Weekly Garden Tip

In case you haven't noticed, your winter lawn may be starting to show some signs that it isn't as happy as it once was! Late April to early May is the time we should start thinking about transitioning from our cool season lawn back to the summer turf. There are several ways to accomplish this. You can do nothing and it will eventually take place as the weather heats up and becomes intolerable for the ryegrass. The problem with this method is the longer it takes (and for us humans we hope a long time yet) for it to reach the high temps required, the ryegrass hangs on and the bermudagrasses can become stressed out and eventually die. Another method is to just turn off the water and let the ryegrass burn up. I don't recommend this as you are also stressing the underlying summer lawn as well. The method I prefer is to start mowing at lower levels over the next 2-3 weeks until you have almost scalped the lawn, continue to water but do not increase the water as temps go up. The combination of lower mowing heights and not quite enough water with the higher temps will usually force the issue of the ryegrass dyeing out and the warm season turf getting enough sunlight to start growing. Let me warn you. There is no seamless way for this to happen and depending on weather, it may drag out with the lawn having spots that transition sooner than others. Almost any way you do this the lawn will not look the greatest for a few weeks, but better to have this than all of a sudden in early July you have no lawn at all! When it looks as if most of the winter lawn is dead, a good raking,low mowing, or dethatching is not a bad idea. This is also a great time to apply ferti lome lawn food plus iron, and gypsum as well! As always you may click on the Rosie logo for a coupon for 20% OFF this product. Listen every Saturday at 8am to 92.3 fm and hear the tip live.