Spring Lawn Care and Gardening Tips

Spring Tips for Lawn and Garden

February is really early spring in parts of Zone 7 and most of Zone 8. It's time now to beginning to work on things that will make your garden bloom or produce much better than last year. And a lawn needs attention to inhibit new weed growth in the late spring and summer.

First I'll talk about lawns. Every lawn is susceptible to weeds and they're a giant pain in the neck to get rid of too. A lawn that has a lot of weeds like crabgrass, dandelion and perennial rye has problems. Mine has all those in addition to chickweed, burdock, purslane and hensbit. I finally did something about it though and last year many of these weeds were gone. This year I'm waging all out war on these nasties.

Every lawn needs feeding and lots of lawn fertilizers have a weed inhibitor and also some pre-emergents mixed in. Got to Home Depot and take some time to look around, read labels and talk to some of the sales helpers. It pays off. I got a Scotts product that both fed my lawn and had a pre-emergent in it for crabgrass. It says it will also inhibit other weeds but crabgrass was the focus. I didn't want to get a push seed spreader so I just bought a cheap, hand-held version that you fill and crank as you walk off squares of the lawn. Most of these combinations are not supposed to be used but twice in the year, so read instructions and do just as they say. Lawn grass can be killed if too many chemicals are put down in a season. Fertilize only a couple of times a year as well, if you do it separately. It may take two or even three seasons to get a lawn back to pristine state, but it's worth it, because once a lawn becomes thick an healthy, it's really less susceptible to any further weeds.