Time to Establish or Renovate Your Lawn
Lawns are important to both rural and urban dwellers in Coffee County. How you care for your lawn is an expression of your pride in yourself, your home, your community, your city and your county.
There are two main reasons for establishing a new lawn. The first reason is that you have a bought or built a new house and a lawn has to be established. The second reason is that your present lawn is beyond repair because of the hot and very dry summer has taken a terrific toll on your lawn.
There are several considerations to ponder when establishing a lawn is concerned. The first consideration is the nutritional levels of the soil. We cannot guess this condition, so I would recommend that you take a soil test to establish a benchmark so you can correct or improve soil nutritional requirements. Soil Test kits are available at our UT-TSU Extension Office – Coffee County.
Another consideration is shade. Do you have large trees that shade portions of the proposed lawn? Does the grass you have in mind grow in full shade or partial shade? Grass selection is important.
In Tennessee there are several lawn grasses that will work, depending on your preference. Kentucky bluegrass, red fescue, Chewings fescue and tall fescue varieties are all perennial cool season turf grasses. Cool season grasses grow best during the spring and fall months of the year.
Bermudagrass, zoysiagrass and centipedegrass are strong perennial warm season grasses that grow best in the later part of spring, summer and early fall. These types of grass generally turn brown at first frost, whereas the cool season grasses are green all year.
Cool season grasses need to be planted from August 20 to September 15 for optimum growth or early spring. Warm season grasses that are going to be established from seed need to be planted from May 1 to June 30. Kentucky Bluegrass is a fine bladed grass that grows well in full sun to light shade. Bluegrass will survive much better when planted in the August 20 to September 15 time range.
When seeding tall fescue grasses on new lawns, sew five to seven pounds of seed per thousand square feet. Red fescue varieties need to be seeded at six to fourteen pounds per thousand square feet of lawn and bluegrass needs to be seeded at eight to twenty-one pounds per thousand square feet.
If you are renovating a lawn, we would suggest that prior to seeding that you aerate your lawn or use a de-thatcher to remove excess thatch. Reseed at approximately one-half the establishment rate.
Fertilize and lime according to soil test. Do not cut cool season grasses shorter than three inches. Use pre-emergence herbicides in the spring to control crabgrass. Use post-emergence herbicides to control wild garlic, dandelion and other broadleaf weeds in the early spring.