november
Greenmaster’s hot tips for your lawn in November:
- by John Quinn, Master Greenkeeper
Here are November’s lawn care tips from Greenmaster’s Managing Director and Master Greenkeeper John Quinn.
Winter Aeration
From where I am sitting at the moment it doesn’t look like gardening weather, but when conditions are milder there is still a lot of work that can very usefully be done on the lawn. Winter aeration is a vital component in the quest to create the perfect lawn. By slitting the lawn on a monthly or even twice monthly basis throughout the winter months we can introduce much needed oxygen to the soil and help prevent disease and drainage problems. There is much debate as to whether you should slit tine in the same direction each time or vary the direction, I think its better to just get on and do it your way, as discussing aeration won’t improve your lawn or your street cred down the local now will it. Use a machine with knife like tines that can penetrate to at least 100mm (4 inches in old money).
Lawn Diseases
Here’s another subject that inspires much debate among greenkeepers. The list of control measures is endless, from chemicals applied religiously every month through the winter to some even more dubious old wives remedies.
However, to debate lawn disease cures is to miss the point completely as all of the common lawn diseases are symptoms of an underlying problem. They are all caused by fungi of one type or another. Lawn fungicides whilst still having a place in lawn management from time to time, kill off all fungi in the soil. Unfortunately a lot of the fungi found in the soil are actually beneficial to the lawn and help grass pants to uptake and use nutrients more efficiently. Other lawn disorders such as squidge and algae are similarly symptoms of underlying problems.
Here comes the easy bit, all of these problems are caused or encouraged by poor lawn maintenance! If you’ve been paying attention through the last few months you will start to see a pattern of good practice. Although you might still need to use a curative fungicide to tackle a major disease outbreak, you should do so on a spot treatment basis i.e. treat only the disease patches. Your disease management strategy should major on cultural rather than chemical practices. Practices like regular aeration, thatch control, drainage improvement, soil improvement through hollow tining and adding sandy topdressings especially on clay soils, balanced nutrition and not over fertilising, dew removal, worm cast control and removal, balanced irrigation and not over watering, grass clipping removal and improvement in air circulation around the lawn which sometimes will involve pruning trees and shrubs to allow greater air flow.
Winter fertilising
A contentious issue this one as many people believe that you shouldn’t add fertilisers through the winter months. Let me tell you they are mostly wrong. Fine turf is grown under conditions that can best be described as unnatural. This means that we have to help it along with programmed nutritional inputs. In the winter the grass plant comes under all sorts of stresses such as cold, wet and freezing at a time when it is least able to recover. By adding selected nutrients we can help it to survive and stay in better shape than it other wise would be able to. One of the main nutrients that grass plants need in abundance to combat stress is Potassium (the K in NPK). However when it comes to Potassium the grass plant becomes a bit like a dog in that it will employ a strategy called luxury uptake, in other words it will take up all of the potassium available to it whether it needs it or not. By the time it really does need it its already been used up, so it is important to add this nutrient in small doses throughout the winter. Iron (Fe) is a minor nutrient that really plays a major role in the winter, by combating disease outbreak and sometimes even stopping an outbreak that has already started. It also gives the grass a luxurious green colour through the winter months. Use a fertiliser from Angus that contains very low Nitrogen (N), high potassium (K) and some Iron (Fe) and apply this at 35 g/m2 every 5 to 6 weeks throughout the winter.