There are 25 online lawn-care publications on the Virginia Cooperative Extension website, 72 on the North Carolina site, 35 on the Maryland site. Your lawn, your turf is serious business, big business, your business and their business.

In late summer you’re advised to begin the annual overhaul of cool-season grasses—Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass and fine-leaf fescues. From Aug. 15 to Oct. 15, you are expected to aerate, over-seed, dethatch and fertilize. At the same time you should apply a pre-emergent herbicide to control annual bluegrass and winter annual broadleaves including chickweed, deadnettle, geranium and henbit.

When temperatures dip below 50 degrees Fahrenheit you are advised to apply post-emergence herbicides specific to those weeds you or the extension agent have identified. While you’re at it, remember to control the diseases and pests. Oh! And renovate the patches deadened by the heat and drought with fresh sod implants. Now, begin watering if you can afford that precious commodity. If not, forget about aerating, over-seeding, dethatching and fertilizing. Stressed-out grass will wither away under that additional pressure.

All that work for a swath of green grass at your front door? Feeling like a serf tied to the turf? Of course you could pay a lawn service to take over this endless project. Have they read those publications and are they adhering to the schedule? Check. That’s your job as a wise consumer; so you have to read all those brochures, too, and provide them for the lawn service, which you must diligently monitor at each and every encounter. Do not assume they have read, understood or intend to follow the well-researched information.

There are alternatives: reduced lawn size, white clover (Trifolium repens), warm season grasses (Bermudagrass, zoysiagrass), organic treatments and an eclectic mix of green vegetation that chooses to grace your land with no irrigation, chemicals or any intervention other than mowing. The latter is what I see in the majority of yards within a 50-mile radius of the counties this paper serves. Those with pampered lawns are browning-out. Those with the eclectic mix are green. Seems native “weeds” are prepared for scorchers.

More affluent folk go the lawn service route, but even they are reducing watering, which makes sense because dormancy is setting in. It would be unwise to break this hot weather dormancy then assault the grass with heat and humidity after you are assaulted with your water bill or the well drops perilously low.

Only golf courses using cool season grasses are consistently watering putting greens and the fairways’ narrow stretches. Those who have created their long green avenues with warm season grasses, especially zoysia, are in the catbird seat. But come the first hard frost, a golden hue will cover those fairways, though putting greens will be kept firm and lush. You could do the same with a hefty installation price tag but enjoy long-term, low-cost, low-maintenance.

Choices. Gardening is always a matter of choices. The wise gardener, however, plans for choices instead of being crisis-driven. The wise gardener is nimble, ready to change when the best plans have failed.

The theme of all sound, garden advice is science-based research. I hope you have established the habit of examining the science behind a recommendation. Don’t accept unsupported opinions unless you have checked them out. Your time and money are too precious to squander on unproven methods. Happy gardening!

TIP OF THE WEEK
Maintain a tidy area around fruit trees. Banish fallen fruit to a hot compost pile for final natural incineration of incubating diseases and insect pests. Basil becomes bitter tasting as it ages on the stalk; so plant seedlings for a September harvest. Bookmark the Virginia Cooperative Extension website http://www.ext.vt.edu/. Email their publications’ authors or contact the local Extension Agent. They’re very responsive.