The Three Steps To A Healthy Lawn

Bruce Granger:

Hello, I’m Bruce Granger with NaturaLawn of America. So, today, we were going to talk about what it takes to have a nice-looking lawn. So, they equate it to a three-legged stool. And basically on a three-legged stool, if it has three legs, it takes all three legs to stand, so there’s not one that’s more important than the other. For the lawn, it’s proper mowing, proper watering, and a good fertilization program.

At NaturaLawn of America, we have a good fertilization program. The fertilizer that we use is an organic-based product, so it is a little safer, a little more environmentally friendly, but it’s patented and proprietary to NaturaLawn. And all of our applications are done with a granular fertilizer, and we use a drop spreader to do that. We use specific amounts of fertilizer so that we’re getting the proper nutrients with each application that we do.

Then we go over the lawn after we fertilize with the liquid herbicide for weed control. And one of the differences between us and some of the competition is we’re only hitting areas where you have weeds. So, we can use about 85% less chemicals with this two-step process, rather than having everything mixed and getting a hundred percent saturation on the lawn when we do an application, even if you don’t have any weeds.

So, within the program that we do, we do eight applications annually. We start in February, and we are putting down root feedings with lower nitrogen levels and pre-emergents. And the pre-emergents help to suppress the seeds that are in the soil to an extent. Then we do four growth feedings for the long growing season that we have here. In the fall, we go back with another root feeding to support the grass through the winter, and a pre-emergent, because we have two growing seasons in the Houston area, summer annual and a winter annual growth season. So, the fall pre-emergent helps to suppress some of the winter annual growth. Then we also work from a soil test as part of our program. And the last application that we do at the end of the year is a soil amendment, and that’s based on what we see with the soil test results.

So, that’s the fertilization program that we do. And really, a lot of people will ask, “How soon am I going to see results?” Well, if your lawn’s not in real good shape, it’s like you joining a gym if you’re not in real good shape. If you join a gym and go one time, it’s not going to hurt you, but you’re probably not going to see a lot of results. And the process for the lawn is the same thing. It’s a process. You’re going to see results with the first application, but it’s going to take time to get the lawn healthier and thicker and to start to reduce the weeds that are in the lawn. And that’s what we do with the program.