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Dear ,
If you are dealing with an unidentifiable weed in your landscape, check out the University of Minnesota Extension's website for their common weed identifier section. It contains great photos and advice on control mechanisms. Two common weeds you will start to see particularly along the dry and compacted soils of the driveway or road is prostrate knotweed and spurge.
If your neighborhood is anything like mine, there is a domino effect with mowing the lawn. It's Saturday morning and you hear the familiar summer sound. No not kids playing in the yard, but the engine of your neighbor's lawn mower which means you will need to mow next to keep your lawn looking as good as the neighbor's lawn. Below are mowing tips to reduce yard work and maintain a healthier lawn.
Enjoy the fireworks! |
| The Art of Lawn Mowing |
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 Here are tips for a healthier lawn while reducing yard maintenance.
When cutting the lawn don't take more than 1/3 of the leaf blade off. Cut it when it reaches 3- 3.5 inches, but don't cut it any shorter than 2 -2.5 inches. Cutting a lawn too short can stress it, especially during hot weather. Remember longer blades of grass shade and cool the roots keeping the grass greener longer. Mow in the evening versus when the sun is beating down on it in the afternoon.
Leave the clippings on the lawn to decompose and feed nutrients back into the grass. A mulching mower ensures the clippings are small enough to decompose quicker. Don't mow after a rain or when the lawn is wet with dew. Wait until it is dry.
Mowing the lawn is like getting a haircut. Cutting the lawn stimulates growth and increases thickness. And keep the lawnmower blades sharp. Sharp lawnmower blades produce clean cuts, and clean cuts promote better grass health. Dull lawnmower blades, by contrast, produce rougher cuts that make the grass more susceptible to disease. Check out your local Ace or True Value Hardware stores for blade sharpening.
Consider alternative grasses and sedges in lawn areas where the common lawn grasses Kentucky bluegrass, red fescue and perennial ryegrass don't do well or in areas where you want to mow less.
Native Carex pennsylvanica commonly known as Pennsylvania sedge forms a nice ground cover of soft clumps, making it suitable for use as a drought tolerant lawn in shady areas. To use as a turf grass mow 2-3 times a year when it is about 3-4 inches tall. It grows very well in open woods and woodland margins.
Poa trivialis is used in northern U.S. in turf mixtures for shady areas and performs best in cool, moist sites. This species has poor drought tolerance and becomes dormant in hot weather.
"No Mow" grass is comprised of 6 different fescues. These fine fescues are slow growing and tend to lay down nearly flat by mid-summer. Fescues are shade tolerant and are often found in shade grass seed mixtures.
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| What's Blooming? |
 The fragrant flower of American linden/basswood (Tilia americana) and littleleaf linden (Tilia cordata) are in bloom from late June to early July. The flowers are small in loose drooping clusters with a leaf-like bract and nutlet attached. Lindens are easily transplantable and prefer full sun to light shade and moist, deep, fertile well-drained soils. However, lindens are tolerant of difficult growing sites and soils which make their use in boulevards and urban conditions appropriate.
Young trees are pyramidal in shape and mature to an ovate, gum drop shape for littleleaf lindens. American lindens are oval to irregular in shape with spreading, arching to irregular branching in maturity.
Plant lindens where the summer breeze will carry the fragrance of its flower into the house. American linden cultivars 'Boulevard' and 'Redmond' are common lawn/street trees. 'Greenspire' littleleaf linden is widely popular due to its uniform branching, dark green leaves and exceptional tolerance for difficult conditions. |
I welcome your feedback on the newsletter. If there are topics you want to learn more about, please email me at nancy.dahl@integra.net.
Sincerely,
Nancy Thorman Dahl, CLP
Cattail Design LLC
Creative Designs for Land and Lakeshore | |
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| Eco-friendly Tip |
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A rain garden is an attractive garden bed with a depression to capture runoff. It does not have to look "messy" with the right choice of plants and should be designed to integrate into your current landscape.
Rain gardens:
- Turn drainage or erosion problems into beauty for your yard
- Keep the water on-site
- Recharge groundwater aquifers
- Reduce pollutants and sediments, such as engine oil and sand, from entering lakes and streams
- Reduce the volume of stormwater runoff entering lakes and streams decreasing flooding threats
Consider a modest 1,500 square foot house on a small lot can produce 5,000 gallons of runoff from one inch of rain. The runoff enters either the sewer system or nearby creek which flows into a stream which then flows to the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. Take that one small example times thousands of homes and you see the results with the recent flooding in Iowa.
To protect and improve the water quality of Crystal Lake, the City of Burnsville installed 17 rain gardens in a 1980's neighborhood. Within two years the rain gardens were capturing 93% of the neighborhood's stormwater runoff. Cities also encourage rain gardens to reduce the strain on their existing sewer infrastructure. Other "green" steps you can take include turning your downspout to drain into the yard and not onto the driveway and not draining the sump pump spout into the road. Check with your city or county to see if they offer local grants to help with installation or a reduction or credit on your water bill. The Blue Thumb Guide to Raingardens is a practical and consumer-friendly book to help with design and installation for homeowners in the upper Midwest. The book is available at Amazon.com.
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