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By Bill Scheffler
~ Sept 7, 2004
Greetings Gardeners!
Today we fertilized the lawn with our award
winning (well I like it!) blend of fertilizers
including; high calcium lime, alfalfa, bone meal
molasses and yeast and potassium sulfate. These are
all feed grade - meaning that they feed these same
ingredients to animals.
Reseeding
This is a great time of year to do some reseeding
if you need some bare spots filled in. Make sure the
grass seed touches soil and cover it with some
potting soil or compost to keep it from drying out.
Grass seed hates to dry out. Use 100% perennial rye
for best results in this area. Home Depot and Ace
hardware have this, but make sure you read the
label. Bluegrass and fescue do not like our hot dry
summers, so I recommend not using any blends with
them - or keep it to a minimum. Perennial rye is
native to Illinois and very nicely suited for our
unusual weather patterns. The other grasses don't
hold up in our heat. Call me if you have any
questions!!
Dry Weather Coming
Watch out for the dry weather coming up. Larry
Acker, my weather guy, (3fforecasts.com) says there
is very little rain for our area between Sep 6 and
Oct 2. Some rain between Oct 2 and 8 and very little
rain between Oct 8 and Nov 27. The dates may be a
little off but he usually nails trends. We have to
make sure our trees have enough water so that they
have food going into winter. Definitely plan on
watering this fall. I like soaker hoses. Put one
under a tree and leave it on for twelve hours and
then shift it to another part of the same tree or
move it to another tree. Soaker hoses use two
gallons PER HOUR which is very low. The back and
forth sprinklers use five gallons of water PER
MINUTE. This can be a little fast and can cause some
runoff. With the soaker hose we get real deep
percolation. A soaker hose for 12 hours will only
use 25 gallons of water and be invisible on the
water bill.
This should last the tree for about two weeks,
then do it again. It's a very easy system to do as
the hose is always on and we only need to move it
twice a day. Other sprinklers work fine, just use
them for a shorter length of time .... maybe an hour
each week. The feeder roots of the trees are in the
top 12 inches of soil and that is where we need to
get most of the water. I check soil with a long
screw driver which I stick in the soil. Wet soil is
soft and dry soil is hard, so it's an easy thing to
figure out. Real doable! Again, call me and I can
make specific recommendations for your situation. We
can prioritize the important trees and sprinklers
that you may already have or adjust the settings on
your irrigation timers.
Also, Larry is forecasting frost for several
times this month; on Sep 12-14 we may get
temperatures in the mid to upper 30's with a hard
frost of 32 degrees around Sep 22. Colder as we go
west. This won't hurt trees or lawns too much, but
Larry says we will have lower than normal
temperatures through Thanksgiving. Again the lawns
and trees will be fine, we just have to watch out
for dryness (DEW DOESN'T COUNT!) ... so keep
checking the soil. If we do a good job now then the
trees will leaf out in spring with plenty of root
reserves and the new growth will be much stronger
and healthier and happen earlier than with the dry
trees. Everything we do now will show up in the
springtime.
That's it for now. As always, call me if you have
a question and we can discuss your situation in
detail. This is all part of the service and the part
I enjoy the most!
Gentleman (and ladies!) start your hoses!
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