Soil Improvement

The “Magic” of Nature’s Magic

Giant pumpkin grown with help from Nature’s Magic

When we decided to call our all-organic soil and plant treatment product NATURE’S MAGIC we were trying to convey the fact that this is a truly special product for your soil and everything growing in it. While doing some extra research on a few of its components, we realized that it is probably even better than we thought.

In a lot of ways, Nature’s Magic is like a very rich liquid compost that is beneficial for both lawns and gardens. It is made primarily with our Humic Acid (which is essentially mined, prehistoric, composted organic matter from ancient forests and seas) and the highest quality Norwegian Kelp. This is an extremely dense, bio-active source of organic matter, along with over 60 minerals, numerous trace elements, plant growth hormones, humic and fulvic acids. Nature’s Magic will improve the soil structure of both clay and sandy soils. It helps sandy soils hold on to water and nutrients that normally would wash right through the porous sand.

Nature’s Magic allows plants to grow where they couldn’t before. It helps neutralize toxins, including high salts that are naturally contained in some soils, as well as ocean salt. It also buffers both high and low pH problems, allowing plants to get nutrients that are otherwise “locked” in the soil. It makes all fertilizers work better by chelating nutrients and by improving microbial activity in the soil.

Nature’s Magic helps with chlorosis and seed germination, stimulates deep rooting, and supports above ground growth and health. It helps with insect and disease resistance, as well as quality of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. It works great in hydroponic gardens, too.

This is just a short list of its capabilities!

If you really want to improve poor soil in your lawn or garden beds, a heavy spring treatment (16—32 oz per 1000 sf) would be a great start. You can also do mid-summer and fall applications without worry. If you have sandy soil, monthly applications of Nature’s Magic at 2—4 oz (or more) per 1000 sf will help hold water and nutrients better.

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How To Fertilize A Sloped Lawn

How To Fertilize A Sloped Lawn

Do you have a steep slope to contend with on your lawn?

If you’ve ever mowed a sloped lawn you know it can be pretty tricky (and often dangerous) to do, but fertilizing it properly is even harder. Aside from the danger of slipping on the hill, getting an even application of granular fertilizer on a slope is very challenging. Another often overlooked problem is that after a hard rain or watering granular fertilizer can migrate to the bottom of the hill, especially when soils are hard or compacted.

Fertilizer spreaders, whether using a drop spreader or a rotary spreader, are calibrated to work correctly only when you walk at a steady pace on a level surface. When you fertilize by walking up and down the slope, or walking across it, it is inevitable that some spots will get too much fertilizer (which can burn your lawn) and some will get too little. If you have no alternative to using a spreader, going up the hill while fertilizing is going to be the most effective (and safest) way to do it.

The best way to fertilize a sloped lawn is with a liquid fertilizer, using a hose-end sprayer. Many such sprayers will allow you to spray out a good 10-15 feet. Simply stand at the top, or bottom, or side of the hill and safely and evenly shoot the fertilizer onto the lawn. Remember: Do not walk on the hill while still wet.

The best liquid fertilizer to use is one with a soil-penetrant or surfactant in it, like our All-In-One for LAWNS. This product helps break surface tension on the soil surface and improves aeration, which allows water to soak into the soil instead of run off of it. It also contains root enhancers that help the grass dig in deeper. With one application you can fertilize, deepen roots, and improve the soil structure.

If you or anyone you know has a sloped lawn, pass this article along! Their lawn will thank you for it.

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Preparing The Lawn For Spring

Though a large part of the country is still frozen, there are some areas where weather has returned to normal. We are starting to receive a lot of emails about what to do for lawns and gardens when the weather breaks. We know that many you are anxious to get going, but, if at all possible, stay off the lawn until you can walk on it without sinking in. If you have been using Aerify PLUS your lawn should drain faster in the spring and green up a little sooner.

When your lawn is ready to go, here are some of the things you can do to help it out:

Give the lawn a light raking to remove debris and lift up matted grass and (in the North) snow mold damage. Snow mold, a lawn disease, occurs on most Northern grasses, especially the creeping grass types. It is worse when there has been alternating snow cover and warm periods. Most snow mold will disappear by mid spring if you fluff it up a bit so air and sunlight can get to the soil.
If you fertilized in the late fall, there is no reason to fertilize too early in the spring. The lawn should have plenty of food stored up for early spring growth. This growth helps thicken up the lawn and also helps crowd out incipient weeds and Crabgrass. We suggest that you make an early application of Aerify PLUS or Nature’s Magic in early spring when the grass is greening up and beginning to grow. They won’t force excessive growth but will stimulate fast and deep rooting and will provide trace elements and organics to the grass and soil. They will also help make all the major and minor nutrients in the soil more available to the grass.
If you did not fertilize in the late fall and/or if the lawn is looking weak and thin, an application of All-In-One for LAWNS or our 16-4-8 Bio-Enhanced Lawn Fertilizer will stimulate both the above and below ground growth that you want to have in the spring.
Seed bare and thin areas early. You want the grass thick before the weeds start sprouting. Use the correct seed type for your area and your particular lawn. The Aerify PLUS, and Nature’s Magic are also great for new seed and will cause beneficial root fungi (mycorrhizae) to generate.
Apply Lime. Spring is a good time to apply Lime (Calcium) to your lawn. Lime fights soil acidity and soil microbes love the calcium. Our Liquid Lime Formula (calcium) is an easy way to apply calcium and it gives you faster results while avoiding moving heavy sacks of lime from the garden center to your car, to your garage or shed, and finally to your spreader where you often end up spilling on the grass.
Alternatively, apply Sulfur. If you have had your soil tested and it shows excess Calcium with an alkaline pH above 7, you are more prone to lawn diseases like Pink Snow Mold, Summer Patch, Dollar Spot, and Take All Patch. Consider applying our Liquid Sulfur Formula to lower the pH in the root zone. (By the way, the ideal pH for lawns is about 6.5)
Mowing. Make your first cut short – as low as you can mow without scalping the lawn- perhaps 1 – 1½ inches high. Do this only when the grass is just starting to grow, not if it is already growing vigorously. This short mowing cuts away some of the dead grass left over from the previous season if you left it too high. It also helps warm up the soil faster, stimulates growth, and allows more sunlight to reach the newly forming grass blades.

And remember, feel free to email us if you have any questions about lawn care or our products!

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How Soil Compaction Harms Shrubs and Trees

We tend to think that whatever water falls on our lawn and garden will also get down to the roots of our trees and shrubs, but in many cases that’s simply not true. Tree and shrub roots go down much deeper than lawn roots, and if you have compacted or clay soil your soil is most likely going to be too dry (or too wet in some cases) for healthy plant growth.

When soil is compacted, there is no oxygen in the root zone. The soil is tight instead of porous so water or rain cannot penetrate down to the sub-surface. As a result, trees will send their feeder roots close to the surface, often competing with grass for space and water. These feeder roots are microscopic but can become very dense, which creates more of a water barrier near the surface of the soil.

Compacted soil can lead to shallow rooting, which makes trees and shrubs unstable in harsh weather. (image courtesy of msu.edu)

Trees and shrubs growing in compacted soils are under constant stress, and never achieve their full potential. Obvious signs of this stress are poor growth, fewer flowers, disease, abundance of non-beneficial insects, leaf drop, and dying plants.

Many tree and landscape companies offer special drainage or sub-surface watering devices (at great cost) as a way to get water to go deeper. Some companies even offer soil remediation: digging out the existing soil around the tree roots and replacing it with a more porous medium that is well aerated, and allows easy water penetration. But are these costly solutions really the only way to have healthy trees and shrubs?

AN EASIER SOLUTION

Like the soil in your lawn, the soil around trees and shrubs needs good aeration and drainage. It also benefits from the addition of organic matter and micronutrients. The easiest way we know of to improve soil aeration is by applying our liquid soil conditioner, Aerify PLUS, regularly around your trees and shrubs. Start with a heavy application, about 4 oz per 500 sf of root area, and then do monthly applications at 2 oz. If you are already applying Aerify PLUS to your lawn, just double up around the trees and shrubs for a few initial applications, then treat the shrubs and trees well whenever you apply Aerify PLUS to your lawn.

Whenever possible, maintain a mulch layer of 2-3 inches or more of organic material (compost, shredded bark, wood chips etc.) around the whole root or drip zone of your plants. This organic matter will help keep the soil surface soft and permeable, and will encourage earthworms- nature’s best soil aerators.

As always, if you have any questions please email us at info@natureslawn.com and we would be happy to help!

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Protect Your Lawn Against Salt and Pet Damage

In our last post we talked about the importance of a late fall winterizer application to help your lawn survive the winter and come back strong in the spring. But what about all that road salt that will be melting into your lawn?

We have just the product to help protect your grass from salt burn. Spotless Lawn Dog Spot Aid is a unique organic formula that is designed to control and prevent dog urine burns on your lawn, but can also be used to protect against salt damage, as well as to remediate fertilizer burns. Applying this product heavily before the snow falls results in a healthier, deeper-rooted lawn that is protected against not only dog urine burns, but salt and weather damage as well.

Strengthen your lawn this fall with a heavy application of Spotless Lawn and watch it come back stronger and greener than ever in the spring!

Also, in honor of Veteran’s Day Weekend, enjoy this special limited time coupon for 15% off now through Monday, November 13th: Enter VET15 at checkout and save!

Have a great weekend!

What is a lawn winterizer?

The term winterizer has been used to promote various fall lawn applications on Northern grasses for some 30 years. It has been used by many to sell all sorts of fertilizer blends for applications timed from early late August through late November. Since Cornell University says that the winterizer application is the 3rd most important fertilizing of the year, it is time to define what a winterizer is, what should be used, and when to apply it.

Late Fall Winterizer for Lawns – Why, When and How

A winterizer is a late fall fertilizer application designed to help lawns store more food for winter survival, and to encourage thick and rapid growth and rooting in the spring. A lawn winterizer is NOT meant to encourage fall growth of grass. That is what the early fall fertilizing is supposed to do, and that fertilizing, usually done in September up till early October, is the considered the most important fertilizer of the year for northern grasses.

The best time to apply a winterizer is after the grass stops growing in the fall, while it is still green on top and active below the surface. In most parts of the North, this will be sometime in mid-to-late November, or even early December. So when you put away your mower for the year, that’s when you should apply your winterizer.

In the past, the belief was that winterizers should be low in nitrogen and high in potassium and phosphorus, but recent research has disproved this, and shown that the opposite is true: the ideal winterizer will be mostly nitrogen fertilizer. The label should show most of the nitrogen as a quick-releasing water soluble nitrogen (WSN) as opposed to slow-releasing water insoluble nitrogen (WIN).

Use Less. If you are using a store-bought granular lawn fertilizer apply at 1/3 to 1/2 the normal fertilizing amount to avoid un-absorbed nitrogen from leaching into the groundwater. For example, if the bag says it covers 5000 sf, you should be able to get 10-15,000 sf of coverage when used as a late fall winterizer. For those of you who understand fertilizer labels, apply .3 – .5 # N per 1000 sf. With liquid fertilizers you can go even lighter.

Source of Nitrogen. The most common fertilizers used for winterizers will contain water soluble nitrogen in the form of urea or ammonium sulfate. Check the product label. It can also contain small amounts of phosphorus and potassium. If you are looking for a true organic fertilizer that has mostly quick release nitrogen in it, you are very limited in your choices. Some forms of liquid fish are approximately 80% water soluble and make a great winterizer, if you don’t mind the odor.

Our All-In-One for Lawns is an excellent product for your winterizer application. The main ingredient is our 16-4-8 Bio-Enhanced Fertilizer, in addition to soil conditioners, dethatching enzymes, and a beneficial root fungus called mycorhizae.

Strengthen your lawn this fall with a winterizer and watch it come back stronger and greener than ever in the spring!

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How Big is My Lawn?

Most lawn care products are meant to be applied based on the square footage of area being treated. For example, our Aerify Plus liquid soil aerator label says to apply at 4 oz per 1000 sf. But do you actually know how many square feet of property you have to treat? One way to get the property size is to measure or pace out all the area you plan to treat. Or, if you happen to know the size of your lot, you can measure and then subtract the dimensions of structures (house, garage, driveway, etc.) and garden beds from your overall lot size and come up with the total amount of area you need to treat. But, before you do all that, why not see if we can get you the measurement through internet mapping.

Nature’s Lawn is happy to offer free lawn measurements, utilizing a specialized satellite program that allows us to fairly accurately measure the green space of your property. If you’re interested in this information, simply email us with your name and home address, and we will get back to you with your measurements as soon as possible.* If you have specific products in mind, we can also make a recommendation on how much product you will need to treat your property. (And none of your information will be saved or used for any purpose other than this exchange.)

We hope you’ll take us up on this free offer and arm yourself with a little more information about your lawn!

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*Monday through Friday, not including holidays. We will do our best to get measurements for everyone who asks, but certain factors might make it impossible to measure your home specifically (the age of the home, how many trees are on the property, etc.). We will let you know if we run into difficulties.

What To Do About Soil Toxicity

Due to the crazy weather patterns that have been evolving, much of the country has been wracked by rainstorms over the past few months. These storms can cause flooding and standing water, which means pollutants, oils, and toxins from all kinds of sources can end up in lawns, gardens, and farms. Additionally, in towns along the coast, ocean salt is part of the flood waters and air mist and that salt is very toxic to lawns, plants and trees.

When the water settles, homeowners and groundskeepers need a plan to quickly remediate the damages. They need to do two things: 1. Move the water, salt and other soluble toxins down below the root zone. 2. Detoxify the soil.

As you might suspect, we already have a solution for this: Aerify PLUS, our liquid soil aeration and bio-activation product. The drainage-improving properties of Aerify PLUS help the polluted water to rapidly leach out below the root zone, while the humic and fulvic acids buffer many of the toxic substances and will stimulate their degradation biologically. Humic Acids are commonly used in soil remediation projects, and ours is the highest quality and strength we know of. Finally, Aerify PLUS also contains Kelp (seaweed). This can help replace some of the nutrients lost to flooding, and will lead to both healthier plant and increased microbial growth.

For detoxification of heavy pollutants or salt you would want to use about 8 oz Aerify PLUS per 1000 sf – and make two applications at this rate about a week to 10 days apart. (If you are a regular user of Aerify PLUS you can cut that rate in half.) Additionally, if you happen to already have our Spotless Lawn Dog Spot Aid, you can apply that at 10 oz per 1000 sf to aid in remediation.

As always, if you have any questions please email us at info@natureslawn.com and we would be happy to help!

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Do It Yourself Grass Patch

Fall is a great time for putting down new grass seed. Anything you put down now will thicken up and become well-established by the time spring rolls around. For some of you, simply overseeding will do the trick, but if you have bare spots on your lawn you may need to think about using a grass patch.

Make Your Own Grass Patch

Before stores and infomercials started selling grass repair, or grass patching products in a bag, groundskeepers at golf courses made up their own mixture and used it to fill in divots and bare spots. I do the same thing for my own yard and so do many landscapers. It is very quick and easy to make and use, and it allows you to put in exactly the type of seed that you want to use. Plus, it is way less expensive than the products sold in stores or on infomercials.

Here is all you need to do: Put a bushel or two of garden soil into a wheel barrow. Thoroughly mix in an equal amount of compost. If you don’t have compost you can use vermiculite, perlite, or sphagnum peat moss (the brown peat that comes in bales). You want to end up with a spongy, crumbly, water-holding mixture, much like a potting soil. In fact, you could use bagged potting soil instead of this mixture if you don’t have the other ingredients at hand.

Next, mix enough grass seed so you see plenty of seed in every handful. When spread on the lawn you want to see 15-20 seeds per sq. inch. Use a grass seed that matches what you already have in your lawn. If you don’t know, bring a sample to a local nursery. If you have some starter fertilizer around put a cup or two in the batch. This is not critical if your soil is fairly healthy and regular fertilized. You can always fertilize after the grass comes up. We recommend All-In-One for Lawns if you like using liquid fertilizers.

Over Seeding With Your Grass Patch

If you are using this mixture to over seed a thin area of the lawn that does not have dead or bare spots, simply toss the mixture over the lawn wherever it is thin. If necessary, rake the lawn lightly afterwards to get the mixture to drop down off the grass blades. That’s it!

To get the grass seed to actually grow, however, it is critical to keep the seed damp until the grass is established. Give it a good watering to get things started. If the soil below the seed was dry, really soak it deeply. The grass patch mixture will be nice and dark when damp so it will be easy to see if and when it dries out. Depending on the time of year, and the amount of rain you get, you may need to water once or twice a day, or maybe once or twice a week. The soil should not be soggy, it just needs to be damp. Once the grass sprouts and starts to root deeper and toughen up you can gradually phase out the watering to once or twice a week, enough to keep the soil from getting too dry.

Again, it depends on your local weather conditions as regards to temperature, precipitation and even wind, which dries out soils too.

If you have any questions about seeding, please email us at info@natureslawn.com and we would be happy to help!

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Early Fall Lawn Care Tips

LAWN SEASON BEGINS IN THE FALL

You’ve probably heard us say this more than once, but it bears repeating: Fall is one of the most important seasons for lawn care! While many homeowners think of fall as the end of the gardening year and begin to neglect their yards, lawn pros see the fall as the beginning of lawn season, and do what they can to improve the lawn and soil quality at this time.

In the fall, especially in the North, lawns have the opportunity to re-build, repair and thicken up after going through the stresses of summer. The lawn attempts to expand its root system at this time, digging in and getting to more of the soil nutrients. It also increases blade growth, making more carbohydrates (food) and some of this food is stored for spring and summer use.

In the fall, conditions are usually more favorable for seeding too. The weather should be cooler and moister, and there will be less weed and disease pressure to contend with.

So without further ado, here are some fall lawn care tips!

Be sure to do an early fall fertilizing. In our lawn service business, we save our heaviest fertilizing of the year for the early fall. This stimulates growth and helps the grass send out tillers and runners to fill in thin spots. It also helps the grass produce the food that it stores to help it through the winter, and which gets it off to a good start in the spring. Our All-In-One for LAWNS is the perfect fertilizer to use for this.

Focus on soil improvement. Clay and soil compaction can prevent your lawn from being healthy even when you are doing everything else right. With a porous, bio-active soil, the grass roots can become fuller and go deeper. When the soil has better structure, the naturally occurring soil nutrients, as well as the nutrients from your fertilizers, become more easily available to the grass and other plants in your yard. Our company uses a liquid soil conditioner called Aerify PLUS to help aerate and bio-activate soils, and to provide some readily available organic matter. (As a matter of disclosure, we developed and sell this product on-line). Other traditional methods of soil improvement we recommend are compost top-dressing, or calcium/lime (if soils test acidic).

Handle any thatch that might have formed over the summer. Thatch is not just old grass clippings sitting on top of the lawn. Real thatch is a tightly matted barrier that could not be raked off without tearing up the lawn. Read more about thatch in our recent post.

Over-seed your lawn. The early fall is the absolute best possible time to seed your lawn if you live in the north. There are many reasons to over-seed your lawn. Aside from thickening it up, you can introduce newer, more heat-, insect-, and disease-tolerant grass types. Get new grass seed established in the early fall and it will thicken further in the spring. You can seed any bare or thin areas now and up till early October.

If your lawn does not have a thatch barrier, a simple over-seed can be done this way: spread seed over the existing grass and water heavily to work the seed down to the soil. Then keep the soil damp for a few weeks. A lot of this seed will take hold, especially if you spray Aerify PLUS right after seeding.

Practice seasonally appropriate mowing. Keep the grass fairly high into the early fall (unless your lawn is mostly bentgrass, which needs to be cut shorter). This will help the grass root deeper, thicken up, and build up food reserves. Don’t start mowing short just because the weather turns cooler. Lawn season is not over yet!

When the lawn’s growth begins to slow down, that is your signal to begin mowing shorter. Gradually lower the mowing height so it is 1 ½ inch high or less before winter. Bentgrass lawns can be cut even shorter.

Last but not least: be sure to keep the leaves from matting up on the lawn! Too many leaves left on the lawn can cause the grass the die back or rot, so make sure you rake up leaves if they tend to form a thick layer over your lawn. Leaves make for excellent compost though, so if you don’t feel like bagging, try dumping them around your shrubs and trees, or in your gardens beds.

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Late Fall Winterizer for Lawns – Why, When and How

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