Is Your Lawn Ready for Fall? - Seasonal Tips for a Healthy Landscape

Zane Raudenbush, manager of research operations at the Davey Institute, shares expert tips on managing your lawn during the fall season, including turf health, grass types, sodding and more. 

In this episode we cover: 

• Zane's role at Davey (0:32)
• How the Eastern U.S. drought is affecting turf health (1:17)
• Can dead turfgrass recover? (3:44)
• Turfgrass seeds (4:35)
• Watering (6:38)
• Sod (8:04)
• Fall weed control (12:11)
  • Nutsedge (12:17)
  • Now (early fall) is the best time for fall weed control (14:00)
• Fall fertilization (15:11)
• Can you overseed your lawn to make it look healthier? (17:31)
  • Buy high-quality seeds (18:00)
• How Zane keeps his lawn green (21:30) (27:19)
• When and how to cut your grass in fall (24:10)
• Stoloniferous and rhizomatous grass (26:05)
• Bring a professional in to look at your grass (29:00)
• Should you leave fall leaves on your grass? (29:28)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To learn more about keeping your landscape healthy this season, read our Lawncare & Maintenance blogs. 

Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company 

Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com. 

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!

Transcript

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Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer. I'm joined again this week by Zane Raudenbush. He has been promoted to manager of research operations. Zane, that is very exciting. Tell me what that job entails.

Zane Raudenbush: Hey, thanks for having me on again, Doug. Yes, it is exciting. I still do the turfgrass and herbicide specialist role that I was in before, providing support. The manager of research operations role, we have about 15 scientists on staff at the Davey Tree Company. We're all doing various research projects. In this role, my goal is to help facilitate those projects, either with equipment or people, or sometimes there's financial dollars if there's laboratory testing that we need to have sent off.

It's trying to help facilitate other people's research and make sure that we're conducting things that are aligned nicely with our business as well.

Doug: You're our lawn expert on this podcast and at Davey. You've taught me over the years that fall is a very important time for the lawn, but most of the East is coming out of a drought. Let's start there and talk about how is that going to affect what we're doing now?

Zane: Yes. Let's rewind another month or two before the drought. Like you said, on the East Coast, the months of June leading into beginning of July were hot and wet. We had a lot of high temperatures and a lot of moisture, and particularly a lot of nighttime, evening moisture. That led to a lot of problems. One, in my 10 years of living in Ohio, this has been the most brown patch activity, which is a disease that's really destructive on tall fescue and ryegrasses. I saw more of that disease than I have ever seen in any of my 10 years of living here.

That was just attributed to the high humidity, a lot of rainfall, high temperature, and then the summer annual weeds and nutsedge. There was a lot of crabgrass breakthrough and more yellow nutsedge than I've seen in any of my time here as well. You have a perfect storm. We had all this moisture, a lot of weeds, a lot of disease. Then from mid-July on, Mother Nature turned the spigot off. At least in northeast Ohio, we hardly got any rainfall. It is really dry. We've just recently got some rainfall, but I can already see that there are areas of turf that are not coming back.

Now, there was a lot of recovery, but there are areas that are indeed dead. The crown's just completely desiccated. Looking where we're at now, this'll be a really critical time. Yes, fall is the ideal time to get in there and do some of that renovation work or spot seeding. It'll be even more important this year to get on there and look at these areas that, after we've had some rainfall, are not recovering. It should be clear as to what is recovering and what is staying straw-like. There's no green leaf material in there.

Those will be areas where we want to get in there, scratch up the surface, rake out the dead debris, get some seed in there, and pull the hose and sprinkler out.

Doug: How long do I wait until I'm sure that it's dead?

Zane: If you aren't seeing any recovery now, there's a good chance it's not going to recover. Those plants are pretty good at recovering. One thing you can do as a homeowner, there'll be a lot of dead debris sitting on the surface. Get down at the surface, scrape out that debris, and look closely at what we call the crown. The crown is going to be where that stem meets the soil surface. If that still seems fleshy and white, it probably will recover. If you can easily just pull those plants out, and the crown seems straw-like and very brittle, those plants are probably dead, and you will not get any recovery.

You should know that, Doug, now. You can be able to go out there and look around. It just might take a little bit of time on your hands and knees.

Doug: In those areas, as you said, we're raking it out, we're putting seed down. Let's talk about the seed. Where are we getting the seed, and what kind of seed are we putting down?

Zane: For the areas that are in full sun, if you are full sun and non-irrigated, so you don't have any irrigation, I'm a big fan of turf-type tall fescue in those areas. It just performs so well. Even in your area. I wish your viewers could see pictures, Doug. I'm sure you know Luke Warner from our North Pittsburgh office there. He sent me a picture the other day of an area where they went in and they ground a stump in a customer's yard and they reseeded it with turf-type tall fescue. It looks like a green oasis in and amongst an area of dead turf.

Putting superior plant material in there really does make a difference. Full sun, non-irrigated, big fan of turf-type tall fescue. If you are in the position of sodding, if you have a smaller area and you're going to sod, that's where I like to-- I'll use Kentucky bluegrass sometimes. I'm not a huge fan of seeding straight Kentucky bluegrass. It's just hard to establish from seed. If you're a residential client or you own a business and you have a smaller footprint of turf, you can seed Kentucky bluegrass. Kentucky bluegrass has really good drought recovery.

You'll see that it's stressed early on, but it will recover from all those rhizomes. Then, in the shade, if you're seeding areas into the shade, that's where you'll want to pick something that has a lot of fine fescue. Where you buy those seeds is important. We as professionals we're not going to big box stores to purchase our seed. Not that you can't get good seed there, but there are some nuances to it. That's where I like to go to more of a high-end garden store, or if you have some sod growers also sell seed.

They're typically going to pick ones that are more adapted to your area.

Doug: I want to go back to Luke's project because here we didn't have rain. They grind out that stump. They seed it. I guess it's a matter of just putting water on it until it sprouts and then keeping water on it, right?

Zane: That's correct. If you're going to go out there and scratch and seed areas, the most important thing to your success is the watering after you do this process. If you don't water, you are really rolling the dice. You're not in control. You're just simply not in control of how successful that's going to be. If you are willing to water, you gain a lot more control. If you're someone who is able to scratch these areas up, pull out your sprinkler, if we're not getting any rainfall this time of year, you should be watering at least twice a day, preferably three times a day.

I'd be watering at 7:00 AM, noon, and about that 6:00, 7:00 PM timeframe.

Doug: You have to really dedicate yourself because during this period, it was hard enough to get enough water on the perennials or vegetable garden, whatever it might be. If you're going to make that decision and you're not getting rain from Mother Nature, you better be ready to do the right thing and get water on there, like you said, three times a day. That's good to know. I wanted to ask you also about sod. When you said that about sod, I'm afraid of sod because it's so expensive, and I'm afraid that I'm going to kill it.

What do I need to do if I'm putting sod down to make sure that it catches and it does its thing?

Zane: Yes. You're spot on when you start pricing it out per square foot. Sod is more expensive. It's just a more expensive product. The benefit of sod is it's instant. If you're somebody, particularly a business owner, who doesn't want to deal with looking at-- it takes two months to really establish grass from seed before you have a decent product. With sod, in two weeks, you're mowing it. Doesn't mean it's ready to be ready for big time. In two weeks, people with the untrained eye might not know that it was sodded.

Most important thing when you lay sod down, you make sure you have your area prepped out. Hopefully, you've got a bit of a loose soil up at the surface. You're going to lay that sod. Most important thing is to thoroughly get it watered after it's laid. I sometimes see, Doug, people will go out there and water it and call it good. The most important thing when you water sod is to check it. When you grab that sod and lift it up, you should see that the soil underneath the sod is wet, and the bottom soil of the sod is wet.

Often, I see, I'll go grab sod, pick it up, and it's bone dry. Yes, the sod feels heavy, but there is no moisture underneath. Really important that you get that sod nice and moist. Once it's nice and moist, then from there, you're keeping an eye on it. The most important thing is to check it. It's not really hard, but if you're just assuming that one, if you're using a sprinkler, that it's watering everything evenly, we all know that's not the case. There'll be places that get more or some that get less. You got to make sure that those places that are getting less, that you get out and just water them by hand with the hose. This is a process that takes about a week. You really have to babysit that sod for a week. After a week, it's pinned down roots, and it will start to be able to extract water from the soil. That first week, there are no roots. It's totally reliant on the water that you're putting down in terms of keeping it able to survive. After a week, you can reduce the water intensity. Then it's instant turf.

You think about the competition from weeds, the possibility of a washout. You get a big rainfall event that could wash away all your seed, all your soil. Sod does have its place. Its place generally is smaller square footages or slopes where you're worried about washouts, or there are places where the expectations are high. A wedding venue where they don't have time to grow things, and they need to look nice now. Those are places where we recommend sod. Fastest way to kill sod, not water it. [chuckles]

Doug: When I do put that down, just like normal garden soil is okay. My normal lawn soil is okay. I don't need to improve that soil. Then do I have to stay off it when I put it on?

Zane: Yes, I would try to stay off it because you'll see once you work that soil a little bit, you put the sod on, you start watering it, you walk on it, it'll be soft. Once those roots start to pin down, and watering, it's going to cause that soil to settle. It naturally will be settling. After you've worked the soil or if you've amended it with your garden soil, you put the sod on, you water it, it'll be like soup. You really got to be a little bit careful about how much you walk on it. You do have to walk on it to check it. From my experiences, it's the edges.

Edges are where they burn up first. Those are the places that you're typically checking. For the viewers, sod can die in a day. If you lay it, don't water it, it can really cause irreversible damage in a day. Really important after it gets laid that you get water on it as quickly as possible.

Doug: Let's talk fall weed control. You mentioned one that I don't know what to do with, and we've talked about it before, nutsedge.

Zane: Nutsedge is a challenge. Unfortunately, the ship has sailed a little bit on the nutsedge control, Doug. That is a plant that, when you see it, you need to try to get control of it early. Nutsedge spreads through rhizomes. Those are underground structures. On those rhizomes, it will produce tubers. As the plants get more mature, they're producing all these rhizomes. Those rhizomes are producing tubers, which is essentially seeded next year's crop.

When you see big, mature nutsedge, you can rest assured that underneath of it is a bunch of tubers that were put in the ground waiting for ideal conditions, which nutsedge likes a lot of moisture. It's a plant that comes in with soil, thrives in overwatered environments, or wet areas. If you ever look, you'll see it a lot in ditches, in swales, where you can see clearly it's nutsedge. It just loves that wet environment. In terms of controlling it, it can be hand-weeded. If you're on it early, you can hand-weed it if you have just a few plants.

There are some good selective herbicides that you can use. The most important thing, though, is to get control early. Get control when those plants are small. If you let them get very mature, you can anticipate that that'll be a problem again in the years to come.

Doug: For the fall lawn, what else are we looking at as far as weed control? Are we working in the fall for weed control, or are we waiting until spring?

Zane: No. This is the best time to get control of those, particularly the difficult-to-control perennial broadleaf weeds. Things like creeping charlie and wild violets, broadleaf plantain, clover. These weeds, as you said, we were talking about the fish earlier, starting to prepare for winter. Same with the weeds. They're going to start taking all the sugars they produce and sending them underground to develop a healthy root system and a healthy crown. When you apply products like herbicides to control those weeds, we get better movement, better control.

Doug: For listeners that don't know, Zane and I have become friends through this podcast. We talk about our hobbies, which are fishing, beautiful rivers, and a little bit of guitar playing, too. [chuckles] That's what Zane's referencing and teaching me so much about my lawn. This has just been eye-opening for me over these years that we've been working together, especially for all the things that need to be done in the fall. When you're thinking fall, are we also thinking fertilization?

Zane: Yes. Fall fertilization. If there was one time a year that you could fertilize your lawn, it would be in the fall. It's the most important time.

Doug: I think that's not really known. I think people want to go out there in the spring. When things get started, they're all excited and everything, but they don't really need the fertilizer or a lot of fertilizer that early.

Zane: No. A majority of the fertilizer is going to be applied in the back half of the season. Yes, fertilizing in the spring can help the lawn thicken up. To your point, you just don't need as much. Yes, a little fertilizer does help, but the majority of the fertilizer should be being applied now. The difference is, we all know in the spring, grass does not need any help producing a lot of shoots. Even unfertilized turf could be mowed once a week. Now we're getting into the fall, where the plants are going to be sending more energy underground.

You'll see that shoot growth decreases, and there's a lot more root growth happening. We want to supply that fertilizer now, particularly a good nitrogen fertilizer here in the fall. It's going to help those plants try to thicken up a little bit, repair some damage. That's one thing about turf that people don't always appreciate, that the damage doesn't disappear. Those plants have to replace the damaged leaves. A damaged leaf just doesn't heal itself. You have to replace those damaged leaves with new leaves. That's growth.

We want some fertilizer to stimulate some growth headed into winter, but then also, that's where they're putting all this energy down into the roots. Yes, this is where you'd be wanting to pick a fertilizer that's got a higher nitrogen number. On a bag of fertilizer, every bag by law will have those three numbers on them, which tell you the percentages of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. You want to pick a fertilizer right now that's got a number above 20. Probably something like a 2005 or a 3005, something like that.

You might go to a garden store and see a triple 12, triple 15. Those are pretty generic fertilizers. We want to make sure you're getting a fertilizer that's got a good high nitrogen number here in the fall.

Doug: If I have a decent-looking lawn coming out of that drought, but I can see that it's a little tired, can I overseed it, put some fresh seed on there just as a way to make it look better and to get it ready for the spring?

Zane: Yes. Overseeding is a great way to try and introduce some superior plants into the lawn. This is where you've got to make sure you're buying quality seed. If you have a nice lawn and you go out and buy cheap seed-- you have the best of intentions because the lawn is tired, and you go out and buy cheap seed that maybe has weed seeds in it or undesirable turf grasses, and now you seed your lawn, you might be introducing poor plant material and actually taking a step back.

If you're going to take the time to do that process, make sure that you are buying high-quality seed that has little to none other crop or weed seed and contains varieties that are well adapted to your area. You can just picture, Doug, that if you're a bargain shopper, make no mistake about it in the seed business, you pay for what you get. There's just no way around it. You find a bargain, there's probably a reason for it. Probably contains high percentages or higher percentages of other crops, which other crops could be things like Poa trivialis, bentgrass, or it could contain weed seeds.

We don't want any of that. If you're going to take the time to do it, pay a little bit more for a high-quality seed, you'll be a lot happier with the process.

Doug: We've talked about where to buy the seeds, but is all that information, what's in there, is that always listed on the seed package, like the package seeds?

Zane: Yes, by law, there has to be a seed tag on that bag. It's going to tell you the different varieties and species that are in there. It'll have a column that tells you, "Kentucky bluegrass." Most lawn and garden stores, what you're going to find is the bag will be about 30%, 40% perennial ryegrass, 20%, 30% fine fescue, 10%, 20% Kentucky bluegrass. They create a mixture. It'll tell you the percentages by weight of those different varieties. Then it will say, "Percent other crop, percent weed seed."

We want those to be zeros. That's not always possible. You have to envision an Oregon where this seed is being produced. These look like wheat fields, but they're fields of grass. Just like any wheat field, you can get other weeds that get in there. They harvest them with combines. Those weed seeds get mixed in with the grass seed. They can't separate them. That seed still goes to market, Doug, but it doesn't fetch the same price, and so on and so forth. That's how you might say, "Why would they even sell them?" Why? Because that's their livelihood. They have to sell it to somebody.

Doug: That's interesting. As we know, in anything in the garden, seeds are everything. [laughs] As you said, you're going to invest in seeds by the best. That's whether it's a tomato, whether it's your grass, or whatever you're growing.

Zane: Yes. These turfgrass breeders have created truly superior plant material. You look at the data, it's daylight and dark. I've had the opportunity to do a lot of that NTEP testing. NTEP is the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program. It's where they collect everybody's, all these different producers' varieties. We plant them in a replicated trial. You get to go through and just see the different plant material. There are some that are just truly superior. It's incredible.

Doug: All right, Mr. Lawn Guy, how did your lawn come through this drought? What did you do to keep it green?

Zane: Interesting enough, I redid my yard to turf-type tall fescue. It has been a great lawn for many years. I've never had to treat it for any disease. This was the first year where it was July 4th. I'm not joking, Doug. I walked out in the morning, could literally smell the rotting. It just had that humid, rotten smell. I'm looking at the turf, and it's just hammered with brown patch. I did apply a fungicide to try to stop that. I was looking at the weather. I thought, "We're going to continue in this weather pattern for another week."

I treated it for brown patch, which stopped the disease. Then I actually fertilized. You'll see when you look in the literature, specifically for the disease brown patch, they talk about that's a disease that gets more severe with fertilization. In my case, I applied a fungicide to stop the disease. Then, as we've talked about before, well, how do you get recovery? You need growth. You have to grow your way out of those problems. I applied some fertilizer and got those plants to recover. Then, when we got into the drought, I watered, but I could not out-compete the trees, Doug.

I have a linden, a red maple, and two large apple trees in the back. That linden and red maple, I couldn't put down enough water. Really, you can see within the drip line of those two trees, the turf looked pretty thin. Even me, with all my expertise, Mother Nature still won. [chuckles] It looks pretty good now after we've got some rainfall.

Doug: Especially the linden and the maple, and maple in particular, just shallow-rooted. It's going to take everything. That's just, it's a good lesson for us. As you said, with your expertise, Mother Nature is always in charge. That's just the way it is.

Zane: Yes, and there's ebbs and flows to turf. I know that next spring, that turf will be back and be lush. Right now, the trees, it just got so dry, and they're much better extracting that moisture from the deeper parts of the profile than the turf is.

Doug: I always say that's the best place for a bench.

[laughter]

Zane: Or a mulch bed.

Doug: Yes, a mulch bed too. When do we finish cutting the grass? When do we do our last cutting? Do we cut differently at the end of the season? We went through a period, again, here in the East, with that drought, where we weren't really doing much lawn cutting. Now we've got rain again, cooler temperatures, the grass is growing. What do you suggest?

Zane: I like to mow right up until you see that you're not getting any more growth. For me, generally, that's going to be sometime in early November. We've had Novembers where it stays warmer through Thanksgiving, and that last cut might be a little bit later. There's different schools of thought here. I see where people really like to scalp their yard that last mowing of the year. There is data that shows that doing that promotes early spring greenup, that you'll see a quicker response to spring greenup.

Also, what it does is it really helps some of these weeds that are stoloniferous. Things like Poa trivialis, creeping bentgrass, they're going to thrive in that environment if you scalp the lawn every fall. I'm a big fan of continuing to mow, but I don't like to see the lawn get scalped down close to the dirt. That creates its own set of problems. I've got no problem with taking the mower down one notch to get a nice, tight cut, but I'm not a fan of taking it to the extreme where people really cut it very short. That generally leads to scalping in places, which is just going to lead to weeds.

I do like to mow up until to the end, where really the grass is not growing. There's different reasons for that too. I usually hope that the leaves that are in my yard end up flying over into my neighbor's yard that they roll off of my cut turf. That's what I tell my wife anyway.

Doug: [laughs] You're such a great neighbor, Zane. [laughter] What was that word you said about the weeds? There was a scientific word.

Zane: Stoloniferous grass. We talked about two grasses now. We talked about rhizominous. Rhizomes are underground structures that spread laterally. They allow plants to spread laterally, and they're doing that under the soil surface. Those are rhizomes. Stolons are these similar structures, but they spread above the surface. Bent grasses are grasses that produce these stolons and allows them to creep. Poa trivialis is another grass that produces stolons. Stoloniferous grasses generally produce a very distinctive patch-like growth habit.

If you've ever looked across the lawn and you can see these distinctive patches, oftentimes those are going to be stoloniferous grasses. They just keep creeping. They thrive in these places where people are mowing really low because they're able to just keep creeping. The grasses that you want don't love being pinched, really, and cut low. Those creeping grasses just keep filling in all the voids, and they get bigger and bigger each year. They have their own sets of problems.

Doug: Are you under pressure because your job deals with lawns to have a decent-looking lawn at your house? Do people ask you questions about their lawns and what to do?

Zane: Oh, yes. I'll never forget when we moved into that neighborhood, my lawn was not very nice. I remember a neighbor came over, and I was doing something in the lawn. He said to me, he goes, "Don't you have a turfgrass degree?" [laughter] I thought, "Oh, boy, I guess I'm going to have to step it up." Yes, I think I've said this before on here. I'm an 80-20 guy. I do the 20% effort to get the 80% gain. That last 20% takes a lot more work and a lot more resources. For me, I'm just not interested in that.

My yard looks good, but I could quickly go around and point out all the things that are wrong with it. Yes, I like a nice landscape. I like that manicured look. I get a lot of fulfillment from having my place look good.

Doug: Will they ask you questions, or are they too proud? [laughs]

Zane: Oh, yes. No, people are not shy about asking questions. For me, Doug, I do love what I do, and I love helping people. I'm always happy to give them advice. There's been a few times where my advice has turned into me now helping. I try to be a little bit more careful about how deep into it I get. People are passionate about their lawns. I like helping them and showing them that they can do it themselves, or letting them know that, "This is a lot of work. You might want to consider bringing a professional in to take care of this, because what you're talking about is a ton of work to do it right.

If you're not going to do that, don't bother doing it." I've had those conversations, too, of setting expectations that to do this the right way takes equipment and takes people. Don't do it if you're not going to invest that kind of resources.

Doug: One last question, and it's about fall leaves. How many can I leave on there? I'm shredding them with the lawnmower, but as I repeat over and over again on this podcast, I live in an oak forest. It's a forest, and so there are a lot of leaves. I want to leave as many as I can on the landscape, in the perennial beds, but I don't want to mess my turf up. How do I know how much can be left on there?

Zane: I'm not a huge fan of letting them lie on the surface matted down. I like your approach of getting them mulched up. I hardly ever put any leaves at the street. I generally mulch all the leaves up. In fact, sometimes, Doug, I'll windrow them. I'll basically blow them into a pile, and I'll mow over them five or six times to mulch them up. Then I blow that kind of mulch clippings around a little bit. The challenge becomes, sounds like you, I also have a massive pin oak in my front yard, so we're picking up leaves in February. The challenge becomes, after we're not mowing anymore, what do you do then?

That's where, definitely, if you live in a city that has a leaf pickup schedule, to make sure that you take advantage of getting leaves either taken or blown to the street right before that leaf pickup. If you put the mower away for the year, so on and so forth. I've no problem mulching the leaves. Generally, if you've got a pretty thick lawn, leaves don't really nestle down in there. It's when your lawns get thin that they find the little pockets and nooks and crannies. You leave the leaves sit on there all year, it can set the turf back.

What I wouldn't want to do is let an inch layer of leaves sit there all winter. That's going to mat the turf down, and you're just going to have a lot of problems. Whenever possible, take advantage of a nice dry day. If you go out there and mow and everything's wet, you're not going to get those leaves to suck up and mulch. If you can wait for a dry day to get out there and mow, it'll mulch them up. Yes, you're just adding that organic matter back to the soil.

Doug: Like a lot of things in our landscape, timing with the weather is everything. Zane, thanks for the deep dive again and helping us out with our lawns. I have learned so much, and I feel so much better about my lawn now. Again, just switching my thinking around to the fall care has made all the difference in the world. Great to talk to you and see you again. I'm sure we will talk again in the spring about what's going on in our lawns then.

Zane: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on the show, Doug. It's great to see you.

Doug: I'll say it again. I've learned so much from Zane, and I hope you have too. Now, tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. I want to know what we should be covering on this podcast. There's a couple different ways to tell us. Send us an e-mail to podcasts@davey.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at D-A-V-E-Y.com. You can also click the link at the end of our show notes to text us a fan mail message. Your ideas might be on a future podcast.

We would love to hear from you. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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