiree.
00:19:10
Speaker 2: That's it.
00:19:11
Speaker 1: That series. One called Flamenco Electric Salmon Eye. So a new vinca, which has really frilly flowers. Different from anything else I've seen from the vinca group. They had two radishes. One is called Roxanne. which is a great tasting radish with no pithiness or bleeding even at a larger size. Stays firm and solid even when oversized and holds well in the garden. And then the other radish was one called, I'll find it here, Rivoli, Rivoli. They also listed Zinnia Profusion Double White Improved. This is a new all-American selection. Polemonium Prince. What is Polemonium? Jacob's Ladder. Jacob's Ladder. And a hydrangea, yet another hydrangea. Endless Summer Dream Cloud. Those are all brand new National Gardening Bureau or American All-American Selection's new plants. So ones that you might want to look for. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berline, Sarah Geiger being with me. Craig Grabo will join us in just a few minutes. So we'll be talking about turf and you don't want to miss it. Stay tuned.
00:20:53
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00:22:10
Speaker 1: Good morning. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berline. Welcome back. I'm here with Sarah Geiger-Beam from Winberg Landscaping. And we are now joined by Craig Grabo from, what is it? You're the foreman at Highland Cemetery. You do sales for Madison Tree Care. And you're also... owner of a landscaping company, Central, what is it called?
00:22:37
Speaker 4: Well, actually, so it's my family's company. It was a, you know, it's a 40 year old lawn and landscape company, but we actually transitioned to where we only do turf care.
00:22:46
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:22:46
Speaker 4: And now it's called Healthy Lawns by Central Lawn Care.
00:22:49
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:22:49
Speaker 1: So you're the guy we want to talk to about turf.
00:22:52
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:22:52
Speaker 1: Because I don't know much about turf and Sarah only knows a little bit more than me. And so we have all these questions.
00:23:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's do it. Oh, and could I just, add that our beautification committee of one at Highland cemetery is going to be at that fall plant sale out at Ammon's.
00:23:09
Speaker 1: Is that right? Oh, that's right.
00:23:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:23:11
Speaker 4: Cause we're bringing in all sorts of natives and stuff like that. And they got a lot of things available. So I figured just at least throw that out there.
00:23:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:23:19
Speaker 1: Um, so you, yeah, this is a time of year when the rest of the yard is kind of winding down, but it's also a busy time of year for, for doing things with your turf. Is that, is that correct?
00:23:31
Speaker 4: I would say one of the busiest, you know, and especially if you're going to be doing anything as a homeowner and depending on, uh, kind of how discerning you are about what you want your lawn to be. Uh, this is like a prime time, uh, especially because we deal with cool season grasses, or at least that's what's recommended in our area.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: Right.
00:23:48
Speaker 1: The fescues, the tall fescues.
00:23:50
Speaker 4: Exactly. Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker 1: Now, um, I'm kind of a guy that's relaxed about my turf.
00:23:55
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker 1: So I've gone several years with, if it's green, it's gold. That makes any sense. You know, and it's like the weeds, the violets, the clover doesn't really bother me. Creeping Charlie bothers me because it gets into the beds.
00:24:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:24:08
Speaker 1: But this year it just got overrun with crabgrass. It just collapsed. And so I went ahead and killed the entire lawn.
00:24:19
Speaker 4: Oh.
00:24:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. You went bold.
00:24:20
Speaker 1: I went bold. At first I put down like a 2,4-D product that was taking out the broadleafs. And then there was also the nimble well and everything else. So I was just like, you know what? I'm starting over. So I sprayed it with glyphosate.
00:24:34
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:24:35
Speaker 1: And I put down seed about two or three weeks ago. It's just starting to come up.
00:24:39
Speaker 4: How long did you wait after you killed it off?
00:24:41
Speaker 1: Oh, I meant to wait a week. I think it was two. Gotcha. Yeah. And from what I understand with glyphosate, at least you don't have to wait that long.
00:24:54
Speaker 4: I would recommend... Maybe preparing yourself to do a little additional overseeding.
00:24:59
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:00
Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
00:25:01
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker 1: And that's what happened is in some parts of the yard, the grass came up. It's looking perfect.
00:25:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:07
Speaker 1: Other places it's really patchy. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker 4: And I mean, you're going to get that kind of no matter what, because no matter how well you think that you get your seed spread pattern down, it's not going to be that great. Plus, you know, I thought a lot about this before coming on here. Um, not every, every yard is unique and every little microclimate within your lawn soil profile is unique.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker 4: So like, you know, a lot of people, they go out or, you know, we might get calls, Hey, my neighbor doesn't do anything to their yard and I do everything and I'm hiring you guys. Why does theirs look so good?
00:25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
00:25:42
Speaker 4: And it's like, well, it's because you didn't see one, the work that your neighbor's putting in. because they sneak out there, they might spray a little weed.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: They do it at night.
00:25:50
Speaker 4: Exactly. They want to be Batman, you know, when it comes to taking care of their lawn. But even just within your lawn, you've got a rock hidden here. You've got an old stump hidden there. You got a black walnut that was removed 10 years ago.
00:26:04
Speaker 1: Washed out their concrete.
00:26:06
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:26:07
Speaker 4: Exactly. So, so it's one of those things that, you kind of got to do some investigating. If something's not coming up, there's a reason why. It might be a little bit close to a tree and you're just not identifying that. It's meeting that threshold where the tree is going to win. And trees win. If your grass is winning under a tree, then your tree is going to suffer and you're going to pay dearly for it.
00:26:28
Speaker 1: And that's a conflict that's age old between trees and turf. And people are like, how can I get any turf under my tree? I'm like, don't bother. You just spread out the mulch ring. or plant with some kind of ground cover and let it be. In my case, I'm getting mosses under my trees, which I absolutely love.
00:26:45
Speaker 4: Which that's hugely beneficial. And I think that a lot of people, once they understand that if you have turf that thrives within that drip line of the tree or like a little closer to the trunk, then you're doing major damage to your tree.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: That's right. Because of the extra fertilizer the trees don't want.
00:27:03
Speaker 4: And everything is shallow. So, I mean, you got to think turf, especially in our clay soils is only going to really thrive in that top, maybe four inches, five inches worth of soil. And everything that you're trying to give it has to maintain in that. Well, your tree might send out some adventitious roots. It might, you start to get a lot more surface rooting with fine roots than what it really wants. So you don't want to start to kind of pump that full. You're also only doing shallow watering as opposed to deep watering, you know? So, so be considerate of that. So, you should have a line of delineation between your trees and your turf. Plus, that's going to make you not fight uphill battles that you don't want to do. Focus on your turf and the areas where it will thrive.
00:27:45
Speaker 1: Where it wants to be.
00:27:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, so then you can conserve energy as well.
00:27:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of times, there's that battle with the irrigation guys, where they set the timing and everything for a perfect lawn, and that's not good for trees either. So you want a longer, deeper watering for trees. periodically, not every day. For turf, you might want to, I don't know how they said it, but pretty much every day or every other day for shallow watering.
00:28:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry to cut you off.
00:28:13
Speaker 1: No, no, no, go for it.
00:28:14
Speaker 4: I was more just going to say that, you know, like we were talking about with those little microsystems within your lawn, not every area needs to be watered the same.
00:28:23
Speaker 1: That's right.
00:28:23
Speaker 4: You know, you're going to have some areas that are well-drained. Now, if you are somebody who goes wild with your lawn and your landscape, you might go in, you might tear it out, And then get all your soil uniform and things like that. But you still got to think about exposures. Is it facing the sun? Is it on a slope? You could have the same soil as your neighbor, but if theirs is a little flatter, it's going to hold a little bit different. So you have to take all those considerations. So when you have an irrigation system, really consider, okay, what am I watering? Where am I watering? because you could be overwatering an area and then, or underwatering an area. And then you're calling on people and saying, Hey, I have an irrigation. I do everything. And not all of your people that are going to be able to come out there are going to be able to diagnose different little systems within your lawn. So you need to be the one kind of looking out for it. Hey, should I do 20 minutes here and 10 minutes there? And then talk to your irrigation person.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:29:17
Speaker 1: Learn how to set the timer.
00:29:19
Speaker 4: Exactly.
00:29:19
Speaker 1: This year with all that we had rain every other day, it seemed like, and You know, if you're watering, in addition to all the rain we have, now you're setting yourself up for fungal problems or whatever other kind of issues there might be out there.
00:29:33
Speaker 4: Well, and we even got our rain in like a really peculiar timing. So like we had dry spells in.
00:29:40
Speaker 2: May.
00:29:40
Speaker 4: Then all of a sudden, right around Memorial Day, we got a deluge. And so we actually didn't see a lot of fungal problems. Typically, we see a lot of red thread, things like that early in the season, typically late April into May. We didn't start to see those until early June. Then we hit another dry spell. So you had all these fungal problems. We hit a dry spell. A lot of damage kind of shows up at that time because the turf and that's mainly fine fescue that struggles with red thread. It starts to kind of peter out and then all of a sudden it was dry. So then it went away, the fungal problems. But then when that big storm came through, we had about two solid weeks where we had decent rain, decent moisture, you know, and a lot of damage going on. And then all of a sudden we got zapped with another high and dry. So people were watering that later stage too, because they like to get to set it and forget it stage. June 1st, we're turning our irrigation systems on and we forget about it. And you're, you know, the, and even with a rain gauge, you got to remember that rain gauge is in one particular area of your yard. Not every part of your yard is going to be uniform.
00:30:45
Speaker 1: I always recommend, you know, getting a cat food tin.
00:30:48
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker 1: That's about an inch deep and just, get bunches of them, set them around when you're watering. Or if you're just curious about how the rain is falling, you don't want them in your yard all the time. That looks really gauche, but that gives you a good indicator, an easy indicator of knowing if you got an inch of water down or not.
00:31:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker 4: Well, and you're going to be able to see like, and I mean, experiment a little, like get curious a little bit.
00:31:13
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:31:14
Speaker 4: You don't want, you know, little cat tens all over the place, but do it for one season because then you can kind of see like, oh, I get, Or.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: The rain shadow from the house extends as far. Exactly.
00:31:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:31:27
Speaker 4: So that's really important so that you can reduce a lot of like your lawn disease issues and even weed issues and stuff through cultural practices. It doesn't mean that you have to treat all the time. Like I understand that we own a lawn care company and we offer these, you know, things. But at the end of the day, less can be more if you focus on some of these little items.
00:31:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:31:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:31:48
Speaker 1: And don't be afraid of the manual mode on your irrigation either.
00:31:51
Speaker 2: Oh, exactly.
00:31:51
Speaker 1: You know, just put it to manual. And that gives you more of a connection with your yard anyway. You're paying more attention. Yeah. And, you know, you're just like, oh, it's been how long since we got rain? Oh, four days? I didn't realize it was that long, you know. And that's good for your plants and for your turf. Yeah.
00:32:09
Speaker 4: Just like with your annuals and like your pots and stuff like that.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: Exactly.
00:32:12
Speaker 4: They can be looking good, looking good, looking good. And then all of a sudden one day they are just toast. And it's the same with your lawn. If you let it go too long, if you're not kind of focusing on it, all of a sudden you're going to be like, well, no, but I have been watering.
00:32:25
Speaker 2: It's like, but have you?
00:32:28
Speaker 4: Did you really or did.
00:32:29
Speaker 3: You just dream about it? The programming feature on irrigation is super helpful, especially I love it when I'm going on vacation or– If I need it, I set the schedule. But for the most part, I do keep it on manual because if you're not paying attention, then you miss things and things stay too wet or they dry out or you are watering in the rain or things like that. And I see that a lot with the landscape beds of my clients. You know, you get this wonderful irrigation system. You just set it. You forget it. It's like, why are the plants not thriving? Well, okay, they're... in a bog, you know, it's like, you have to, you have to pay attention. You'll get better results if you pay attention.
00:33:14
Speaker 1: And, you know, I don't know that much about irrigation either, but when you buy an irrigation system, you get the different designated sections, zones, zones. And, um, you know, if you're a brand new construction, make it two or three different zones, one for the plants for the garden side and one for the lawn side. And you're in so much more control. The smart placement of your zones is really important.
00:33:41
Speaker 3: And the landscape beds should be on different zones than the turf for reasons we just explained. The turf needs the more frequent and the landscape beds and the trees need the deeper waters.
00:33:52
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Well, and even within a zone, it's kind of one of those things like, uh, you spend all this money on this amazing, you know, tool that you have at your disposal. Um, But it's not that infomercial where the rotisserie chicken goes in and you still got to fidget with it.
00:34:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker 4: No matter what.
00:34:13
Speaker 1: Well, we got to go to a break, but when we come back, we'll talk more about turf, especially about what we need to do right now. And so you don't want to miss that. Craig Grabo with us. We'll be back in just a minute.
00:34:37
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00:36:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berline. I'm here with Sarah Geiger-Beam.
00:36:04
Speaker 3: Good morning.
00:36:05
Speaker 1: And with Craig Grabo from Central Healthy Lawns at Central.
00:36:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, we just got to pick one.
00:36:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, just pick one. Highland Cemetery, but an all-around good horticulturist, arborist, and a turf specialist. Try to. Try to, yep. So we were talking during the break, and you mentioned that you really wanted to talk about seeding and seed products and things like that right now. And that sounds like a really good idea to me.
00:36:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:36:33
Speaker 4: So I think that there's kind of like different buckets of people as far as where they're at with their lawn. I think the first, you know, first and foremost, have a real conversation with yourself. What sort of lawn do I want? Do I need it to be perfect? Or am I accepting of, you know, a little bit of blemish and things like that here and there? Once you've kind of decided that, then decide how much time do I have?
00:36:55
Speaker 2: Right.
00:36:55
Speaker 4: You know, And depending on that amount of time is how deep you're going to be able to go in there. You know, you can hop on Instagram. You can find the guys that are, you know, reseeding the lawn every week.
00:37:05
Speaker 2: Right.
00:37:06
Speaker 4: Over in England, they're taking care of a 10 by 10 square. It looks amazing. It looks therapeutic, but they're, you know, just remember they're an influencer when it comes to turf care.
00:37:15
Speaker 1: We don't think highly of influencers. It's just one of those things.
00:37:20
Speaker 4: So are you really going to do that?
00:37:23
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:37:23
Speaker 4: Well, maybe let's dial it back. Do you have one weekend?
00:37:27
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:37:27
Speaker 4: If you have one weekend and you really want to get a jumpstart on things, make sure that you're prepared. Right. So the best coverage that you're going to get, and this is if you're willing to kill off your entire lawn.
00:37:40
Speaker 1: Like I did.
00:37:40
Speaker 2: Right.
00:37:41
Speaker 1: Okay. Desperate time.
00:37:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:43
Speaker 4: If we're going that far, then you need to prepare yourself to get what some people call a power seeder or a slice seeder. Okay. And basically this cuts a little slit into the lawn. It's a, it's a dethatching machine as well. Right. So, but if you're going to kill it all off, make sure that you're doing this. Do not just do an aerator and overseed. Make sure that we're power seeding and, you know, slice seeding. Now, if you're going to come in with a whole bunch of fresh new topsoil, That'd be a little bit different because you're going to get good seed to soil contact and you're not going to have as much compaction to deal with.
00:38:15
Speaker 1: And I do know that that seed to soil contact is extremely important.
00:38:19
Speaker 4: It's the most important thing.
00:38:20
Speaker 2: Right.
00:38:21
Speaker 4: So, and just remember your seed only lives in the top about eighth inch of a layer to about a half inch of a layer for the first year.
00:38:30
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:38:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:31
Speaker 4: So those roots aren't going to establish the crown of a grass plant is pretty tender and definitely until you get a couple of cuts on it, right? And it's going to live very shallow. So even when you think that you've watered enough, if you have complete bare soil, even if you have some straw and stuff like that, you're going to be watering a lot more than if you're just overseeding.
00:38:51
Speaker 1: And that's for how long then?
00:38:53
Speaker 4: Well, it just kind of depends like we had kind of talked about, but let's just say that you have full sun, flat area, you know, good soil that doesn't hold a lot of water. And we just killed the whole thing off. We're going to be putting down a whole bunch of seed. I'm going to say water every day for about 30 minutes until you get that initial jump. Now, here's where I'm going to caution you. If you buy seed that has annual rye in it, you're going to see the jump much earlier than your fescues going to come up. You know, fescues or bluegrass, typically it's going to take fescues, bluegrasses, you know, maybe three weeks to come up. Once they come up and they get about six inches, that's when you'll get your first cut on it. If it's bare soil, I'd be watering every day for about 30 minutes through like the first week. Then you could go to every other day because that's why we're doing it this time of year because we get better soil temperatures and we also get more moisture holding. You know, so, you know, it's watering is always an art.
00:39:46
Speaker 1: When is it too late to reseed?
00:39:48
Speaker 2: So.
00:39:49
Speaker 4: We live in a funky area where I would say I'd cut it off October 31st.
00:39:55
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:39:55
Speaker 1: That's in zone six.
00:39:57
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah.
00:39:58
Speaker 4: But you can get away with some dormant seating around here.
00:40:01
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:40:02
Speaker 4: But you're going to do it wicked late. Your dormant seating, I wouldn't recommend we do that until mid-January.
00:40:08
Speaker 1: That's because we do not want it to germinate until.
00:40:11
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah.
00:40:12
Speaker 4: And really it's more for you could end up with molds and things like that. Not so much that the frost is going to come and kill your lawn. There's a misunderstanding as far as like, yes, you can get that, but that's got to be a pretty hard frost on some really, really small grasses. But if you're doing it in January, you can get away with dormant seeding. Really, it's about soil temperature.
00:40:36
Speaker 1: Can you over-seed?
00:40:38
Speaker 4: You absolutely can, but it's pretty discerning.
00:40:42
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:40:42
Speaker 4: You know, so I mean, most people, like if you're overseeding, let's just say you have a good lawn and we're just doing some overseeding. You're only spreading at four pounds per thousand. If you have a decent lawn and you're coming in.
00:40:53
Speaker 1: With like a thousand square feet.
00:40:55
Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:40:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:40:55
Speaker 4: Per thousand square feet. Let's say you're coming in and you're doing 15 pounds per thousand. You're going to be having, you're going to need to dethatch that year.
00:41:04
Speaker 1: Oh, from the grasses that didn't make it.
00:41:06
Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:41:06
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's going to choke each other out.
00:41:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:41:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:41:09
Speaker 4: So that's just a little too much. So You know, typically we're saying if you have good grass coverage, four pounds per thousand square feet.
00:41:15
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:41:16
Speaker 4: So that means that if you have a 10,000 square foot lawn, you should use about a bag, a 50 pound bag of seed.
00:41:24
Speaker 1: Now, when you're overseeding, if you're starting like new with your lawn or if you're just overseeding a patchy lawn, what's the thing about starter fertilizer?
00:41:37
Speaker 4: So starter fertilizer, you know, you're going to have a little bit more I always get these mixed up. Phosphorus in there.
00:41:44
Speaker 1: Phosphorus, okay.
00:41:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, right?
00:41:45
Speaker 4: So that's going to help get that seed germinated a little bit quicker than its natural germination that can happen just from the nutrients in the seed will happen.
00:41:53
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:41:54
Speaker 1: Well, shoot, this will fly really, really fast. There's so much more to learn. We'll be bringing you back repeatedly if you're willing.
00:42:04
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:42:04
Speaker 1: I appreciate the opportunity. The season changes and the things that we need to know and do change as well.
00:42:09
Speaker 4: Good luck seeding.
00:42:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got, I think one of the things that happened too was the lawn, the ground is uneven. I think we had a heavy rain afterwards and it washed the seed into the divots in the low areas. And so the high areas are bad. So Craig Grabo from Healthy Lawn.
00:42:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, by Central Lawn Care.
00:42:33
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming. We'll be back with Joe Boggs in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: And welcome back. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berline. I'm here with Sarah Geiger-Beam, landscape designer with Wimberg Landscaping Company. WimbergLandscaping.com. You can find out more about her and her work. You're also owner of Verdigris Plant Farm.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: Lots of plants.
00:00:49
Speaker 1: Lots of plants. Lots and lots of plants. And a beekeeper and a former Peace Corps volunteer. And soon, coming up, we have Craig Grabo joining us. And he's a turf expert, and we're not.
00:01:03
Speaker 3: I am not, but I've been sort of in the orbit of the turf people.
00:01:08
Speaker 1: You have more than me.
00:01:09
Speaker 3: At Spring Grove and at the golf course. So I saw some of it, but I was never responsible for knowing what to do.
00:01:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, when it comes to turf, I have to admit I'm pretty ignorant, and it's willfully ignorant. I have chosen not to learn about turf until today. Well, lately I've been boning up a little bit. But I am looking forward to talking to Craig and learning what I can about making sure my turf is as good as I can make it.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.
00:01:37
Speaker 1: So what's your next plant?
00:01:39
Speaker 3: I have honey locust. They are starting to turn fall color here.
00:01:43
Speaker 4: And I.
00:01:44
Speaker 3: First of all, honey locust is a favorite plant all the time for me. Yeah. But I love how the fall color comes on on the honey locust because they have those fine leaves and it just sort of starts filtering in on the edges and glittering and getting this wonderful effect. And yeah, I just, I love that plant.
00:02:07
Speaker 1: It's one I like too because the leaves are so fine that You don't really have to rake at all?
00:02:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:02:13
Speaker 1: You just mow and they're gone?
00:02:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:02:15
Speaker 3: At my old place, I had a honey locust shading a patio. And in many ways, I think it's just the perfect patio tree for that reason. You just blow it off very easily. The only thing, the downside about having it by your patio is that those little leaves, they track in on your shoes. So you got to be careful about that. But yeah, the sort of, filtered light from all of those very small leaves, it's not quite as dark underneath of those trees as other big leaf shade trees.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: Right. So you can get away with growing more underneath.
00:02:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:02:52
Speaker 3: And they just have this elegant sort of cascading.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's different forms too. There's like the upright where it's almost like an elm.
00:03:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:02
Speaker 1: There's some that are broad and round and And even a few like shorter ones that level off for street tree use and things like that. It's a legume, so it can grow almost anywhere. It's really tough.
00:03:16
Speaker 3: Yeah. You can put it in a parking lot island. It's street tree. Just a great tree.
00:03:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:22
Speaker 1: By the way, if you would like to call and opine on our plants, 800-823-8255. Tell us we're wrong.
00:03:26
Speaker 4: Right.
00:03:26
Speaker 2: 800-823-8255.
00:03:26
Speaker 1: And any other question you might have for us, just call in and and, uh, ask us and we'll, we'll make up an answer.
00:03:40
Speaker 4: Yep.
00:03:41
Speaker 1: I want to mention Aster Oblongifolius or the, what is it called? Odor, uh, aromatic Aster.
00:03:47
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: Aromatic Aster. And, uh, you know, I think there's two out there. My favorite is Radon's favorite. We use it at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. Uh, it's tough as nails. Just put it in a site, a sunny site and, uh, let it go. Uh, the deer won't even bother it.
00:04:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: You know, it, it, It has sort of a sticky, resinous sort of feel to it. They won't eat it.
00:04:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:04:07
Speaker 1: But right now it's covered in flowers and gorgeous.
00:04:11
Speaker 3: I am growing October Glory.
00:04:13
Speaker 1: That's another one of the same species.
00:04:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:04:17
Speaker 3: I got a 72 tray of it and I stepped it up. And they're blooming from the 72 tray, basically, because I only stepped them up a few weeks ago. So it's like, that's impressive, you know?
00:04:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:04:33
Speaker 3: And they're healthy looking and just beautiful little purple flowers.
00:04:38
Speaker 1: What's your next plant?
00:04:39
Speaker 3: I have flowering dogwood.
00:04:41
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:04:41
Speaker 3: Again, we're on the beginning of the fall color here and the berries are turning red and the leaves are starting to get red. Around here, we do have a lot of leaf symptoms on our flowering dogwoods. So it's kind of hit or miss with the foliage on that, but it looks like it's going to be a good year for dogwoods.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:05:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if they liked the extra moisture this year. That's kind of what I'm thinking.
00:05:07
Speaker 1: Probably, yeah.
00:05:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't have great fall color on the dogwoods every year, but it looks like it's going to be a good one.
00:05:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, and people think of it for the flower, but the fall color is a twofer. Yeah. And the berries, while they last, are awfully pretty too.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: And the fall color plus the berries is really cool.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: It's really nice.
00:05:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:05:27
Speaker 1: My next plant is a black-eyed Susan vine.
00:05:31
Speaker 3: Black-eyed Susan vine?
00:05:33
Speaker 1: Vine, Thunbergia alata. So it's not a black-eyed Susan, but it has a flower that looks sort of like one.
00:05:40
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:05:41
Speaker 1: And it's a vine that is a pretty aggressive grower. It'll cover some space in the course of a season. I used it in a container this year and it wasn't a great idea because I thought it would be my spiller.
00:05:55
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:05:56
Speaker 1: Which it did, but it has been pretty sparse in its bloom. Until about now.
00:06:02
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: It's starting to come in better. And that's the look I was looking for all along. So I don't think it's great for container use. But if you have an old fence or something and you just want that annual vine color, it's a good one. It's a good one for that.
00:06:16
Speaker 2: Well, good. Yeah. Nice.
00:06:18
Speaker 1: Again, these pictures of these plants are on Let's Garden with Scott Berline, the Facebook page. What's your next plant?
00:06:24
Speaker 3: I have Henry Eiler's coneflower, Rudbeckia subtomintosa, I believe, Henry Eiler's. It's a variety of the sweet coneflower that... the, the Ray pedals, the yellow part of, of the flower are curled up like little flutes. And so instead of having a flat pedal, you have, um, like a little, like a thread almost coming off of yellow. And what it does in the garden is it's just like a visual exclamation point. So all the part that the pollinators come to that's in the middle of the flower. So it's just as functional for pollinators as the straight species. However, as a garden plant, you just get a little bit more oomph from that flower design-wise. It's a taller plant. It's a little more striking.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: It's what, five or six feet tall?
00:07:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, it can get five or six feet tall.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a beautiful plant. Again, a good one for pollinators. It's a very fun plant this time of year.
00:07:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:07:28
Speaker 1: Black pearl pepper. It's an oldie but a goodie.
00:07:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:07:31
Speaker 1: This is one of the first ornamental plants. peppers, I think, that came out. And it's got really nice dark black foliage and beautiful, literally pearl-like black peppers that right now start to turn red. And it's a spectacular combination.
00:07:50
Speaker 3: The ornamental peppers are cool.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: I like them all. I really do. But this one is my favorite, I think, at least right now.
00:07:57
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love fall containers with ornamental peppers in there. It's a little different than just the standard mum container that you see in the fall. But yeah, I have designed containers with that as a center and, you know, other things lower around it for just, you know, little focal point.
00:08:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to another one. Lab Lab, which is a great Latin name. Hyacinth Bean Vine.
00:08:25
Speaker 3: Delicos Lab Lab.
00:08:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. To get a full appreciation of that, you do need to go to the Garden with Scott Burling Facebook page. and have a look, I have pictures of it there for you. And it's just a great, strong-growing annual vine. And it's got kind of purplish foliage. And then it's a legume, so it has pea-like flowers. And they're pretty well-produced. They're pretty prolific with the flowers. And then also this beautiful bean pod. That is, I don't know what color you'd call that. Purple would be, it would fall under purple some way. Really a rich purple. And I did not know this, but it's an edible. Yeah, I was thinking something that visual would have to be poisonous, but no.
00:09:18
Speaker 3: And I am 90% sure on this, but it's been 15, 20 years. I think that we used that as a cover crop or as a green manure in paraguay that was one of the the ones that we could get there that we uh recommended to cover the ground to prevent erosion between crops and it's a legume so you know you can cut it back and it fixes nitrogen but i've grown it um i used to have it growing along the top of a wall that was painted white one of those walls that's like above a driveway okay And it spilled down over the white wall and it just looked fabulous.
00:09:58
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
00:09:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:00
Speaker 1: Well, that wraps it up for our favorite plants right now. I think we did a decent job of that. Hopefully the listeners did too. We'll take a break. Craig Grabo is in the house. He'll join us in about 15 minutes. So you don't want to miss that. We'll be talking about turf and other things. 800-823-8255 is our number. Stay tuned.
00:10:32
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00:12:53
Speaker 1: And welcome back. I am suddenly by myself. I went down to get Craig. He and Sarah are both, you know, taking, using the facility. So I'm sitting here alone and I'm thinking I kind of like the sound of my voice when I have a cold like this. Yeah, Craig, come on in. Sit down.
00:13:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: We have Craig Grabo joining us here in just a few minutes. We'll be talking about turf, and that'll be great. Sarah, I was just saying, I like the sound of my voice when I have a cold.
00:13:25
Speaker 3: It's like deeper and more mysterious.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Less coherent, but more deeper. Let me try this, okay? I'm Batman. Was that good?
00:13:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could do like voiceover work. You'd have to stay sick, though.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: I'm Batman. By Horizon Phones. Something like that.
00:13:46
Speaker 2: Anyway. Yeah.
00:13:47
Speaker 3: There's potential there.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: That was very silly, and I apologize to everybody. So let's talk about a few things that we should have done last week. I'm going to launch first with weed, as I always do.
00:13:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:59
Speaker 1: Always weed. Visit your local independent garden center. Get some nice plants that are in bloom. That way you'll have an extended season of bloom all year round. And I've got one more, and I think this is a unique one. Is get out and look at all your shrubs and trees and make note of what you might want to prune in the fall, you know, when we get into true pruning season. So right now you can tell branches that might be weak because the leaves aren't growing well. There might be only a few of them.
00:14:31
Speaker 3: Good point.
00:14:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:32
Speaker 1: You know, you can mark them with a crayon or with a piece of tape or whatever you need to. And that way, when you come back in the dead of winter, you know, during the dormant season to prune your trees or shrubs, you have some. Some roadmap on what to do.
00:14:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good idea.
00:14:48
Speaker 1: Is that a good idea?
00:14:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:50
Speaker 1: I thought so. I was proud of myself.
00:14:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:52
Speaker 1: What's your idea?
00:14:55
Speaker 3: I'm taking my tropicals in.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: Oh, already? Yeah. Okay.
00:14:59
Speaker 3: Not all of them, but some of them I've already brought in. And I'm going to take them in earlier this year because I think I waited too long last year.
00:15:09
Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
00:15:09
Speaker 3: I don't want to be scrambling, battling a frost.
00:15:13
Speaker 1: And, you know, they're heavy. You do it at the wrong time. They're heavy. It's cold.
00:15:18
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: You know, it just gets to be a miserable job.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: The last few years bringing in my tropicals before frost was just a comedy of errors. So I'm trying to spread it out because I have quite a few. And, you know, a lot of the plants, I can wait until the frost kind of knocks them down and do that. But I think I'm just going to bring them in before that happens.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: And for most people like you that has a heated, not a heated garage, but an unheated attached garage. Yeah. That stays, what, in the 40s or something?
00:15:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I put a space heater in there with a thermostat near freezing so it doesn't get below freezing.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, they can get cold, but you don't want them to freeze.
00:16:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker 1: And you can just kind of, they kind of hibernate like the fat bears.
00:16:07
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: In your garage.
00:16:08
Speaker 3: You don't want them to dry out too much.
00:16:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:16:11
Speaker 3: And you also don't want them to stay soggy.
00:16:13
Speaker 1: Right. Just splash them with water once or twice during the winter. You can put them in your basement too, I guess. It's just basements are colder or not, not as cold.
00:16:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a lot of lifting.
00:16:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, up and down stairs.
00:16:27
Speaker 3: I've got some big tropicals.
00:16:28
Speaker 1: You do. You're lucky you have an attached garage. I do not.
00:16:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: My garage gets as cold as the outdoors. And it's crazy cold. I mean, people in warmer climates don't realize it. We could leave food. We can go to the grocery store, come back, and just leave it in the car when it's in the wintertime.
00:16:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:16:44
Speaker 1: And it's going to be just fine.
00:16:47
Speaker 3: Some days.
00:16:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you have any other jobs that you want to do right now or should have done last week?
00:16:53
Speaker 3: You know, I not garden related. I am pressure washing my house right now, which is sort of garden related because it's like, I have to do this in order to plan what I want to do for the front area. And you know, what does this area want to be? Um, so I'm, I'm getting that done before it gets too crazy cold. Um, But yeah, just thinking about down the road what I want to do with that space. That's what I'm thinking about right now.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:17:25
Speaker 1: You know, and this is a good time of year to just assess what you want to do during the winter.
00:17:30
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: You know, hardscape wise, fencing. I know you're going to do some fence work. And those are all jobs. Any of the jobs that you can do when everything else can't be done.
00:17:41
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:17:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm thinking about there's some volunteer trees along the tree line that need to come down. I still have a log to cut up from one of our earlier storms. And I am thinking about how to make my garden work better for me. Feng shui? Well, not so much feng shui, but like material handling. So my dad was a forklift mechanic. So I think I just think in terms of material handling and I have a bad back. So I don't like to do a lot of lifting.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: No.
00:18:13
Speaker 3: So I'm going to redo the gates on my fence so I can get equipment in there and, you know, just work better.
00:18:20
Speaker 1: I think that wraps us up on what we should have done last week. And I know there's things, other things we should have done last week that I didn't remember. And that's why they didn't get done last week. But that's just the way it is with gardening. You do what you can. You do what you can remember. And then what you didn't remember, you're going to have to go back and fix.
00:18:42
Speaker 3: You just keep moving forward.
00:18:44
Speaker 1: The National Garden Bureau came out with some new All-American selections just this week. So they came out with some pretty cool stuff. And again, I think I put a link No, I did not. But I will put a link on the Let's Garden with Scott Burline Facebook page. But a couple of cool plants they put out there. Vinca soiree. How do you say that? Soiree?
00:19:08
Speaker 3: I don't know. Oh, soiree?
00:19:10
Speaker 1: Soiree.
00:19:10
Speaker 2: That's it.
00:19:11
Speaker 1: That series. One called Flamenco Electric Salmon Eye. So a new vinca, which has really frilly flowers. Different from anything else I've seen from the vinca group. They had two radishes. One is called Roxanne. which is a great tasting radish with no pithiness or bleeding even at a larger size. Stays firm and solid even when oversized and holds well in the garden. And then the other radish was one called, I'll find it here, Rivoli, Rivoli. They also listed Zinnia Profusion Double White Improved. This is a new all-American selection. Polemonium Prince. What is Polemonium? Jacob's Ladder. Jacob's Ladder. And a hydrangea, yet another hydrangea. Endless Summer Dream Cloud. Those are all brand new National Gardening Bureau or American All-American Selection's new plants. So ones that you might want to look for. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berline, Sarah Geiger being with me. Craig Grabo will join us in just a few minutes. So we'll be talking about turf and you don't want to miss it. Stay tuned.
00:20:53
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00:22:10
Speaker 1: Good morning. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berline. Welcome back. I'm here with Sarah Geiger-Beam from Winberg Landscaping. And we are now joined by Craig Grabo from, what is it? You're the foreman at Highland Cemetery. You do sales for Madison Tree Care. And you're also... owner of a landscaping company, Central, what is it called?
00:22:37
Speaker 4: Well, actually, so it's my family's company. It was a, you know, it's a 40 year old lawn and landscape company, but we actually transitioned to where we only do turf care.
00:22:46
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:22:46
Speaker 4: And now it's called Healthy Lawns by Central Lawn Care.
00:22:49
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:22:49
Speaker 1: So you're the guy we want to talk to about turf.
00:22:52
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:22:52
Speaker 1: Because I don't know much about turf and Sarah only knows a little bit more than me. And so we have all these questions.
00:23:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's do it. Oh, and could I just, add that our beautification committee of one at Highland cemetery is going to be at that fall plant sale out at Ammon's.
00:23:09
Speaker 1: Is that right? Oh, that's right.
00:23:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:23:11
Speaker 4: Cause we're bringing in all sorts of natives and stuff like that. And they got a lot of things available. So I figured just at least throw that out there.
00:23:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:23:19
Speaker 1: Um, so you, yeah, this is a time of year when the rest of the yard is kind of winding down, but it's also a busy time of year for, for doing things with your turf. Is that, is that correct?
00:23:31
Speaker 4: I would say one of the busiest, you know, and especially if you're going to be doing anything as a homeowner and depending on, uh, kind of how discerning you are about what you want your lawn to be. Uh, this is like a prime time, uh, especially because we deal with cool season grasses, or at least that's what's recommended in our area.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: Right.
00:23:48
Speaker 1: The fescues, the tall fescues.
00:23:50
Speaker 4: Exactly. Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker 1: Now, um, I'm kind of a guy that's relaxed about my turf.
00:23:55
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker 1: So I've gone several years with, if it's green, it's gold. That makes any sense. You know, and it's like the weeds, the violets, the clover doesn't really bother me. Creeping Charlie bothers me because it gets into the beds.
00:24:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:24:08
Speaker 1: But this year it just got overrun with crabgrass. It just collapsed. And so I went ahead and killed the entire lawn.
00:24:19
Speaker 4: Oh.
00:24:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. You went bold.
00:24:20
Speaker 1: I went bold. At first I put down like a 2,4-D product that was taking out the broadleafs. And then there was also the nimble well and everything else. So I was just like, you know what? I'm starting over. So I sprayed it with glyphosate.
00:24:34
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:24:35
Speaker 1: And I put down seed about two or three weeks ago. It's just starting to come up.
00:24:39
Speaker 4: How long did you wait after you killed it off?
00:24:41
Speaker 1: Oh, I meant to wait a week. I think it was two. Gotcha. Yeah. And from what I understand with glyphosate, at least you don't have to wait that long.
00:24:54
Speaker 4: I would recommend... Maybe preparing yourself to do a little additional overseeding.
00:24:59
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:00
Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
00:25:01
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker 1: And that's what happened is in some parts of the yard, the grass came up. It's looking perfect.
00:25:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:07
Speaker 1: Other places it's really patchy. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker 4: And I mean, you're going to get that kind of no matter what, because no matter how well you think that you get your seed spread pattern down, it's not going to be that great. Plus, you know, I thought a lot about this before coming on here. Um, not every, every yard is unique and every little microclimate within your lawn soil profile is unique.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker 4: So like, you know, a lot of people, they go out or, you know, we might get calls, Hey, my neighbor doesn't do anything to their yard and I do everything and I'm hiring you guys. Why does theirs look so good?
00:25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
00:25:42
Speaker 4: And it's like, well, it's because you didn't see one, the work that your neighbor's putting in. because they sneak out there, they might spray a little weed.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: They do it at night.
00:25:50
Speaker 4: Exactly. They want to be Batman, you know, when it comes to taking care of their lawn. But even just within your lawn, you've got a rock hidden here. You've got an old stump hidden there. You got a black walnut that was removed 10 years ago.
00:26:04
Speaker 1: Washed out their concrete.
00:26:06
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:26:07
Speaker 4: Exactly. So, so it's one of those things that, you kind of got to do some investigating. If something's not coming up, there's a reason why. It might be a little bit close to a tree and you're just not identifying that. It's meeting that threshold where the tree is going to win. And trees win. If your grass is winning under a tree, then your tree is going to suffer and you're going to pay dearly for it.
00:26:28
Speaker 1: And that's a conflict that's age old between trees and turf. And people are like, how can I get any turf under my tree? I'm like, don't bother. You just spread out the mulch ring. or plant with some kind of ground cover and let it be. In my case, I'm getting mosses under my trees, which I absolutely love.
00:26:45
Speaker 4: Which that's hugely beneficial. And I think that a lot of people, once they understand that if you have turf that thrives within that drip line of the tree or like a little closer to the trunk, then you're doing major damage to your tree.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: That's right. Because of the extra fertilizer the trees don't want.
00:27:03
Speaker 4: And everything is shallow. So, I mean, you got to think turf, especially in our clay soils is only going to really thrive in that top, maybe four inches, five inches worth of soil. And everything that you're trying to give it has to maintain in that. Well, your tree might send out some adventitious roots. It might, you start to get a lot more surface rooting with fine roots than what it really wants. So you don't want to start to kind of pump that full. You're also only doing shallow watering as opposed to deep watering, you know? So, so be considerate of that. So, you should have a line of delineation between your trees and your turf. Plus, that's going to make you not fight uphill battles that you don't want to do. Focus on your turf and the areas where it will thrive.
00:27:45
Speaker 1: Where it wants to be.
00:27:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, so then you can conserve energy as well.
00:27:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of times, there's that battle with the irrigation guys, where they set the timing and everything for a perfect lawn, and that's not good for trees either. So you want a longer, deeper watering for trees. periodically, not every day. For turf, you might want to, I don't know how they said it, but pretty much every day or every other day for shallow watering.
00:28:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry to cut you off.
00:28:13
Speaker 1: No, no, no, go for it.
00:28:14
Speaker 4: I was more just going to say that, you know, like we were talking about with those little microsystems within your lawn, not every area needs to be watered the same.
00:28:23
Speaker 1: That's right.
00:28:23
Speaker 4: You know, you're going to have some areas that are well-drained. Now, if you are somebody who goes wild with your lawn and your landscape, you might go in, you might tear it out, And then get all your soil uniform and things like that. But you still got to think about exposures. Is it facing the sun? Is it on a slope? You could have the same soil as your neighbor, but if theirs is a little flatter, it's going to hold a little bit different. So you have to take all those considerations. So when you have an irrigation system, really consider, okay, what am I watering? Where am I watering? because you could be overwatering an area and then, or underwatering an area. And then you're calling on people and saying, Hey, I have an irrigation. I do everything. And not all of your people that are going to be able to come out there are going to be able to diagnose different little systems within your lawn. So you need to be the one kind of looking out for it. Hey, should I do 20 minutes here and 10 minutes there? And then talk to your irrigation person.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:29:17
Speaker 1: Learn how to set the timer.
00:29:19
Speaker 4: Exactly.
00:29:19
Speaker 1: This year with all that we had rain every other day, it seemed like, and You know, if you're watering, in addition to all the rain we have, now you're setting yourself up for fungal problems or whatever other kind of issues there might be out there.
00:29:33
Speaker 4: Well, and we even got our rain in like a really peculiar timing. So like we had dry spells in.
00:29:40
Speaker 2: May.
00:29:40
Speaker 4: Then all of a sudden, right around Memorial Day, we got a deluge. And so we actually didn't see a lot of fungal problems. Typically, we see a lot of red thread, things like that early in the season, typically late April into May. We didn't start to see those until early June. Then we hit another dry spell. So you had all these fungal problems. We hit a dry spell. A lot of damage kind of shows up at that time because the turf and that's mainly fine fescue that struggles with red thread. It starts to kind of peter out and then all of a sudden it was dry. So then it went away, the fungal problems. But then when that big storm came through, we had about two solid weeks where we had decent rain, decent moisture, you know, and a lot of damage going on. And then all of a sudden we got zapped with another high and dry. So people were watering that later stage too, because they like to get to set it and forget it stage. June 1st, we're turning our irrigation systems on and we forget about it. And you're, you know, the, and even with a rain gauge, you got to remember that rain gauge is in one particular area of your yard. Not every part of your yard is going to be uniform.
00:30:45
Speaker 1: I always recommend, you know, getting a cat food tin.
00:30:48
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker 1: That's about an inch deep and just, get bunches of them, set them around when you're watering. Or if you're just curious about how the rain is falling, you don't want them in your yard all the time. That looks really gauche, but that gives you a good indicator, an easy indicator of knowing if you got an inch of water down or not.
00:31:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker 4: Well, and you're going to be able to see like, and I mean, experiment a little, like get curious a little bit.
00:31:13
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:31:14
Speaker 4: You don't want, you know, little cat tens all over the place, but do it for one season because then you can kind of see like, oh, I get, Or.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: The rain shadow from the house extends as far. Exactly.
00:31:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:31:27
Speaker 4: So that's really important so that you can reduce a lot of like your lawn disease issues and even weed issues and stuff through cultural practices. It doesn't mean that you have to treat all the time. Like I understand that we own a lawn care company and we offer these, you know, things. But at the end of the day, less can be more if you focus on some of these little items.
00:31:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:31:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:31:48
Speaker 1: And don't be afraid of the manual mode on your irrigation either.
00:31:51
Speaker 2: Oh, exactly.
00:31:51
Speaker 1: You know, just put it to manual. And that gives you more of a connection with your yard anyway. You're paying more attention. Yeah. And, you know, you're just like, oh, it's been how long since we got rain? Oh, four days? I didn't realize it was that long, you know. And that's good for your plants and for your turf. Yeah.
00:32:09
Speaker 4: Just like with your annuals and like your pots and stuff like that.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: Exactly.
00:32:12
Speaker 4: They can be looking good, looking good, looking good. And then all of a sudden one day they are just toast. And it's the same with your lawn. If you let it go too long, if you're not kind of focusing on it, all of a sudden you're going to be like, well, no, but I have been watering.
00:32:25
Speaker 2: It's like, but have you?
00:32:28
Speaker 4: Did you really or did.
00:32:29
Speaker 3: You just dream about it? The programming feature on irrigation is super helpful, especially I love it when I'm going on vacation or– If I need it, I set the schedule. But for the most part, I do keep it on manual because if you're not paying attention, then you miss things and things stay too wet or they dry out or you are watering in the rain or things like that. And I see that a lot with the landscape beds of my clients. You know, you get this wonderful irrigation system. You just set it. You forget it. It's like, why are the plants not thriving? Well, okay, they're... in a bog, you know, it's like, you have to, you have to pay attention. You'll get better results if you pay attention.
00:33:14
Speaker 1: And, you know, I don't know that much about irrigation either, but when you buy an irrigation system, you get the different designated sections, zones, zones. And, um, you know, if you're a brand new construction, make it two or three different zones, one for the plants for the garden side and one for the lawn side. And you're in so much more control. The smart placement of your zones is really important.
00:33:41
Speaker 3: And the landscape beds should be on different zones than the turf for reasons we just explained. The turf needs the more frequent and the landscape beds and the trees need the deeper waters.
00:33:52
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Well, and even within a zone, it's kind of one of those things like, uh, you spend all this money on this amazing, you know, tool that you have at your disposal. Um, But it's not that infomercial where the rotisserie chicken goes in and you still got to fidget with it.
00:34:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker 4: No matter what.
00:34:13
Speaker 1: Well, we got to go to a break, but when we come back, we'll talk more about turf, especially about what we need to do right now. And so you don't want to miss that. Craig Grabo with us. We'll be back in just a minute.
00:34:37
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00:36:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berline. I'm here with Sarah Geiger-Beam.
00:36:04
Speaker 3: Good morning.
00:36:05
Speaker 1: And with Craig Grabo from Central Healthy Lawns at Central.
00:36:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, we just got to pick one.
00:36:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, just pick one. Highland Cemetery, but an all-around good horticulturist, arborist, and a turf specialist. Try to. Try to, yep. So we were talking during the break, and you mentioned that you really wanted to talk about seeding and seed products and things like that right now. And that sounds like a really good idea to me.
00:36:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:36:33
Speaker 4: So I think that there's kind of like different buckets of people as far as where they're at with their lawn. I think the first, you know, first and foremost, have a real conversation with yourself. What sort of lawn do I want? Do I need it to be perfect? Or am I accepting of, you know, a little bit of blemish and things like that here and there? Once you've kind of decided that, then decide how much time do I have?
00:36:55
Speaker 2: Right.
00:36:55
Speaker 4: You know, And depending on that amount of time is how deep you're going to be able to go in there. You know, you can hop on Instagram. You can find the guys that are, you know, reseeding the lawn every week.
00:37:05
Speaker 2: Right.
00:37:06
Speaker 4: Over in England, they're taking care of a 10 by 10 square. It looks amazing. It looks therapeutic, but they're, you know, just remember they're an influencer when it comes to turf care.
00:37:15
Speaker 1: We don't think highly of influencers. It's just one of those things.
00:37:20
Speaker 4: So are you really going to do that?
00:37:23
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:37:23
Speaker 4: Well, maybe let's dial it back. Do you have one weekend?
00:37:27
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:37:27
Speaker 4: If you have one weekend and you really want to get a jumpstart on things, make sure that you're prepared. Right. So the best coverage that you're going to get, and this is if you're willing to kill off your entire lawn.
00:37:40
Speaker 1: Like I did.
00:37:40
Speaker 2: Right.
00:37:41
Speaker 1: Okay. Desperate time.
00:37:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:43
Speaker 4: If we're going that far, then you need to prepare yourself to get what some people call a power seeder or a slice seeder. Okay. And basically this cuts a little slit into the lawn. It's a, it's a dethatching machine as well. Right. So, but if you're going to kill it all off, make sure that you're doing this. Do not just do an aerator and overseed. Make sure that we're power seeding and, you know, slice seeding. Now, if you're going to come in with a whole bunch of fresh new topsoil, That'd be a little bit different because you're going to get good seed to soil contact and you're not going to have as much compaction to deal with.
00:38:15
Speaker 1: And I do know that that seed to soil contact is extremely important.
00:38:19
Speaker 4: It's the most important thing.
00:38:20
Speaker 2: Right.
00:38:21
Speaker 4: So, and just remember your seed only lives in the top about eighth inch of a layer to about a half inch of a layer for the first year.
00:38:30
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:38:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:31
Speaker 4: So those roots aren't going to establish the crown of a grass plant is pretty tender and definitely until you get a couple of cuts on it, right? And it's going to live very shallow. So even when you think that you've watered enough, if you have complete bare soil, even if you have some straw and stuff like that, you're going to be watering a lot more than if you're just overseeding.
00:38:51
Speaker 1: And that's for how long then?
00:38:53
Speaker 4: Well, it just kind of depends like we had kind of talked about, but let's just say that you have full sun, flat area, you know, good soil that doesn't hold a lot of water. And we just killed the whole thing off. We're going to be putting down a whole bunch of seed. I'm going to say water every day for about 30 minutes until you get that initial jump. Now, here's where I'm going to caution you. If you buy seed that has annual rye in it, you're going to see the jump much earlier than your fescues going to come up. You know, fescues or bluegrass, typically it's going to take fescues, bluegrasses, you know, maybe three weeks to come up. Once they come up and they get about six inches, that's when you'll get your first cut on it. If it's bare soil, I'd be watering every day for about 30 minutes through like the first week. Then you could go to every other day because that's why we're doing it this time of year because we get better soil temperatures and we also get more moisture holding. You know, so, you know, it's watering is always an art.
00:39:46
Speaker 1: When is it too late to reseed?
00:39:48
Speaker 2: So.
00:39:49
Speaker 4: We live in a funky area where I would say I'd cut it off October 31st.
00:39:55
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:39:55
Speaker 1: That's in zone six.
00:39:57
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah.
00:39:58
Speaker 4: But you can get away with some dormant seating around here.
00:40:01
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:40:02
Speaker 4: But you're going to do it wicked late. Your dormant seating, I wouldn't recommend we do that until mid-January.
00:40:08
Speaker 1: That's because we do not want it to germinate until.
00:40:11
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah.
00:40:12
Speaker 4: And really it's more for you could end up with molds and things like that. Not so much that the frost is going to come and kill your lawn. There's a misunderstanding as far as like, yes, you can get that, but that's got to be a pretty hard frost on some really, really small grasses. But if you're doing it in January, you can get away with dormant seeding. Really, it's about soil temperature.
00:40:36
Speaker 1: Can you over-seed?
00:40:38
Speaker 4: You absolutely can, but it's pretty discerning.
00:40:42
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:40:42
Speaker 4: You know, so I mean, most people, like if you're overseeding, let's just say you have a good lawn and we're just doing some overseeding. You're only spreading at four pounds per thousand. If you have a decent lawn and you're coming in.
00:40:53
Speaker 1: With like a thousand square feet.
00:40:55
Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:40:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:40:55
Speaker 4: Per thousand square feet. Let's say you're coming in and you're doing 15 pounds per thousand. You're going to be having, you're going to need to dethatch that year.
00:41:04
Speaker 1: Oh, from the grasses that didn't make it.
00:41:06
Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:41:06
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's going to choke each other out.
00:41:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:41:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:41:09
Speaker 4: So that's just a little too much. So You know, typically we're saying if you have good grass coverage, four pounds per thousand square feet.
00:41:15
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:41:16
Speaker 4: So that means that if you have a 10,000 square foot lawn, you should use about a bag, a 50 pound bag of seed.
00:41:24
Speaker 1: Now, when you're overseeding, if you're starting like new with your lawn or if you're just overseeding a patchy lawn, what's the thing about starter fertilizer?
00:41:37
Speaker 4: So starter fertilizer, you know, you're going to have a little bit more I always get these mixed up. Phosphorus in there.
00:41:44
Speaker 1: Phosphorus, okay.
00:41:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, right?
00:41:45
Speaker 4: So that's going to help get that seed germinated a little bit quicker than its natural germination that can happen just from the nutrients in the seed will happen.
00:41:53
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:41:54
Speaker 1: Well, shoot, this will fly really, really fast. There's so much more to learn. We'll be bringing you back repeatedly if you're willing.
00:42:04
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:42:04
Speaker 1: I appreciate the opportunity. The season changes and the things that we need to know and do change as well.
00:42:09
Speaker 4: Good luck seeding.
00:42:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got, I think one of the things that happened too was the lawn, the ground is uneven. I think we had a heavy rain afterwards and it washed the seed into the divots in the low areas. And so the high areas are bad. So Craig Grabo from Healthy Lawn.
00:42:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, by Central Lawn Care.
00:42:33
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming. We'll be back with Joe Boggs in just a few minutes.
