Dayton "Dirt" April 3, 2009

April showers really do seem to bring May flowers and weeds galore.

It’s time now to start your lawn program in applying a crabgrass preventer and feed. I like the Greenview’s program and so do most customers from almost 20 years of selling this line.

Another program to consider though is the Espoma company’s organic lawn care products that contain corn gluten which proven by experiments will control 60% of weeds in lawns when used the first year and up to 90% of weeds the second successive year of use.

The other advantage of this organic product is that the organic fertilizer is enhanced by inoculating it with various microbes under Espoma trade name of Biotone. The microbes release the nutrients slowly overtime so that they won’t give your grass a lush, quick undesirable spurt of growth making it more susceptible to insects and disease.

The disadvantage to the organic weed & feed by Espoma is that there is only a narrow window of time in which it can be applied for maximum effectiveness. The ideal time to apply this product is between April 15^th and May Day.

Another fertilizing chore is your landscape in which Holly tone ( for acid-loving plants) and Plant tone for all other trees, shrubs and perennials can be applied.

I like these products very much as they are low in salts so that they are not likely to burn your valuable plants and just as important, the low salts means that valuable microbes such as mycorrhizae and rhizobacteria among others are not destroyed so that the soil remains healthy and vibrant.

It’s funny because when I think about all the talk about being green and being sustainable environmentally, I think back how we designed our irrigation system at the nursery to collect the runoff water back to our irrigation lake from our irrigation of the plants and rainfall. The water must run through a series of vegetated channels and settling ponds filled with all kinds of naturally occurring water plants that filter the water.

Our system functions like one big rain garden although I didn’t know back then what it was called!

Sometimes, it’s not easy being green!

Tom