Irrigating is critical but how much depends on the season and the sod type. In the summer months you’ll need to water it in religously for three weeks. Early in the morning is most ideal time. Avoid night time watering. Depending on water pressure, you’ll want to water 30 minutes or so. Keeping the sod moist like a sponge is what you’re aiming for. Root establishment typically takes about three weeks and you can slowly cut back to three times a week watering routine.

We recommend three checkpoints to prepare for your first mowing of new sod. Number one, root establishment of the three week period. Number two, allow the growth height to reach no more than 1/3 of the total length that will be cut off. Number three, allowing soils to dry from routine watering by eliminating irrigation the day before mowing to ensure no ruts or additional stress is not put on your new sod.

Mow 1/3 of the total length off or less upon each mowing. Although we do offer a budget friendly program that is bi-weekly, we recommend during the growing season weekly mowing is best. This ulitmately keeps a healthier looking lawn. Don’t forget to rotate your mowing pattern to avoid lawn mower track line ruts.

Every spring there needs to be a start up routine to begin your watering cycle. Regain access to water flow by turning on all your valves. Set up your watering schedule on your clock appropriately to your landscape, water pressure and appropriately in accordance to your nozzles, head types or drip lines. Adjust all irrigation heads to ensure effecient coverage and repair any inoperational parts. In the winter, shut down your irrigation by draining the water out of all lines and turning your clock to the off position.

If you begin to see your landscape washing, don’t panic! Typically this doesn’t happen overnight, so rarely is this an emergency. Water management through underground drainage, dry creek beds, grade changes and/or retaining walls are a few ways to properly attend to these problems. Make sure your new grass and plants installed in these areas are adaptable to the conditions to ensure root establishment for additional erosion control.

If your grass is thinning it can be caused by a number of reasons. The most common issues our team sees is an abundance of shade from a maturing landscape. Warm season grasses need full sun to thrive and be healthy. Even cool season grass needs some sunlight. Some solutions could be pruning surrounding landscape to allow more sunlight in, removing the overgrown landscape and replace it with a new landscape with a smaller maturity or even re-evaluate your grass type for the conditions.

The most common mistake made in caring for crape myrtles is the practice of “topping.” Topping involves removing branches and trunks from the top down, trimming all material above a certain height. Usually, all leaves, blooms, and other green material are removed, leaving only bare trunks. Because of their resilience, topped crape myrtles do not die, but begin new growth from the height to which they were trimmed. As the topping is repeated year-to-year, the lower trunks of the crape myrtle age, while the top can remain twiggy.

Aeration is the process of removing holes or “plugs” from your turf. This will improve air movement of the soil, disrupts soil compaction, and also boosts nutrient and water absorption which will allow stronger grass roots to form.

Seeding is necessary to fill in bare areas of your turf to achieve a full, lush lawn. The best time to overseed is in the fall to avoid the grass seed from germinating with weeds as they begin to form in the springtime. Spring seeding is rarely successful and not recommended.