Declare Your Independence From Yard Work Teresa Watkins July 5, 2005 With the summer holiday season in full swing, comes a time for parties, get-togethers with friends and family, picnics and barbecues! Summer is a time to gather and enjoy some lazy days, eating good food, sipping on lemonade and watching the children play in the pool. But before you can even consider entertaining at your home, you will have likely spent the last three months working on your landscaping, planting, fertilizing, weeding, and putting down controls for insects. The yard MUST look perfect! And yet most of us don’t realize that those exact landscaping chores are what gives the problems we have room to grow. We have more bug problems, more disease and more stress in our yards during the summer. I am here to tell you that you can be free from all those problems. We declared independence from another country over practices that we wanted to discontinue and this can be the year and the month that you can declare independence from your yard work! We can have an attractive yard, have less pest problems, and not as much work if we understand more about what we are trying to accomplish. Let me fill you in on a few tips to make you, the homeowner, free from what you think is inevitable; a summer of landscape drudgery. Installation of Plants Between the months of June, July, and August, most people are on vacations or have the time to work in their yards. Homeowners want to spruce it up and get it ready for the summer celebrations and family visits. There is a lot of digging and planting new shrubs or trees and flowers. Planting in the summertime, unless it is warm season annuals or small plants, is not usually recommended. The stress of planting in hot temperatures makes adapting for the plant a high maintenance risk, if not almost impossible in drought-prone areas. Think ahead for next year and plan or delay your larger shrubs and tree installations till the early spring or fall. Your plants and trees will benefit from the cooler climate and will not need as much water or care. Mowing Mowing is a weekend American ritual. I know there will be a few readers who will be shocked by my next statement but there are actually people who complain that they have to mow their lawns. These weekend lawn warriors are overwhelmed by the seemingly simple fact that grass can grow overnight. Keeping your lawn mower at the highest level will keep your grass at 3” to 4”. The taller the grass, the more leaf area, the healthier the grass. The more leaf area, the deeper the root system. Deep root systems are what you want. If you would like to mow less, reduce the area of turf in your yard by extending your garden beds out one to two feet more. You won't really notice the difference in your lawn and you'll have less grass to mow. When to Fertilize Fertilizers make everything grow faster – grass, flowers, trees, and even the unwanted weeds. We seem to think that to help our lawns, we must fertilize often. We fertilize in the early spring and early fall to help plants handle stress, stimulate growth with seasonal changes and to provide nutrients to the grass not often found in sugar sands or nutrient-depleted lawns. Fertilizing in the summertime is not always necessary due to the warmer temperatures and wetter conditions from seasonal rain or irrigation. With the heat and water, grass is going to grow quickly anyway. If you feel like you mow your grass too much now, why are you fertilizing? Another reason is that fertilizing with nitrogen, stimulates the plant's growth, which allows more photosynthesis, a process which produces chlorophyll. High levels of chlorophyll attract more leaf-chewing insects to your yard creating a bigger pest problem than if you only fertilized with slow release fertilizers in the cooler seasonal temperatures. If your grass needs to be greened up, use an iron-only product that will not stimulate the leaf growth. Weed Control Weeds seem to be noticeable in the summer especially after a warm winter. If we could just convince everyone that weeds were an acceptable ground cover, most yards would be right in style. The preferred method of removal is usually using a weed killer. The time to use weed killer is in the spring and the fall, with a pre-emergent applied preferably in the early spring. This is the best time because weeds are more susceptible during cooler temperatures. If you read directions on most herbicides, you’ll be instructed not to apply them in temperatures over 85°. If you use a weed killer in the summertime, you risk hurting your lawn as well. If there are too many weeds to pull by hand, or if you would like immediate relief, or if you can’t find a willing assistant, you may apply a non-selective herbicide. Of course, this would mean replacing any turf areas killed in the process. Don’t Over Water Your Lawn! Using the irrigation system seems like such a time saver, but in reality, it is a convenience that is the most detrimental, most overused, and most common landscaping mistake in the yard. Watering more than twice a week in the summer time promotes a short root system. A short root system needs more water, is more susceptible to insects, and could potentially be more susceptible to diseases due to the ground not drying out. Check with your local county extension office for information on how much irrigation your lawn needs in your area. Now that I have taken away most of your summertime chores – no need to mow often, spray for weeds, turn on the sprinkler system, fertilize or plant large shrubbery or trees – what can you use that time for? I am thinking of putting up a nice hammock, making some homemade lemonade, cooking on the barbecue and relaxing while the rest of the neighbors work in their yards.

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Jeff Radel, CRS 'Make a Smart Move' House of Brokers Realty, Inc. 1515 Chapel Hill Rd. Columbia, MO 65203 Phone: 573-446-6529 Fax: 573-446-5408 jefrealtor@aol.com Website			Donna Adams, GRI, ABR 'Make A Smart Move!!!' House of Brokers Realty, Inc. 1515 Chapel Hill Rd. Columbia, MO 65203 Phone: 573-446-6530 Fax: 573-446-5408 dadams@houseofbrokers.com Website