Ignore the radio ads for fertilizer and grass seed

[LwnmwnMan2]

Even with how warm it is, you don't need to start fertilizing, weed spraying, seeding, etc.

I realize it's nice out, mostly dry, but I would even hold off on the raking for another week or so.

There's no way seed would germinate yet if you'd try to seed, ground temps need to be 55 degrees for grass to START to germinate.

If you want to know what your ground temperature is, go somewhere that sells kitchen utensils and buy a cheap meat thermometer. You can walk around your yard and see what different areas of the turf has for temps.

Areas along side a blacktop drive, the street, sidewalks, foundations will be warmer than areas in the middle of the yard.

[boxcar]

I know this has been gone over but trimming oaks to late I see mine are budding out.

Thanks

BAT

[chasineyes]

How about watering shrubs and trees??

[gixxer01]

Yes, but you'll need your crabgrass preventer down before the ground temp. reaches 55*. I'll be dethatching and applying crabgrass preventer this weekend. The upcoming rain Tues. will get the ball rolling in a big way.

As for watering, I'd wait and see what the weather brings on Tues.

[LwnmwnMan2]

Yes, but you'll need your crabgrass preventer down before the ground temp. reaches 55*. I'll be dethatching and applying crabgrass preventer this weekend. The upcoming rain Tues. will get the ball rolling in a big way.

As for watering, I'd wait and see what the weather brings on Tues.

The ground temps are 40 degress +/- (checked this morning). They need to be at 55 degrees for 3 days at sunrise.

It's ALONG ways off before you need to worry about applying the CG preventer.

That's the number one issue that people have with CG preventer, is applying too early, then it's broke down already by the time the CG starts to germinate. Crabgrass preventer lasts for 5-6 weeks.

If you've never had a problem with crabgrass, you don't have to worry about much. If you have a heavy infestation of crabgrass, you'll want to do your first two applications with a crabgrass preventer.

As far as dethatching, unless you have a yard in full sun, I would wait. IMO, you're going to do more root damage than good trying to much yard work yet.

You'll be seeing these yearly stories shortly on the news as well.

[LwnmwnMan2]

How about watering shrubs and trees??

Put your finger into the ground around the base of the trees / shrubs, or use a screwdriver and press into the ground.

If the soil feels damp, there's SOME moisture in the ground and you don't have to be so concerned.

If it's hard to push into the ground (not from being frozen) and feels dry, then you'll want to start doing some light watering.

While the plants are waking up, flooding won't do much good.

If it was time to do full bore watering, you'd see irrigation companies all over the place starting up systems.

It feels warm to us, it feels good out, but it's still 5:30 am to Mother Nature, and the coffee pot has just turned on a minute ago.

[Powerstroke]

It feels warm to us, it feels good out, but it's still 5:30 am to Mother Nature, and the coffee pot has just turned on a minute ago.

This is the best way I've heard it phrased.

Any yard work that happens now should be cleaning up any kind of branches or debris. Any kind of raking, dethatching, aerating etc will just cause root damage. These plants aren't really growing yet and you'll just rip them out.

With the CG preventer, you are wasting your money by spreading it now. The point is to use it for the best effect. starting two weeks early will only rob of two weeks effectiveness when the CG will actually be growing. It doesn't just germinate all at once. The seeds will continue to germinate as different parts of the soil warm to the right temps. Earlier in full sun and nearblacktop, driveways, buildings etc and later under trees and areas that get shaded by building etc.

As far as trimming trees, you've got days left, certainly not weeks. Oaks aren't budding yet around here. They are one of the last trees to bud out. Right now you should see Elms and Maples budding out. Silver Maples will have clusters of yellow flowers.

[Dotch]

You guys are right on the money. Sitting here at the confuser looking out the window, there is a silver maple flowering. There is a high degree of probablity based on past climatic data that this extemely warm weather won't last. We are bound to see a cool down. While it likely won't be a return to winter or even normal temperatures, it still won't be warm enough to get crabgrass going just yet. Crabgrass is a warm season grass and this is one of the reasons we're seeing it more in cropping systems using glyphosate. It germinates after the last application particularly in Round Up Ready corn and in operations with no residual herbicide down, it's one of the weeds we're seeing on the increase. Putting a residual herbicde out there now in corn or soybeans would be gone by the time it germinates. Same thing in a lawn situtation. The herbicide will be degraded by the time it germinates there too. And as powerstroke rightly pointed out, there is a great variation in the soil temperature across the lawn. Here on the north facing slope and the north side of the building, the frost is still coming out. It's damp and the worst thing I could do would be to rake through the mud in those areas. I bought some radish and pea seed so I can play around with that. There are plenty of sticks to pick up and since I'm babysitting a friend's Border Collie in addition to our own, I'm going to have lots of help. Zip loves sticks and with Ruby it's monkey see, monkey do.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/projects/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/h506crabgrass.html

[deerminator]

What about round-up? I have some more areas to clear brush, weeds and poison ivy. I'm thinking of chainsawing and weedwhacking it all down to replant over it but I don't want to until the time is right. The thought is to apply the roundup to the cut plants ASAP afterward. Should I do it know or wait until green starts appearing?

[jmd1]

Round up makes a poison ivy and tough brush product to take care of these issues. I did not look at the directions but would suspect it would work without having to cut them down after spraying. I can dig more.

[LwnmwnMan2]

Round up makes a poison ivy and tough brush product to take care of these issues. I did not look at the directions but would suspect it would work without having to cut them down after spraying. I can dig more.

While yes, "Round Up" or any glyphosate based product will work on brush, Poison Ivy or any other unwanted vegetation, it'll work quicker on brush with more effectiveness if you cut it first, then 'paint' the new, freshly cut stump with the herbicide. You certainly wouldn't try to kill a tree by spraying the leaves with chemical, you would cut it down first, and then spray the stump, if you weren't grinding the stump out.

Woody stemmed plants especially, moreso than soft, greener plants.

If you try to just spray brush, typically you will see dieback of the leaves, maybe some wilting, but typically it will not completely kill the plant.

I use a 46% formulation of glyphosate, most products you buy at the big box stores will be a 9-15% formulation.

I will spray my formulation around whatever vegetation I need to kill whatever unwanted vegetation dead. If I get a small amount on wanted vegetation, the following week I am at the property, or maybe 2 weeks later, there will be some wilting and I will cut that single branch back and all is good.

There are guys that will use glyphosate as a chemical mowing tool, meaning that you can run glyphosate thin enough, that it will stunt the growth of grass, instead of killing it, which will be less mowing.

I have messed around with growth regulators on large fence lines to limit the man hours of trimming (schools, parks, miles of chainlink fencing) and while it works, the cost is large enough where it's not completely cost effective.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Since we're talkin aboot round up........My wife wants to make the garden bigger this year. Around my garden is grass. 2 years ago she wanted to make the garden bigger and in the fall I hit the perimiter with round up, got rid of the grass, and it worked great. This year she tells me, like yesterday, she wants it even bigger. Is it too late to hit the grass with round up to kill it for a bigger garden? Or, do I just till the grassy stuff under and tell her she's got a lot of weeding to do?

[LwnmwnMan2]

What about round-up? I have some more areas to clear brush, weeds and poison ivy. I'm thinking of chainsawing and weedwhacking it all down to replant over it but I don't want to until the time is right. The thought is to apply the roundup to the cut plants ASAP afterward. Should I do it know or wait until green starts appearing?

If it's something you need to achieve this spring, I would wait for another 3-4 weeks. Nothing is really growing yet, so you're not going to get a great abosorption of the chemical into the root structure.

If you can wait until fall for this project, that's when I would recommend tackling the project. In the fall, the plants are all taking the energy and storing it into the root system, which means the chemical will store in the root system as well, with a better success rate.

In the spring, the plant is growing, pushing all of its energy outward creating new branches, leaves, stems, what have you.

While you will still get chemical into the root system, it won't be quite as effective.

This is the same reason that the extension service as well as other turf universities will state that it's best to fertilize and do weed control on your yard in the fall.

In the spring, KY bluegrass has enough energy typically to start up itself, hence the reason you have to mow 2-3 times / week in the spring.

By the time fall rolls around, most people are so tired of mowing 2-3 times / week, they've given up, the yard starts to look like dump, the wife is getting anxious and they say "okay, next spring we're going to hit it hard and have the best yard on the block".

But they wait until next spring, when they should be dethatching, aerating, overseeding, fertilizing and doing weed control in the end of August, beginning of September, then one more round of fert and weed control right after the first frost.

[LwnmwnMan2]

Since we're talkin aboot round up........My wife wants to make the garden bigger this year. Around my garden is grass. 2 years ago she wanted to make the garden bigger and in the fall I hit the perimiter with round up, got rid of the grass, and it worked great. This year she tells me, like yesterday, she wants it even bigger. Is it too late to hit the grass with round up to kill it for a bigger garden? Or, do I just till the grassy stuff under and tell her she's got a lot of weeding to do?

How many husband points do you want to rack up?

I would kill the grass. Spray it once, then again in about 10-12 days. Then till.

It'll decompose, but if you don't kill it first, it'll just be grass again in a month or so.

Weeds are one thing to pull, grass itself is a PITA.

[Eric Wettschreck]

How many husband points do you want to rack up?

None. However, I'm a big fan of salsa, and lots of it.

[otterman91105]

Is it too late to trim back shrubs? Nothing specail just spireas. They have gotten pretty big and would like to trim them down. They are not blumming yet.

[LwnmwnMan2]

Is it too late to trim back shrubs? Nothing specail just spireas. They have gotten pretty big and would like to trim them down. They are not blumming yet.

Trim away.

[deerminator]

Thanks for the advice LwnmwnMan and JMD. It's something I'm going to accomplish this spring. It will earn me some husband points but I'm also sick and tired of looking at the brush. Or having the dogs trounce into it. Plus my wife can't get near poision ivy. The last time was a trip to the hospital and it was just all over her. Everywhere. I've traditionally cut and pulled and dug the nastier stuff out while covered head to toe and then applied round-up to help be sure. I think I'll wait a few weeks and then start clearing. I'll keep cutting down dead trees, pruning and trimming in the meantime.

[fishnowworknever]

Checkout the soil temperatures around the west/southern parts of the sate.

I can't seem to find any nearer to the cities..but it gives a general idea.

http://gis.mda.state.mn.us/maps/csgsoil.htm

[LwnmwnMan2]

Checkout the soil temperatures around the west/southern parts of the sate.

I can't seem to find any nearer to the cities..but it gives a general idea.

http://gis.mda.state.mn.us/maps/csgsoil.htm

You have to take all maps with a grain of salt.

There are a couple that are put out by chemical companies and one shows that our soil temp for the whole southern 1/2 of Minnesota is between 65 and 70 degrees.

While the ones posted by the Department of Agriculture are exact, what is left to be determined is where is the temp being taken? Is it in the middle of a plowed dirt field that's absorbing light? Is it being taken on the north side of the extension office building in that area?

Where ever it's being taken, it shows what we all know, Spring is coming.

I took a backpack blower out today and blew the leaves off of my Mom and Dad's place. Sandy, shaded soil. Never cleaned last fall, poor grass conditions.

There were no leaves left froze to the ground, however if I'd tried to run a commercial mower on the property, I probably would have ended up burying it. I was sinking just about every step I took.

[fishnowworknever]

As always, thanks for the info.

So you say 3 consecutive days where the soil temp is 55 in the morning, test my yard with a meat thermometer..then CG preventer can go down?

All of the green grass popping up has me itchin to start on the lawn.

[otterman91105]

I live just outside stacy and checked the ground temp yesterday it was around 45.

[crothmeier]

Springfield, down in southwestern MN. My temp was 60* at suppertime yesterday, and 50* this morning at sunrise.

[LwnmwnMan2]

You're supposed to check at sunrise.

I was out this morning and on the north side of the cities it was around 45 degrees.

As was stated by the channel 9 guy the other day, no matter what you do this spring, you're danged if you do, danged if you don't.

If you're concerned about crabgrass, I would put the preventer down now, and then when you apply the next round at the middle of May, use crabgrass preventer again.

If you're not going to put down another round Mid May, then I would wait another 2 weeks +/- to put the first round down.

If you've never had a crabgrass problem, you don't need to be concerned.

Also, make sure you have crabgrass issues, not quackgrass, rough bluegrass, or a number of other varieties of grasses that people mistaken for crabgrass.

[toughguy]

I've seen some underground sprinklers running already. Insanity. We could still very easily slip into the 20s. I guess some people are in a hurry to get mowing.