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Lawn care may seem simple at first glance, but if you’ve ever tried to do it yourself you know it’s anything but. Part physics, part biology, and part chemistry: there are way more variables than just planting some seeds and watering them.
To make it a little easier for you, here are some questions we frequently are asked about lawn care. If your question isn’t answered here in our Oklahoma Lawn Care FAQs, give us a call and we’ll tell you anything you want to know about our professional lawn care services.
Let’s start with the two basic grass types:
General Questions About Oklahoma Lawns
Yes! For your lawn to reach its maximum potential, it’s important to know which grass species are growing in your yard. For example, Turf Type tall fescue is a cool-season grass while bermudagrass is a warm-season grass. These two types of grasses require completely different care routines.
Yes! Your soil’s pH level can make a huge difference in how well your grass grows. For best results, test your soil pH and identify which species of grass are growing in your yard. You can use soil additives to get the pH closer to ideal for your grass.
We recommend growing Bermuda grass in full sun areas that can survive the summer with minimal water. With Oklahoma’s dry, semi-arid climate, you want some resiliency in your grass in case there’s a drought or heat wave.
Fescue grass is one of our favorites because it’s easy to establish and can survive in suboptimal sandy or clay-filled soil. Cool-season grasses tend to be more difficult to sustain in our climate, but Turf Type tall fescue is one of the best cool-season grasses for Oklahoma landscaping.
Questions About Watering and Mowing
Generally, people tend to do frequent and shallow waterings. This is the wrong way to do it because shallow watering encourages shallow rooting and germinates weed seeds.
Aim for moisture penetration of about 6” deep into the soil when you water. Though the amount of watering time this takes can vary depending on your soil type, typically 30 minutes of watering per zone twice a week is sufficient. Try using a soil probe in the beginning to tell when moisture has reached that depth. As you grow accustomed to this watering routine, you’ll get a feel for how long it takes.
Watering deep is important because it encourages your grass to root deeply, which makes for a healthier lawn in the long run.
Ideally, you should not be watering your grass on a regular schedule at all. Instead, base your watering on need. When grass first begins to show signs of moisture stress – for example, if the leaves begin to roll or wilt – that’s the ideal time to water heavily.
Water until moisture reaches a depth of 6” into your soil.
As with watering, it’s better to do without a set mowing schedule. Mow your lawn only when it needs to be mowed; typically during growing season this is every 5-10 days. This can be determined by looking up the ideal height for your grass species. Once it reaches that height, cut it down, but not too low. Mowing Bermuda grass should follow the 1/3 rule. You should never cut more than 1/3 of the grass blade off at a single mowing. Mowing more off than 1/3 would be considered scalping and tends to leave a brown lawn as most of the green grass has been cut off.
Bagging grass clippings only removes valuable nutrients like nitrogen from the lawn. Leaving your grass clippings on the lawn or using a mulching mower are great ways to cut grass without removing nutrients. Grass consists of 80% moisture and valuable micronutrients that we want to recycle back to turfgrass stands.
Make sure to keep your lawnmower’s blades sharp. Believe it or not, dull blades can injure the grass and harm its long-term health. A sharp blade produces a clean cut that allows the grass to grow back stronger.
Questions About Fertilizing Your Lawn
Yes! There is a right amount of fertilizer to apply and there are a variety of ways to over-fertilize your lawn. You can simply add too much all at once, you can fertilize the right amount too often, or your yard can suffer from fertilizer buildup if the drainage is poor.
Devising a fertilizer program is too in-depth to describe in this section. The best way to be sure is to identify the species of grass in your yard and look up how much fertilizer they need and when. Different grasses require fertilizer in different amounts depending on the time of year.
An easy way to avoid all of this confusion is to get professional lawn fertilization services.
Yes, storebought fertilizer products like Scott’s Turf Builder can be quite effective for growing your lawn. The challenge is knowing how to use them correctly – when and in what quantity.
In order to determine the best fertilization program for your lawn, you’ll want to know what grass species you’re growing. Once you have this information, you can look up more detailed information about how that grass likes to be fertilized.
This depends entirely on which grass species you’re growing. Cool-season grasses get heavy fertilization in the winter and spring and little in the summer and fall. Warm-season grasses follow the opposite schedule – lots of fertilizer in the summer and fall, with comparatively little in the winter and spring.
Questions About Professional Lawn Service
With fertilizer, watering immediately after the application is recommended. However, if any weed control was applied, wait at least 24 hours before watering.
If it rains after my weed control application, should I call and have the technician come back and re-treat?
If you’re concerned that the weed control may have washed off or mowed too soon, we can follow up with a service visit in a couple weeks to check if the weeds are declining. Weed control must sit undisturbed for one to two hours and allowed time to dry to be effective.
We avoid re-applying herbicides too soon after a previous treatment because too much can cause injury to your grass.
All weed control applications should be watered in and it should be watered in before mowing.
Our liquid application should be allowed to completely dry before children or pets set foot on the lawn. This typically takes 1-2 hours.
Some weeds die faster than others. Weaker weeds may begin to wither in as little as three to five days. However, some stubborn weeds may take up to four weeks to be fully controlled. Depending on severity of the weed infestation, our technicians will set additional follow up treatments as needed.
Yes! Our goal is to grow the most amazing lawn you’ve ever had for you, and testing the pH levels of the soil is part of that if needed.
