What is the Big Deal About Your Lawn?

It is easy to overlook the many reasons why a healthy lawn is an essential part of our lives. Lawn care professionals share a basic goal: improve the quality of our lives and the quality of our environment. This is one of our goals at LawnAmerica.

Training, education, careful product selection, and proper application allow us to improve your landscape for your benefit, your pet, and the environment.

What Are Some Direct Benefits of Professional Lawn Care?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in its “Health Lawn, Healthy Environment – Caring for Your Lawn in an Environment-Friendly Way” brochure (OPPTS, 6/1992) states:

“Thick grass prevents soil erosion, filters contaminants from rain water, and absorbs many types of airborne pollutants, like dust and soot.  Grass is also highly efficient at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, a process that helps clean the air.  Caring for your lawn properly can both enhance its appearance and contribute to its environmental benefits.”

	Aesthetically Pleasing The values of turfed areas have been recognized for their beauty. Today, lawns are an integral part of home landscaping and public parks Business Improvement Businesses and manufacturing complexes that have well-maintained grassy areas create a favorable impression to the general public, employees, and customers. Lawns increase the value of property by up to 15 percent.  Climate Control Turfgrasses create appreciably cool temperatures, thus working as exterior “air conditioners. Dust Filter Dust and smoke particles from the atmosphere are trapped by turf, keeping our air cleaner and fresher. Erosion Control Grasses greatly control erosion by intercepting both raindrops before they disturb the soil and slow-flowing water so that larger soil particles are captured from the collected water. Fire Retardation Buffer areas of well-maintained grassy lawns around buildings are good insurance against fire. Water Filter A dense turf enhances groundwater in two ways. First, turfgrases increase water filtration. They also clean the water as it passes through the grass so that underground water supplies are replenished for our use.		Noise Reducer Grassy areas reduce excessive sound, something especially appreciated in urban areas. Grassy slopes beside lowered expressways decrease noise 8 – 10 decibels. Oxygen factory The oxygen generated by turfgrasses has a major impact on making our environment habitable. A 50-foot by 50-foot lawn produces enough oxygen for a family of four to breathe for one year. Pollutant Blocker Turfgrasses absorb such pollutants as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, which renders the air unfit to breathe. Turfgrass thatch also acts as a barrier that deters chemicals from entering the soil profile. Quiet Inducing Grassy areas, whether aspects of parks, golf courses, memorials, or homes, affect mood and create feelings of serenity, thoughtfulness, happiness, or sadness, depending on our personal associations. Therapeutic The care of turfgrasses and other plants is considered so therapeutic it is used in a variety of rehabilitation programs including those for the ill, elderly, handicapped, and the incarcerated. Market Value Monetary value is associated with a well-manicured lawn. As a result, sales prices of homes may increase up to 20 percent.

LawnAmerica Pride

We take pride in what we do because we know we are making an impact on our communities, and on you, the homeowner and business owner. We believe that providing you with a healthy lawn and landscape contributes to the overall aesthetic quality of your environment in which you live – an important benefit which is difficult to calculate. We love what we do!

LawnAmerica has joined a new organization called The Yard Enthusiasts of America (YEA!). YEA is an online community sponsored by Project EverGreen as a way to connect people like you to others who love their yards. The goal is to create a place where you can share your common interests; blog and exchange ideas, get tips and information about yards; view and post photos, and generally connect with other yard enthusiasts.

When you get some time, visit YEA on the internet at www.yardenthusiasts.com. Continued education about your lawn and landscape is important to building and maintaining a healthy lawn and landscape!

If you have a Bermudagrass lawn, you may notice many brown circles appearing as your grass is trying to green-up this spring. No, it is not crop circles, but rather a very common and troublesome turf disease called Spring Dead Spot. Spring Dead Spot is a turf disease which is unique only to Bermudagrass, especially certain cultivars. 

It is caused by a common fungus, which actually infects the turf during the fall. The symptoms do not actually appear until the following spring, as circular dead areas up to several feet in diameter. The surrounding grass will be green and healthy, only to be infiltrated with a few up to many round dead areas, sometimes filled with weeds, with little healthy turf to help crowd them out. If you have a severe case of Spring Dead Spot, the spots will re-appear every season, often in the same place. Certain varieties of Bermudagrass are more prone to this disease than others. Hard winters seem to increase the severity of the disease in the spring. It has nothing to do with whether you use a lawn service. It is a disease, and it hits wherever it wants.   

The dead areas will eventually fill in with Bermudagrass as summer progresses. It often takes much of the summer for this to happen though, so your lawn may not look real good for much of the early summer. You can speed up the fill-in by filling the circles with a 1⁄2” layer of good, black topsoil. This will help the surrounding grass fill in much quicker. You could also dig out the spots, replace with some good soil, and place a fresh piece of Bermuda sod on top. Try to match up with the same variety of Bermudagrass you now have, which may be difficult. 

Prevention is the Key!

There is a preventative treatment we can do in the fall, which has been shown to lessen the severity of Spring Dead Spot the following spring. A special turf fungicide can be applied at a fairly specific time—at the first onset of cooler fall weather. That is when the fungus infects the turf. Although it has shown some fairly good results, like most lawncare treatments, it is not a 100% guarantee that you will have zero spots the following spring. We would recommend you try this treatment and see if it works for your lawn. The fungicide cost is more than most other products we use, so our fee is 1.5 times your normal lawn treatment price. Contact us for more information or to schedule this service.

Copyright LawnAmerica 2006