Summer is the most stressful season of the year on your lawn, making it more susceptible to weeds and other problems. Watering during periods of drought helps to maintain its strength. You can also get a jump on those early spring weeds this month. Most people don’t realize that weeds like chickweed and henbit grow long before your grass, starting their life in the fall. You can greatly reduce next spring’s weeds by applying a good preemergent at this time. Whether it’s HALTS, Prodiamine or ORGANIC Concern Corn Gluten, Herbein’s Lawn Center has the answer.

The amount of times you cut your lawn should be reduced and the mower height should be higher. Recommendations are 3″ or higher, to allow your grass to remain semi-tall and increase root growth for deeper sources of water. Along with reducing the frequency in which you cut your lawn, unfortunately the dreaded yellow nutsedge becomes more apparent. This requires a special control in which we carry a concentrate form called Bonide Sedge Ender or try Ortho’s Nutsedge Killer, in a ready to use bottle.

The end of this month and the beginning of September is ideal to plant grass seed in this part of Pennsylvania. Consider Kentucky bluegrass for sunny areas. It takes longer to germinate (up to 28 days) but once it gets established it’s probably the best sunny grass for this area. It is heat, cold, wear and drought tolerant. Being rhizomatous, it fills in bare spots faster and better than bunch-type grass like Perennial rye. It does require a lot more nitrogen/year than other grasses (4 lbs./1,000 sq. ft.) and a bit higher pH of around 6.5.