Quality Lawns Since 1881
Lawn Care
A beautiful lawn requires care, but it's not the amount of work you put into it, it's how you do it. Here are some tips to get you started:
Buy the Right Grass Seed
- Choose a grass seed variety (e.g., tall fescue, Kentucky Bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, or a mixture) that is ideal for your location and growing conditions.
- Look for seed that has been bred for disease, insect resistance, and drought tolerance and has a naturally dark-green leaf such as Jonathan Green Black Beauty® grass seed.
Give It Enough Water
- Newly seeded lawns need to be watered at least once a day in order to keep the seedbed moist.
- Water deeply, at least 30 minutes in each area.
- Established lawns don't need more than about one inch of water a week.
Fertilize
- To look their best, lawns need to be fed during the peak growing months from spring through fall - about three or four times a year.
- The first feeding of the season in spring is important because it brings your lawn out of winter dormancy.
Mow Properly
- Once new grass has grown to three to four inches tall, you can start to mow your lawn.
- Be careful not to cut the lawn too short. The general rule of thumb is to never cut off more than a third of the grass blade.
Soil Care
In order to have a beautiful lawn, you must have healthy soil that has a neutral pH, is biologically active, and is not compacted. Without healthy soil, weeds thrive, and grass struggles. The benefits of caring for your soil include better resistance to diseases and insects, better heat tolerance, and, most importantly, biologically active soil.
Most soils are home to a wide variety of living organisms, from larger critters such as earthworms and insects to microscopic invertebrates like bacteria, fungi, yeasts, algae, and protozoa. All of these organisms affect the health of your turfgrass in important ways.
However, over time, the microbial life can suffer from unbalanced soil pH, rototilling, heavy traffic, and the use of chemicals.
How to Create Healthier Soil
Balance your soil pH
Grass thrives in soils that are slightly acidic to neutral or 6.2 to 7.2 on the pH scale.
Relieve compaction
Aerating is often a short-term fix. Instead, add products that contain Gypsum like Love Your Soil® or Mag-I-Cal® Plus.
Add products that contain humates
Humates stimulate microbial activity and growth
Jonathan Green Mag-I-Cal® Plus is a natural, humate-rich, three-in-one soil food that combines Mag-I-Cal® for Lawns in Acidic Soil and Love Your Soil®. It adjusts soil pH and stimulates soil microbes to create biologically healthy soil. It also breaks up hard, compacted soil for better air, water, nutrient, and root penetration. Use it every season to keep your soil biology and chemistry balanced!
ECO Friendly
Jonathan Green
MAG-I-CAL
Rapidly raises soil pH.
Provides Calcium.
Releases tied-up nutrients.
Jonathan Green
MAG-I-CAL Plus
Rapidly raises Soil pH.
Breaks up clay and compacted soils.
Stimulates soil microbial activity.
Fertilizer
Good lawn care requires you to provide adequate irrigation, mow properly, control weeds, and fertilize regularly.
Feeding your lawn from spring through fall will help it grow dark green in color, encourages strong root growth, and resist environmental stresses, like weeds and pests.
Why Fertilize Your Lawn?
Most lawn nutrients are water-soluble. Over time, through rain and irrigation, these nutrients will be leached out of the soil, leaving your lawn malnourished. This means your lawn will be more susceptible to stress, resulting in patchiness, bare spots, browning, and weed invasion.
Fertilizer contains nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium; three nutrients that are vital to the health of your lawn.
- Nitrogen (N): This nutrient is responsible for the green color of your lawn as well as lush, vigorous growth.
- Phosphorus (P): This nutrient stimulates root growth and helps seeds sprout.
- Potassium (K): This nutrient works like a vitamin does for humans. It helps grass resist drought, disease, fungus, wear from foot traffic, and extreme weather conditions.
Organics
If you want the best for your lawn, your family, your pets, and the environment
choosing organic lawn care products may be a good option for you. Our organics have the ability to feed the soil, green up the lawn and prevent pests, all while protecting you and your family from harsh chemicals.
Organic Fertilizers
Many companies use low-energy manures, such as chicken and turkey manure, as ingredients in their organic fertilizers. Look for high-energy food-grade ingredients such as feather meal, soybean meal, bone meal, wheat shorts, and molasses. Organic lawn fertilizers work overtime to strengthen your lawn and provide it with the nutrients it needs.
Organic Soil Amendments
Healthy soil that has a neutral pH, is biologically active, and is loose and porous is the key to a beautiful lawn. Choose products that help to balance your soil's pH, loosen compacted soil, and support the microbial life in the soil. When soil is not in balance grass struggles and weeds thrive.
Organic Weed and Insect Control
Weeds and pests can be some of the hardest challenges to tackle with an organic approach. However, at Jonathan Green, we have products that can do the job. We use corn gluten, which is a by-product of the corn milling process as a pre-emergent weed control. For pests, we use a combination of plant oils that only affect insects and are therefore safe for pets, other mammals, birds, and fish.
Remember, patience is a virtue when you commit to an organic lawn care program. Unlike fast-release chemical fertilizers that are absorbed immediately by the grass organic lawn products work overtime.
Weed Control
Chemical control with herbicides is an important tool for managing weeds in home landscapes. Many of today's herbicides are more selective and effective, making them less harmful to the environment when used properly.
Broadleaf Weeds vs. Grassy Weeds
- Broadleaf weeds, like dandelions and clovers, have deep taproots and may have flowers.
- Grassy weeds, like crabgrass and goosegrass, have thick unsightly leaves and look more like grass.
Oftentimes weed controls target either broadleaf weeds OR grassy weeds, not both at the same time. Make sure to get a herbicide that controls the weeds that are specific to your lawn.
Pre-emergent vs. Post-emergent Herbicides:
Weed controls either prevent weeds before they occur in your lawn (pre-emergents) or after they germinate (post-emergents). Some weed controls have both pre and post-emergent control ability.
- Pre-emergents form a barrier at, or just below, the surface of the soil in order to attack weed seeds as they germinate.
- Post-emergents target only the weeds above ground to slow down their growth, eventually killing the weed, and ensuring that it will not grow back.