Talking Trees with Davey Tree
Your trees and landscapes require year-round care, and The Davey Tree Expert Company is here to help provide you with expert advice. Join our professional Davey arborists and gardening-expert host Doug Oster to learn all about caring for your properties. We'll talk about introduced pests, seasonal tree care, tree diseases, arborists' favorite trees, how to help your trees thrive and everything in between. Tune in every Thursday because here at the Talking Trees Podcast, we know trees are the answer.
Talking Trees with Davey Tree
Setting Your Lawn Up for Success PART TWO
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In part one of this two-part episode, Zane Raudenbush, manager of research operations at the Davey Institute, shares helpful tips for caring for your lawn this spring and summer, including watering, identifying grass species, seeding and more.
To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.
To learn more about taking care of your lawn this season, read our blogs Seasonal Guide to Lawn Care, How to Keep Grass Green in Hot Summer Weather, Best Time to Overseed Lawn (Midwest, Northeast, South, West), How to Get Rid of a Lawn Full of Weeds,Lawn Aeration and Overseeding Aftercare and First-Time, New Homeowner’s Guide To Lawn Care.
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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!
Welcome to the Davy 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 by Zane Roddenbusch. He is the manager of research operations at the Davy Tree Expert Company. This is part two of our spring lawn spectacular. I just came up with that, Zane. That sounds like it.
Modern seeds
SPEAKER_00And when we left off last week, we were talking about something that I knew nothing about, was that our modern seed is so much better than what we were using 30, 40 years ago. And when and we were also talking about somebody who has one of those older lawns that again wants that perfection, uh it's a it's a it's a redo, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's a redo or it's a pretty serious kind of renovation. But I usually start with a a redo, which would either be you know, killing the existing turf, tilling under the existing turf. Um, that's a little more risky, you know. If you're gonna hit the total reset button, you're inheriting some risk. So sometimes kind of a happy medium is to scalp the lawn, to not kill the existing lawn, scalp it, and then overseed it. But that doesn't eliminate the stuff that ultimately led to wanting to restart the lawn. So I would like to jump in though, Doug, because I'm I maybe steered you wrong a little bit. The plants of today are light years better, but make no mistake, there is still plant material on the market that is not superior. I don't know if that makes sense. That you have um, you know, if you have 50 different cultivars and you have some, you know, five superior ones, you also will have five inferior ones out of there. And all of those 50 are gonna come to market. Somebody is gonna bag them and sell them, and I'm sure you can guess what the difference is gonna be between the five superior ones and the five inferior ones, it's gonna be price. So if you're a price shopper looking for a bargain on grass seed, you're gonna get what you pay for. It really is a it is that kind of market where the stuff that is either of poor quality, and quality could just be the plant material that's in there, or quality could be that it has weed seeds in it. So you'll see that even though sometimes what is in that bag may be the best stuff, uh, the field that it was grown in in Oregon might have had a lot of weeds in it. Those weeds make it into the bag, now it gets docked, and they have to sell it for a reduced price. So by up by law, every bag of seed that's sold has to have a seed tag. On that seed tag, it'll list the percent other crop and the percent weed seed. You want to see those be as close to zeros as possible. So, like a sod farmer, sod quality seed, you'll see other crop and percent weed seed will both be zeros on the seed tag. Next time you're in one of the big box stores, go cruise through the seed aisle and take a look at the seed tags. Um you might see stuff that's you know one to two percent other crop, weed seed, that's a big concern.
SPEAKER_00You get what you pay for, even when it's grass seed.
SPEAKER_01It's right. Isn't that funny? Yes.
SPEAKER_00So you know what
Wanting perfection in your lawn
SPEAKER_00percentage of people do want perfection? Are you seeing more people that are that are like me that just like, hey, as long as it's green and happy and growing, it's that that's that makes me happy. But I think what's kind of interesting about uh the lawn is that it's a kind of a cultural thing where everybody has a different vision of what it should be.
SPEAKER_01Yes. It's a key thing that you just mentioned there, is it is individualistic, and that's why it's so important if you're in the lawn care space that you ask the customer what is your expectation? What is it that you are after? Because if they're after perfection, that's gonna take a different amount of input and resources than if if it's like you that you know, wants up, you want cover, you want to stabilize the soil, you want to be able to use the space, but you don't need it to look perfect, you know, those are those are different animals. Um, what is the percent? It's a good question, Doug. Uh I feel like the people that are chasing perfection ultimately end up questions coming to me because that's more of a difficult scenario. Does that make sense? That yeah, get to perfection is is uh more high level, takes more resources, and so I hear about those uh folks, and you know, are people in the field are bringing me questions? I would say it'd be interesting to ask somebody else who's in a sales role. I would say less than 10% of people really have the expectation of perfection. Um but uh that's out there and that that's a I think there's a space for it, and obviously as a service provider, we want to deliver what the customers are after, but important for customers to understand that perfection takes a lot more resources and what you're starting with, you know, if you're expecting a Ferrari and you're starting with a Ford Taurus, you we are gonna have a long uphill battle. So nothing wrong with Ford Tauruses, by the way. I'm just saying they're not a Ferrari.
SPEAKER_00I owned one somewhere down the line, I think. Yeah, yeah. You're right, you're right, it wasn't a Ferrari at all. No, but it got the job done. It sure did. It got the kids to school, so it worked out. Uh so let's
Weed control and lawn density
SPEAKER_00go into weed control. Uh, that seems to be uh quite quite an issue with homeowners. What in general, when we're here in the spring, what are you recommending for just general weed control, or is it more of a case-by-case basis?
SPEAKER_01Um let's just start off right now. The most important thing you can do for weed control in your lawn is to promote good density. So you hear it time and time again, but it's true, I've done lots of research on it. Weeds are opportunistic, they take advantage of voids in the turf grass canopy. So if the lawn is thin or you're having lots of mechanical damage, whether it's you know dog urine or you you really rot the yard up with equipment or usage, that's going to lead to more weeds. So, really important that you try to improve the density of the turf grass stand. So that's the kind of right plant, right place, the mowing, a little bit of fertilizing. So let's just start there. If if you're fighting weeds and you've never fertilized your yard and you scalp it every time you mow it, let's let's start there before we get too far. But if you're doing those things right, um, kind of two broad categories of weeds, Doug, would be the broadleaf weeds, the dicots, your again, your dandelions, clovers, uh, wild violets. We have a lot of great selective herbicides that you can use for those. These are these are products that you're able to spray on the weeds, they will only kill the weeds and won't injure the turf. Those are really nice products to use. Um, you can go around and spot treat and just spray the weeds. And once they're out of there, improve the turf grass density, and a lot of times you can keep them out. There are some weeds though, it takes multiple applications, like ground ivy, wild violet, uh, buckhorn plantain. These are difficult to control weeds, but it can take two applications. So, those and those, in my opinion, that's the easiest bucket to control, those broadleaf weeds. Then we have the grassy weeds, and you can have annual grassy weeds like your barnyard grass, crabgrass, foxtails. Those can be controlled with pre-emergence, like you've probably heard of crabgrass preventer, which you'd be putting out right now, or hopefully maybe put it down a little bit earlier, but you probably still have a little bit of time. I wouldn't wait a second longer, though. Um, you could put your crabgrass preventer out, and that will control those weed seeds when they germinate. So as they germinate, they'll be controlled. And then you have your perennial grassy weeds. These were the more difficult ones we're talking about. The bent grasses and the Bermuda grass and the nimble will, the Dallas grass, quackgrass. These are these are difficult, dug, and probably high level. That's the kind of thing I'd reach out to an extension agent or a professional or do quite a bit of research before you tackle them. So, most importantly, though, get the turf grass density up. And I think one thing about our industry that sometimes gets a bad rap is people think, oh, they just use they're continuously using these pesticides and products. The benefit or the opportunity is that one or two properly timed applications can remove those weeds from the lawn, you improve the density, and you might not ever have to use them again. So the goal is to improve the density, and then you won't you won't need to be doing weed control. Same with the crabgrass pre-emergent. If uh you know, if the turf is dense and you don't have crabgrass problems, you're probably not gonna have a crabgrass problem. Um but if the lawn is thin and year over year you have a lot of crabgrass, yeah, that would be the kind of lawn that would make sense to probably use a pre-emergent on for a couple years.
SPEAKER_00Is one of the
Seeding and identifying grass
SPEAKER_00things to improve density adding seed, adding fresh seed in the spring?
SPEAKER_01Fall would be better.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, but yeah, if you're if you're listening to this right now and you're thinking I'm I'm motivated to try to really improve my lawn and it's thin, yeah. Get on it now, or or you just deal with it and really get your ducks in a row for a good you know, late August, early September kind of redo overseeding. So to answer your question, the this is where being able to ID the species really does matter. Because if your yard is thin and it's mostly Kentucky bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass produces those underground rhizomes, these lateral, these lateral stems that help it to spread, help it to fill in voids. But Kentucky bluegrass has a higher fertilizer requirement than other species. So if you have a lawn of Kentucky bluegrass and never fertilize it, I guarantee it's it's not gonna be of high quality over time. It's gonna thin. It's just a grass that needs a little bit more inputs, but once you do, it can fill in a lot of those voids, Doug. So you maybe don't necessarily have to go back in and reseed if you've got little pockets. You know, I say little pockets, I'm talking the size of a baseball. Um, you know, if you've got if you've got two two foot by two foot, three foot by three foot spaces, that's where yes, going back in and seeding would make a difference. But the other species like tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, they don't spread like Kentucky bluegrass does. So if you have voids, that's where yes, have to go back in there and reseed. And for the listeners, you cannot, if you have a bare spot in your lawn, you can't just throw the seed down in this spot and expect it to germinate. Grass seed um is a little finicky. It does need a decently prepped seed bed. So for those areas that are bare, if you can go in there and scratch them up, lightly loosen up, you know, the upper half inch of the soil profile with a hard rake or sometimes even a leaf rake, get them scratched up, then put your seed down. That would be good. That's better. Ideally, do that and cover it with some type of material that's gonna hold moisture. Um, some type of I like to use garden soil or that like biochar compost thing I was talking about, but get those seeds covered and then immediately water them. So so so important for trying to get grass established that you keep it moist once you plant it. This is probably the number one step people skip, Doug, is uh they throw it down and think Mother Nature will do it for you. And sometimes Mother Nature does, and you look like a rock star, but uh you're taking a risk if you're gonna rely on Mother Nature to water your grass for you. So this time of year, one nice thing is not 80 degrees out yet, and uh, usually once a day, uh preferably twice a day, doesn't take much. Just again, you're just trying to moisten the surface, and that's where if you cover it, that helps a lot. If you can cover it with a garden soil, once a day is all it takes. Uh just a light watering, and you'll get those plants up. So, yes, it does involve introducing seed. It also helps to know what type of species you have because you might be able to just push more growth through fertilization uh to get it to fill in a lot of thin, thin areas.
SPEAKER_00I think that's where we need the expert. Uh, most people aren't going to know what the species is. I don't know what species grass I have out there. It'd be nice to have an expert come take a look and say, Oh, well, you've got Kentucky bluegrass, you need to fertilize this, do this, and do that. So when are you coming over?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's funny as you said that we do a couple training events every year. Uh, you would make an awesome special guest, and um in one two or three hour session, Doug, I would be able to teach you how to ID the five most common species that you're likely to find. And that really is it. Where we live, there's really only four species that you primarily see tall fescue, fine fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, and perennial ryegrass. There's some other weedy species, but if you can ID those four, um you're you're off to the races.
SPEAKER_00So, do you
Full-sun grass species
SPEAKER_00have a favorite species for a full sun lawn? Or should it be next, or what should I what should it be in full sun?
SPEAKER_01In full sun, unirrigated turf, I'm a huge turf-type tall fescue fan. Um, I've just continued to see that grass just outperform other species in all my trials. It does have some things people may not like about it. It has slightly coarser texture, so the leaf blades on tall fescue are a little bit wider than the other species, but to the untrained eye Doug, you know, you you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and Kentucky bluegrass. So from a kind of standard maintenance home lawn, I'm a big turf-type tall fescue fan. Uh, it just has really deep root system, superior heat tolerance. But what it what it doesn't do is it doesn't have that ability to fill in the voids like Kentucky bluegrass does. So if you lose turf or it thins out, it can't recover, but it it generally takes a lot of uh a lot of abuse. And then my second favorite would definitely be Kentucky bluegrass. I love in my opinion, there's nothing better looking than a really well-managed Kentucky bluegrass lawn. But again, Kentucky bluegrass takes a lot more resources. It uh you know, it just is a grass has a higher nitrogen demand, it's prone to producing a lot of thatch. Um if it's irrigated, people can get themselves in trouble with the disease summer patch. Um, so it's it's great grass, but it can have its issues. So yeah, I'm a big fan of of perfect type tall fescue.
SPEAKER_00How about a
Grass needs direct sunlight
SPEAKER_00species for part shade or shade lawn?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, if you are gonna plant something in that heavy shade, uh that's where the fine fescue species, the chewing fescue, hard fescue, creeping red fescue, uh they have superior shade tolerance. But you know, since coming to Davy Tree Doug, I've find myself living at that interface between grass and trees, you know, where shade now has become a much bigger part of my job than it was when I was at Ohio State, where we were focused on sports fields and golf courses, where shading is a niche issue. But for us on our properties, we deal with a lot of shade. And grasses grasses need sunlight. And so if you're looking at an area where you've got totally bare soil, you think this grass won't grow here, you know. Look up and try to understand is this area getting any direct sunlight? And if it isn't, grass probably is not the right choice in that area. You are just gonna fight an uphill battle, a ground cover of a packassandra, or if it's around a tree making a nice mulching to extend out away from the areas where you're gonna start to get some sunlight in there. So that is something I've come to appreciate more and more here is um I get a lot of questions from people around trees that are like, hey, what species should we plant? And I use an app on my phone, it's called Sun Seeker, and it's kind of like the ever used one of those apps, Doug, that shows you the constellations of the stars.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01This shows you how the sun tracks across the skyline at the different times of year, and so I can get a feel for how much sunlight is this area likely to get. So most grasses want five hours of direct sunlight. So you want the highest quality turf, you're generally gonna want five hours of direct sunlight. You start to get less than three hours of direct sunlight, now we're starting to get into that moderate shade. And if it's less than two, one to two hours of direct sunlight, that's a heavy shade scenario. And if there's no direct sunlight, need to curb the expectations in turf grass, may not be the right fit, and probably is not the right fit in that scenario.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's what I always tell people. They always ask, what should I grow under a pine tree or a maple? I say a bench.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, a mulch ring. Um, the tree, the the tree will probably be happier, and you'll be happier too.
Watering
SPEAKER_00Let's talk watering. Uh, when should we be watering? How much water should we be putting down? How do we know uh when the lawn needs water?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, this time of year, you shouldn't need to be doing any watering. Um, but start to just pay attention to the weather. You know, uh you get into the summer months, turf grasses are gonna use a lot more water than they are in the in the spring. So you get into the summer months when the temperatures are up, turf grass could use over an inch of water per week. And so you start to look at the forecast and you start seeing that the you know, seven, ten days without any precipitation, that's gonna be a scenario where you're probably gonna have to start to water if you want to maintain the highest quality possible. Grasses are adapted to going through these periods of drought stress. So, you know, they they're adapted to dealing with some level of drought stress. Now, you go a month without water, some species that could that could be a real TKO kind of scenario. So, uh, how do you know? One is just to dig around in the soil. So if you have a soil, if you're someone who's really into your lawn, you should have a soil probe. And that's the best tool that you can have. So get your soil probe out, put it down in the soil and see is the is there moisture in that core or is it brittle and dusty? No, it's brittle and dusty. You need to get some moisture in there. And most lawns they don't dry down uniformly. They dry, you know, you have high spots and low spots, and you'll start to see that the quality of the turf changes. And you'll have areas that look good, and you'll have areas that look like they're struggling. And if you have a soil probe, you can check between the two the area that looks good. What does that look like from a soil moisture standpoint? The area that's starting to look a little off-color, what does that look like? And if there's differences, can kind of show you, okay, this is a soil moisture problem. And then for someone like myself, uh, we can spot it with our eyes. Grass, uh, grasses have a different color to them when they're starting to exhibit drought stress. They have a, I don't know how to describe it, but they the leaves get a lot thinner, they have almost a reflectivity to them, and they they do what's called footprinting. When you step on them or drive on them, they will not bounce back. So this is a if you see the turf doing that, you don't want to mow it, you want to stay off of it. That's the kind of scenario if you mow through really drought-stressed turf, when it does rain, you'll see the streaking from where your tires were, from where you crushed those set those turf grass leaf cells.
How much and how often should I water my grass?
SPEAKER_00When I do water, what time of the day should I water? And how do I know how much to put on?
SPEAKER_01Ideal time to water would be in those early, early morning hours, but I'm guessing not everybody's real apt to like set their alarm for 5 a.m. to run out and turn their sprinkler on. So, you know, whenever you get up would be a great time. Worst time of the day to water would be in the kind of late evening hours. So somewhere between 6 to 9 p.m. I would say more like 7 to 9 p.m. That's the worst time of day to water in the dog days of summer because it can promote a lot more disease. The turf grass canopy doesn't dry out. So um probably any time Doug from midnight to 9 a.m. would be the ideal time to water. Um, the amount to water, oh, I don't have one here. Uh the amount to water, you really do need to use some type of catch device to understand the amount of water that you're putting down. Typically, you know, you you're gonna want to try to put down about a third of an inch of water per irrigation. So you can get an old coffee can out. Uh, if you're really into your lawn, on you can buy what's called an irrigation audit cup, and they have a little stand and they have graduations on the cup itself that tells you how much water you put down. So uh there's the biggest misnomer in the irrigation world. Everybody talks time. How many minutes? How many minutes should I run it for? That means nothing. That means nothing to me. Um, and it shouldn't mean anything to you. You really need to know how much to put down. So that would be in the perfect world. If you're somebody that's just, you know, has the oscillating sprinkler on a hose, you know, I typically see that that needs to run in place for about 30 minutes, Doug. A general, general oscillating sprinkler um running in its position for about 30 minutes puts down, um usually puts down about a third of an inch.
SPEAKER_00Well, just putting that whatever it is, something to catch the water, that's a great idea for sure. Well, Zayn, I think we've done it again. We've covered it in uh a two-parter for the spring lawn. We will talk again in the fall because you have taught me how important the fall is for lawn care. I can't wait to discuss that. Zane, you are the lawn whisperer. Anyone who could actually look at the grass when it's not getting the water it needs and being able to tell from just looking at it, you know that you're really into the lawn. So thanks as always for your time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you, Doug.
SPEAKER_00Zane is the man, and who knows? Maybe we will talk to him before the fall. I've got a couple things in the works I might want to ask him about. Now, tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees Podcast from the Debbie Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oester, and I want you to subscribe to this podcast so you won't miss the show. And I want to know what we should be covering. There's two ways to reach us. Just send us an email at the podcast at Deby.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at D-A-B-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'd love to hear from you, and as always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast. Trees are the answer.