How to have a Green Lawn in New England? Found an Answer - See pics in last post here!!

[MasterMech]

Don,

As far as a variety of grass that does well up there in NH, try Perennial Rye. It's what we use on golf course tee's, fairway's, and rough. It's low maint when mowed at 2.75" or higher. And yes, def go down with the seed when you core aerate in the fall around labor day. Rye will love the cooler temps up there, it may stress and brown a little when the temps get over 85 and the soil is dry but it'll bounce back after the first rain shower.

In the spring the northeast needs to extend their crabgrass control later than many areas. Go down with the pre-emergent in early April and don't be afraid to re-apply in the middle of May to extend coverage to end of June.

 

[indiana4spartans]

Looks like crabgrass is moving in on you. It thrives on heat and comes around when the lawn gets stressed by heat and drier conditions. Its an annual and putting down a pre emergent will keep the crabgrass seeds from germinating. I second the Jonathon Green Black Beauty seed. Pennington is pretty good as well, never had luck with Scotts. I do use the Scotts 4 step fertilizer program with another shot of turfbuilder with iron thrown in and a grubex application as well. I also spray the lawn with ortho's lawn weed killer. Water deeply and infrequently and I keep a pretty dense and green lawn.

Actually my problem is worse than that.

Below is a picture of a good section next to the burned section. Both sections had been fertilized, Limed, Grub Killer, and fungus treatment!! The burned section used to be in shade under a huge Magnolia tree (30 feet wide and 30 feet high). Now it is in full sun. So my question?

Is the burned out grass the wrong type for full sun??

What is this green grass?

That's not "good, green" grass - that's crabgrass - nasty stuff. You've gotten good advice so far. I do a lot of reading at Purdue University's Turf website - great stuff and advice. Biggest thing is mow high (which your grass looks really short), overseed and fertilize in the fall. Best time and the grass is storing up energy for winter. All your major work should happen in the fall.

With all the crabgrass you have, it's going to take a couple of years to get your lawn back.

 

[maverick06]

i like the info, definitely have been mowing too low... but still have lots of violets and some other broad leaf stuff.

 

[gpcollen1]

Have not really mowed my lawn while this thread has been running it's course. Some spots were fine as the Jona Green stops growing almost completely when this dry but stays green. As expected, the crab grass has tried to take over. i spent a bunch of time weeding prior to mowing. Got a half-dozen buckets of crab grass gone before I gave up. ill need to do more of it before I over seed in the fall. For now the weeding and a mowing will be fine. After the mow the lawn looked great - left it nice and high. It even gave me a better shot at some more weeds - 2 more buckets. Good thing i got the outdoor speakers in this spring. Still cannot believe how that crab grass can creep into your lawn so fast this time of year. It even creeps into the shrubs with lightning speed...

The rain finally came Saturday night and rained all night. Hope we get some more so my transplanted ferns stay healthy...

 

[smokinj]

Have not really mowed my lawn while this thread has been running it's course. Some spots were fine as the Jona Green stops growing almost completely when this dry but stays green. As expected, the crab grass has tried to take over. i spent a bunch of time weeding prior to mowing. Got a half-dozen buckets of crab grass gone before I gave up. ill need to do more of it before I over seed in the fall. For now the weeding and a mowing will be fine. After the mow the lawn looked great - left it nice and high. It even gave me a better shot at some more weeds - 2 more buckets. Good thing i got the outdoor speakers in this spring. Still cannot believe how that crab grass can creep into your lawn so fast this time of year. It even creeps into the shrubs with lightning speed...

The rain finally came Saturday night and rained all night. Hope we get some more so my transplanted ferns stay healthy...

First forst and its all dead. This is the window of opportunity..... ;-)

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Don,

[snip]

Apply milky spore powder to organically control grubs. I put it down several years ago, and I don't see grubs when digging. I believe it is good for 5 years.

[snip]

Milky spore goes dormant when it can't grow and reproduce in grubs and will last longer than 5 years it also takes time to get established. I put it down here in 2008 and there have been fewer grubs each year.

If your neighbors don't treat their area you'll likely never get the grub population so low that the bacteria goes dormant.

 

[flyingcow]

You want a green lawn in New England? Move up here. Damn thing won't stop growing. I have a lawn like FFJ. But the good part about up living up here? You got 2 months of mowing, than get the frost hits....here comes winter. You do consider us up here part of New England?

 

[firefighterjake]

You want a green lawn in New England? Move up here. Damn thing won't stop growing. I have a lawn like FFJ. But the good part about up living up here? You got 2 months of mowing, than get the frost hits....here comes winter. You do consider us up here part of New England?

You guys also keep getting hit with every possible rain storm . . . I lucked out when I went up to PI a few weeks back . . . I think I had one of the few rain-free and storm-free weekends.

And no . . . The County is not part of New England . . . it's Heaven's DoorStep.

 

[Don2222]

Hello

Well I finally found the best way to NATURALLY push the crab grass out!!

Our front lawn faces the west and gets that harsh afternoon setting sun and the crab grass loves it

So, I planted MAPLE trees near the street in a row where the crab grass likes to grow!!

Guess what??

As you can see in the pics, the rounded area shaded by the trees is the good grass.

The yellow arrows show as the trees get larger, they are automatically pushing the crab grass out LUV it!!

Only took 20 years to cut the Crabs, Pines, Oaks, and Magnolia down and plant the Maples to plan this out but never too late!!

Click pic to enlarge and click again.

 

[webbie]

With the amount of rain we've gotten this year, green is a snap! We have very poor sandy soil on a plain ole suburban acre. It was pretty much bare when we moved into our new house. We have strived to remove as much lawn as possible from the sunny areas, instead using mulch with hard plantings. The grass in the shade needs very little help.

I heard an interesting podcast the other day by another new englander. He recently wrote a book about how the landscape of America was changed, mostly by accident, by the stuff that Europeans brought here. He said he was at his local garden center and got mad about the lack of "local" plants they had....then he remembered the research he was doing and understood that not a SINGLE one of the plants he was calling "local" was truly local. All were from Europe! We've already remade the world...almost by accident.

As one obvious example, when Columbus and other came this was there were no earthworms in N. America! That's a pretty big deal...

Anyway, we've taken our lawn down from 20,000 sq. ft. to 12,000, which makes it much easier to keep under control.

I think sun is the biggest enemy!

 

[Don2222]

With the amount of rain we've gotten this year, green is a snap! We have very poor sandy soil on a plain ole suburban acre. It was pretty much bare when we moved into our new house. We have strived to remove as much lawn as possible from the sunny areas, instead using mulch with hard plantings. The grass in the shade needs very little help.

I heard an interesting podcast the other day by another new englander. He recently wrote a book about how the landscape of America was changed, mostly by accident, by the stuff that Europeans brought here. He said he was at his local garden center and got mad about the lack of "local" plants they had....then he remembered the research he was doing and understood that not a SINGLE one of the plants he was calling "local" was truly local. All were from Europe! We've already remade the world...almost by accident.

As one obvious example, when Columbus and other came this was there were no earthworms in N. America! That's a pretty big deal...

Anyway, we've taken our lawn down from 20,000 sq. ft. to 12,000, which makes it much easier to keep under control.

I think sun is the biggest enemy!

Good Idea Craig
Interesting how we both have poor sandy soil. In the sun that soil luvs crab grass and visa versa! LOL
Well, I like your idea of the plantings, but the weeds must still try hard to get in there?

 

[webbie]

Ah, weeds. Lots of mulch helps. Bad soil underneath helps...not as fertile for weeks.
And once or twice a summer, Martha patrols with the weed killer sprayer and makes certain they don't take over....

It's much easier to see, pull, kill and otherwise take care of weeks when they are in mulch...as opposed to mixed in with the grass.

 

[gpcollen1]

Agreed on the weed patrols but i just pull them. i recruited the wife to do a weed annihilation last year and we mulched the heck out of everything. this year we saved some $$ and skipped mulch but i have been pulling weeds a few times a week and that has done well. Going to use some mulch this fall and then some more in spring.

One way to keep weeds out of beds is to make the beds thick. The only one i do this with is my Fern beds but i may start crowding stuff in a bit more moving forward...

 

[kingston73]

I've never been caught up in the great lawn deal . . . just regular old grass, clover and a few dandelions in the Spring and things look fine. I mean sure I do get some grass seed to throw down whenever I've had to dig up an area or have brought in dirt to cover an area . . . but other than mowing it . . . well that's about it . . . never felt the need to water, fertilize, etc. just to have a really nice lawn that most folks never truly use.

My thoughts exactly. My neighbor does it all, water sprinklers, fertilizer, etc and even gets on his knees sometimes to trim parts with a pair of scissors. Me, I'll cut it when it gets above my ankles, looks just fine. My wife actually likes the small little flowers and clover and all the rest of the non-grass green stuff that grows in our yard. I think those GreenThumb type businesses are the biggest waste of time and money out there.