- (763) 595-1440
- info@peterdoranlawn.com
- 14360 James Rd, Rogers, MN
Spring Lawn Care Minneapolis
Spring is here and with it comes a number of lawn care services that need to be done in order for your lawn to be healthy and green throughout 2016. With over 20 years of experience servicing lawns in the Minneapolis area, here is what we have learned to achieve optimal results.
Spring Clean-Up & Dethatching are Essential
If you want your lawn to stay healthy all year, you must do a thorough cleaning of debris from your lawn and dethatch your lawn. A thorough spring clean-up not only removes debris from your lawn but you will also be able to notice any damage or disease your lawn may have suffered from a long cold winter. When in your lawn keep your eyes open for snow mold that may have formed, chunks of lawn missing from plow trucks and keep a close eyes on your trees, shrubs and bushes for rotting, spotting or anything else that does not look normal.
Dethatching is the process of removing dead and damaged grass from your lawn with a lawn rake or a special attachment for your mower. Skipping dethatching can result in a matted down lawn that can damage or even kill surrounding grass that is healthy. Additionally, dethatching your lawn will allow your healthy grass to absorb and retain more nutrients as it has less competition from damaged grass.
Fertilize Your Lawn
It is also important to apply the right fertilizer on your lawn in early spring and late in the spring. A pre-emergent fertilizer will help you keep control of those early spring weeds like crabgrass and dandelions while promoting the growth of your healthy lawn. A late spring application helps your lawn prepare for drier summer months ahead. You can learn more about popular Minnesota weeds and a proper fertilizer schedule from our #GreenLawnsMatter initiative.
A healthy lawn starts in the spring! Are you taking the right steps to ensure the greenest, healthiest lawn you can have this year?
Where and Why to Mulch Your Lawn and Landscaping
Mulch not only makes your lawn more attractive it also serves a variety of purposes to the health of your lawn and landscaping. In this article we will take a look at where, when and why you should consider using mulch in your lawn and landscaping.
Where to Mulch
Mulch is a great addition to any garden bed, but it can also be placed in hard to maintain areas in your yard. For example, areas that are difficult to mow, maintain or irrigate are perfect places to install mulch. Additionally, shady areas that make it hard for new plants to receive sunlight to grow can benefit from mulch.
Why Mulch
Mulch serves a variety of purposes for proper lawn and landscaping maintenance. Organic mulch materials improve your soils fertility as it decomposes, giving your plants extra nutrients to grow healthy. Mulch also keeps the soils temperature cooler in the summer and maintains moisture minimizing the need to water established plants.
A new layer of mulch also reduces weed germination and growth as well as reducing plant disease. Over time, mulch can also improve the soils aeration, structure and drainage. As you can see there are a number of benefits to adding mulch to your lawn and landscaping.
Mulching Guidelines
Too much of anything can be bad and that saying applies to mulch in your lawn. A general rule of thumb is to maintain a 2 to 3 inch layer of mulch at all times and not to exceed a 4 inch layer. Too much mulch can reduce the amount of oxygen exchange to the roots of your plants and cause your plants to stress causing root rot.
When mulching around a tree in your lawn, you do not want to mulch all the way up to the trunk of the tree. Instead, keep your mulch a few inches back from the trunk of the tree to prevent moisture from causing root rot and to keep rodents from inhabiting at the trunk of your tree and chewing into the trunk. You will also want to extend the mulch to the drip line of your tree to promote the trees entire root system.
At Peter Doran Lawn and Landscaping, we offer a variety of mulch products that can be installed around your trees and in your garden and landscaping beds. To get a free estimate give us a call at (763) 315-0052 or click the free estimate button below.
The Importance of Spring Lawn Clean Up
Winter brings a number of surprises to your lawn that are both visible and unseen by the eye that can cause damage to your lawn. To avoid nasty lawn diseases to your lawn you should do a thorough spring clean-up once the snow melts and unwanted debris begins to soak deep into your lawn.
Visible Debris That Can Harm Your Lawn
For starters, visible debris such as cardboard, unraked leaves, and garbage blown out of trash cans should be picked up immediately. Picking up the loose debris on your lawn ensures that toxins and other unwanted minerals that can spread disease throughout your lawn. Additionally, damage to your lawn from plow trucks and other snow removal equipment should be repaired early in the spring to give your lawn more time to plant its roots.
Snow Mold
Snow mold is another visible lawn condition that can infect your lawn. When snow lingers on the lawn for too long, especially when the large piles of snow sat for months, the grass can become infected with mold. The best thing to do is lightly rake the area to remove the infected grass and promote some air flow.
Salt In Your Lawn
In Minnesota, salt is a huge issue that can have long lasting negative effects on your lawn. When salt soaks into the soil, your lawns roots can absorb it and cause brown patches. To combat salt from soaking into your lawn it is recommended to use a high powered backpack blower, especially around curbs, driveways and walkways, before the ground starts to thaw to blow the salt out of your lawn and onto a hard surface.
Shrubs, Bushes, Trees and Plants
Finally, a good spring clean-up includes inspecting your shrubs, bushes, trees and other plants for damaged or dead branches and plants. Pruning damaged and dead branches on trees, bushes, and shrubs helps it distribute its nutrients to the areas that are thriving. Removing dead plants can keep any diseases that may have killed the plant from spreading further into your lawn or landscaping.
Conclusion
A good spring clean-up not only makes your yard look nice, it also prevents disease from spreading deep into the soil and effecting other parts of your lawn.
4 Spring Lawn Care Tips for a Healthy Lawn
4 Spring Lawn Care Tips for a Healthy Lawn
If you want your lawn to be the healthiest and greenest lawn in the neighborhood this year, you must pay extra attention to it this spring. After a Minnesota winter, your lawn is full of dead grass and debris that has built up, frozen, and melted deep down into the soil of your lawn. These 4 spring lawn care tips will clear the dead grass and debris from your lawn and provide it with the nutrients it needs to grow healthy, strong, and green throughout the year.
Spring Clean-Up
Spring clean-up for your lawn refers to removing the loose debris such as leaves and garbage from around the home, bushes, and shrubs that has been blowing around since the snow started falling. Debris left on your lawn early in spring can smother the grass and begin to breakdown damaging the roots of your lawn and promotes weeds to grow. We recommend using high powered gas back pack blowers that are designed to blow out loose debris and debris that has begun to breakdown into your lawn.
Dethatching
Dethatching is the process of raking your lawn to remove grass that has died or grass with bad roots from the lawn. Removing the dead thatch and damaged grass from your lawn promotes the growth of healthy grass by allowing it to absorb more nutrients. Whether you use a hand rake the thatch, or an Dethatcher rake attachment on your lawn mower, or a professional service, dethatching is one of the most important steps you can take to promote a healthy lawn for years to come.
Pre-Emergent Fertilizer with Defendor® Specialty Herbicide
Pre-emergent fertilizer in the spring is crucial to deterring weeds from growing in your lawn. As we all know, spring is when everything from flowers, fruits, vegetable, grass, and weeds begin to grow in Minnesota. Pre-emergent fertilizer is a chemical treatment that will stop weeds before they start growing while promoting a healthy lawn. Here is a list of just some of the weeds Controlled: Crabgrass (preemergence and early postemergence) Goosegrass Poa annua Chickweed Henbit Spurge Dandelion Clover (hop, red and white) Carolina geranium Catchweed (bedstraw) Chickweed (common and mouse-ear) Dollarweed Fleabane Common groundsel Knotweed Black medic Wild mustard Shepherd’s-purse Spotted catsear
Lawn Mowing
The first time you mow your lawn for the year is the most important cut of the year. The first cut of the year should be done about 2 weeks has sprouted. With the cool season Grasses of Minnesota lawns should be cut by no more than a third to roughly 2.5” to 4” inches at most (our crews cut at 2.75” to 3.5” depending on the grass type and the temperature) Additionally, you will want to keep your lawn mower blades razor sharp to ensure a clean cut so the ends of the grass don’t split and turn brown. Home owners should sharpen blades about 3 times per season. Cool Season Grasses of Minnesota Kentucky Bluegrass : 2.5 to 3 inches (60-75 mm) Perennial Ryegrass : 2.5 to 3 inches(60-75mm) Tall Fescue : 2.5 to 4 inches (60-100 mm) Warm Season Grasses of Southern State Common bermuda : 0.75 to 1.25 inches ( 20- 30mm) Hybrid bermuda : 0.5 to 1.0 inches (12-25 mm) St. Augustine : 2.0 to 4 inches ( 50-100 mm) Zoysiagrass : 1 to 2.5 inches (25-60 mm) Centipede grass : 1.0 to 2.0 inches ( 25-50 mm) Following these four tips are sure to help your lawn grow green and healthy. Keeping up with regular maintenance or your lawn will also make your neighbors envy your lawn and seek your advice to help turn their lawn around.
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