Last round of Lawn Fertilizer

Today, I started the last application of lawn fertilizer, that we do in the season. The leaves are coming down and we have to get it on the lawns before all of the leaves are down and ready to be picked up.

I am using a fertilizer from LESCO, 13-0-6, which means that there is 13% Nitrogen, 6% Potash and the rest is lime. This is a fertilizer lime mix, that we have been using the last few seasons. It saves us time as we used to apply the fertilizer and then apply the lime. now it is just one application for both.

Guillerme is helping me out today and will be helping me out again when I go to Olin College to fertilize their campus and soccer fields. the rest of the time I will be going "solo" as Guillerme is needed on the other crew to help out.

Rain is forecast for tomorrow and again this weekend, with this weekend having a "Nor Easter". that is when the winds come in from the North and East over the ocean. This produces a lot of wind and chilly temps.

This time it should take me over a week to do all of the lawns and the college. Going "solo", slows the process down and this will be the last time I see some of the properties this season.

Second Lawn Fertilizing Application

Guillerme will be accompanying me on the second round of lawn fertilization this time. I will be training him how to apply the fertilizer and also how to use the back pack sprayers to spray crabgrass, which has just started to grow and also to spray the broad leaf weeds in the lawn area.

This is a good trip around our properties because now I can see the fruits of all of our labor during the spring time. All of the grass seed should have come up in the lawns and the new bushes should be growing along with all of the flowers we planted. I will be making notes and reporting back all that I see to Rob.

This year for some reason we are seeing a lot of "Red Thread" in the lawns and this is an indication of a lack of Nitrogen and also too much moisture being present in the lawn. We have been experiencing a lot of rainy days and also a lot of the days there has been no sunshine to dry out the lawn. I am applying a fertilizer 25-0-5 , with 1% iron which should clear up the problem as far as the nitrogen is concerned but Mother Nature will have to supply the sun and warmth.

Fungicide and Holly Tone...

These pictures are of the various colors of the Rhododendron's that are all around the property.
I really like these bushes and the are a very popular here in New England.

Today, I went with Rich to the home used by the President of Babson College. We had to weed all of the beds, as this home, has to always look "Presidential", for all of it's visitors.

Nick, the guy in charge of the grounds for the campus had, called Rob, and wanted us to put down a fungicide, on the lawn because it had "red thread". This usually goes away by itself if you lighten up on the water you are applying to the lawn. Red Thread, is caused by a lack of Nitrogen and because it has more moisture than it needs. We have been in a rainy stretch here and that is more than likely what caused it. We will be doing our second application of fertilizer next week.

Rich and I spent the morning weeding and in the afternoon, Rich put down 20 pounds of Holly Tone on a bed that has pachysandra, that had a hard time recovering from this past winter. The Holly Tone will bring it back to life and will get it to fill out the bed.

After, that I put down the fungicide and sprayed the weeds in the lawn with SPEED ZONE. As I was doing this, Rich was going around with a bag of grass seed and throwing some down in any weak parts of the lawn. When we had everything packed up and we were not going to be on the lawn any more I went around to the walks and patio and sprayed Round up on the weeds in the cracks.

Finishing the Fertilization Route

I am finishing up the Fertilization route today. Besides the Pre-Emergent herbicide plus fertilizer we, are also applying a new fertilizer to bushes, and flowers this year.

It is called "Healthy Start" and has beneficial Rhizosphere bacteria in it to boos Biological Soil Fertility. It also has 3% Nitrogen, 4% Phosphate and 3% Soluble Potash in it. We will have to wait a few weeks to see the results of this new product.

Because of the continueing cool weather we are having this spring, my back muscles started to ache, so I was glad to have brought my SUNJING with me. I just rolled it on my lower back and within minutes the pain was gone. Truly remarkable stuff.

Rich and I also finished the day out by doing 2 small clean ups in Framingham and in Sherborn.

First Application of lawn fertilizer, for the season.

Today, I am at Olin College in Needham, Massachusetts, applying the first fertilizer application of the year. This is a large campus and I will be using forty, 50 pound bags of fertilizer to cover all of the lawn area's around the campus.

The fertilizer I am using is from LESCO and it is a Pre-Emergent herbicide, called Dimension. It contains 19% Nitrogen, 0 % Potash and 6% Sulphur along with 0.10% DIMENSION.

We use this to control new weeds from germinating, like, Dandelions, crabgrass and broad leaf weeds. This fertilizer forms a protective layer over the ground, to prevent germination, of the undesired weeds. After this application we have to wait about 10 weeks before we reseed those areas.

This will take Rich and I all day to finish. We will be fertilizing approximately 640,000 sg feet of turf. I will be using a "power spreader"made by PERMAGREEN and Rich will be doing the smaller area's with a walk behind spreader, made by LESCO.