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Every year, local county Extension offices receive hundreds of phone calls from homeowners with questions about \u201cwhen\u201d to do this or that to their lawns.\u00a0 When do I fertilize? When do I plant grass seed?\u00a0 When do I core aerate?\u00a0 When do I apply pre-emergent herbicides?\u00a0 These are just a few examples of the many questions that we get, and more often than not, one good question leads to another.<\/p>\n
To assist homeowners and landscape professionals, the University of Georgia Turf Team has created a one-stop website with current, research based information on lawn care in Georgia at https:\/\/turf.caes.uga.edu\/publications\/pest-control-recomendations.html.<\/a>\u00a0One of the most important tools that consumers can use in lawn maintenance is a lawn calendar.\u00a0 This website has a lawn calendar for each turfgrass species that can be grown in Georgia: Bermudagrass, Centipedegrass, Tall Fescue, Zoysiagrass, and St. Augustinegrass.\u00a0 Every homeowner should get a copy of the lawn calendar for their lawn type and post it on a wall inside their garden shed, garage or workbench.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have access to the internet, stop by the Bartow County Extension office and get a free lawn calendar.<\/p>\n Many lawn problems begin with the fact that the average homeowner doesn\u2019t even know what type of grass they have.\u00a0 As an example, there are many herbicides that are only labeled for certain lawn types.\u00a0 If you spray an herbicide that doesn\u2019t have your lawn grass listed on the label, then there is a good chance that you will kill your lawn.\u00a0 Never assume that just because it is labeled for one lawn grass that it can be used on all lawns.\u00a0 If your lawn isn\u2019t on the label, then don\u2019t use it!<\/p>\n Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusing information on the internet and on various lawn products about \u201cwhen\u201d is the best time to do anything to your lawn.\u00a0 Often, the confusion begins when you realize that how and when to fertilize your lawn or when to apply herbicides varies depending on where you live.\u00a0 When to do these tasks in Ohio is not going to work in Georgia and vice-versa because lawns grow on a completely different schedule depending on temperature, climate zones, and rainfall patterns.\u00a0 Our UGA Extension lawn calendars are specific to growing lawns in Georgia based on current research in Georgia.<\/p>\n It becomes even more confusing when you consider that every lawn type has a unique maintenance schedule.\u00a0 For example, cool-season grasses such as Fescue should only be fertilized in the spring and fall.\u00a0 On the other hand, warm-season grasses that go dormant, such as Bermudagrass, should only be fertilized after spring green-up and throughout the summer. Bermudagrass should never be fertilized in the winter since the fertilizer will not be taken up by the roots while dormant, and to make things worse, you basically end up feeding your winter weeds!\u00a0 Our lawn calendars answer all the common questions about when, how much, and how often to fertilize water, aerate, seed, mow, and treat weeds for your particular lawn type.<\/p>\n Most insects, diseases, and weeds that affect lawns can be minimized or avoided just by simply providing the proper maintenance at the right time.\u00a0 A thick, healthy turfgrass can out-compete most weed problems and can better tolerate insects, diseases, and drought stress.\u00a0 An added benefit to managing your grass properly is that you won\u2019t need to use as many pesticides as a result of having fewer pest issues through proper maintenance.\u00a0 Managing your grass properly begins with sticking to a lawn calendar made for Georgia and not watching what your neighbors are doing.\u00a0 More than likely, your neighbors are transplants from another state and are doing a lot of things wrong anyway.\u00a0 If you really want to help the environment, be a good neighbor and print a lawn calendar for your friends and neighbors so they can keep a copy in their garden sheds too.<\/p>\n Paul Pugliese is the Extension Coordinator and Agriculture & Natural Resources Agent for Bartow County Cooperative Extension, a partnership of The University of Georgia, The U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Bartow County.\u00a0 (770) 387-5142.\u00a0 For more information and free farm, lawn, or garden publications, visit our local website at <\/em><\/strong>www.caes.uga.edu\/extension\/bartow<\/a> . <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every year, local county Extension offices receive hundreds of phone calls from homeowners with questions about \u201cwhen\u201d to do this or that to their lawns.\u00a0 When do I fertilize? When do I plant grass seed?\u00a0 When do I core aerate?\u00a0 When do I apply pre-emergent herbicides?\u00a0 These are just a few examples of the many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,20,18,26,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fertilizing","category-herbicides","category-lawns","category-planting","category-weeds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}