Spring is definitely here. The pollen count has been unusually high this year, as evidenced by my itchy eyes and sneezing. Not to mention all the beautiful flowers that have been blooming and all the places that have been having plant sales. Lawns are greening up and people are noticing plants that aren’t looking the way they normally do. So, what do we do?

In my opinion there is no better place to start than with the lawn. I may be a little biased on this, but I love to see a beautiful lawn in front of a house with some pretty flowers blooming to announce that spring has arrived.

I’ve already had a couple of calls this year about when to start fertilizing and watering the lawn. Yes, the lawn is starting to green up and yes, we are going through a little bit of a dry spell, but NO, you don’t want to start watering and irrigating the lawn this early. Wait until May, here’s why:

There are some diseases, Large Patch Disease, being the most notorious of them, that attack the lawn in the spring and in the fall as it is coming out or going into dormancy. When we fertilize the lawn this early, it forces the lawn to put on tender green growth that is more susceptible to these diseases. Hold off on fertilizing until May when the grass is growing more vigorously.

If irrigation is a must, then only run the irrigation system twice a week. Apply about ½ an inch of water with each irrigation cycle. This will keep the soil moist, but not too wet. A wet soil encourages a shallow root system that won’t be able to find nutrients that are deeper in the soil. A deeper root system will also help the grass be better prepared in case of drought.