Monday, April 13, 2009

Repairing Winter Plow Damage

I am going to be repairing, more properties, that have had damage done to them by the snowplows during the winter. Two of the properties belong to Babson College, they are homes owned by the college, and we are hired to do the landscape maintenance on them. Rich, will be helping me with this chore today.

We do this early in the season to take advantage of the spring rains, and of course to make the properties look better. However, the ground is not warm enough for the seed to germinate quickly and this year we are having a very cool spring. The seed will not germinate until the ground temperature is around 55 degrees, so we have a few weeks to go before we will see any growth. We are using Lovell's New England seed, (34.3% Creeping Red Fescue, 29.4% Laredo Perenial Rye, 24.5% AllaireII Perenial Rye and 9.8% Ken-Blue Kentucky Bluegrass) which is a very good seed and we have a lot of success using it.

6 comments:

  1. Is the plow damage why in the summer I have this strange weed growth 2 to 3 feet at the road edge of my property? There use to be grass there, then last year a low spreading weed started to creep up. I was going to till it up and plant seed this year because it looks so ugly.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Probably the only good thing about renting a house... I don't have to fix up damage from plows that's the landlords job LOL. But I can't wait to get my own home so I can do what I want with it ;D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Laura,

    Sounds to me like it is crabgrass, it loves to grow by the roadside, because it is nice and warm there. It doesn't grow in the shade. It is ugly looking and low growing and can get to be about 2-3 feet in size. Does it die back after a frost or the cool weather comes?
    Pete

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi April,

    I am in the same position as you, renting. But in a few months I will be buying a new home and I can't wait to go and landscape it.

    Pete

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well I don't know, every thing here dies back after winter sets in. It seems to be a very fine leaf weed. It may be something else just creeping up my lawn. The neighbor across the street has it in most of her yard, but the neighbors on either side of me do not. I am going to bug my husband to do something with it. Wish me luck!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Laura, what ever the weed is, it likes growing there. I would not roto till that area as it would spread the weeds. You first have to kill the weed, remove it by hand or rake it out, before reseeding the area.

    Pete

    ReplyDelete