Omaha weather is unpredictable, however you can count on our reliable services to ensure your snow removal needs are professionally manged. Whether for your home, business, or property you manage we will diligently ensure your property is being adequately cared for. Inquire now about rates and plans to be prepared for the snow season that lies ahead.
Fall is here and the honey-do list keeps growing longer. Let Omaha Friendly Services help get your lawn and landscape into shape before winter approaches!
What you do with your lawn and landscape in the fall helps determine how your property will look when spring arrives.
Below is a list to make sure your lawn and landscape are properly prepared for the coming winter, our FRIENDLY-DO LIST:
-Complete leaf & debris cleanup of all Lawn and Landscape Areas
-Bush trimming / Dead heading of roses and perennials / Landscape bed cleanups
-Gutter Cleaning
-Tree & Hedge Trimming
-Lawn Winterization Fertilizer
-Sprinkler System Winterization
When you call in for your fall services, make sure to ask for your FREE snow removal estimate!
This is some great advice via PLANET. Did we mention we give free estimates?
The Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) offers consumers advice about how to tackle their yard. It is important to know when doing it yourself is a good option and when it is best to hire a professional.
PLANET suggests that people first focus on making sure that their lawn, plants, trees, and shrubs are healthy. Do a walk-through of the yard, look at the plants, trees, and shrubs and make sure they look green and healthy. If the lawn is patchy and brown or the plants, trees, or shrubs are diseased, it is a good idea to call a professional lawn care company to make an assessment and offer solutions.
Hire a professional for:
Landscape design and installation — Most people, with the exception of very experienced gardeners, do not feel comfortable designing a landscape, so they generally turn to professionals for design and installation help.
New lawn installation or major repairs — Installing a new yard or repairing a damaged yard is difficult and time consuming. Professional companies have the equipment, training, and the skills to do this task, and to do it safely. It is important to the value of a home that the lawn is in good condition.
Irrigation, aeration, and lighting projects — Projects such as installing irrigation systems, aerating a lawn, and installing outdoor lighting are usually done by people with professional grade equipment and expertise.
Do it yourself for:
Maintenance — Some people opt to have lawn care and landscaping companies mow, weed, prune, and trim hedges on a regular basis. However, homeowners with an interest in gardening or who are looking to save money can do some of their own maintenance.
Seasonal sprucing up — Homeowners can add a lot to their curb appeal by planting seasonal annuals, and by mulching and cleaning up plant beds.
For more information, or to find a lawn care and landscape professional, log on to
LandcareNetwork.org/findaprofessional or call the PLANET office at (800) 395-2522.
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln recently released its latest horticulture update. The following is taken directly from their release and details lawn problems that are currently occurring.
White grubs- Three-year (May/June beetles) and annual white grubs (masked chafers and Japanese beetles) damage is appearing. Damage initially appears as patches of discolored grass, similar to drought stress. On examination, turf will pull up like a rug and white grubs will be found beneath the sod. Damage thresholds are highly variable because precipitation or irrigation (more grubs can be tolerated with more moisture), species (tall fescue is more tolerant of feeding damage than Kentucky bluegrass), expectations, etc. Generally, preventative control control is warranted if the area has a history of damage or curatiove control if 5-8 (three year ) or 8-10 (annual) grubs can be found per square foot or if damage is unacceptable, Trichlorfon (Dylox) is the most appropriate curative control to apply at this time of year. Correct irrigation is important for effectiveness and turfgrass recovering.
Dollar Spot causes small (three to six inch diameter), roughly circular patches in lawns. Spots may coalesce into a large patch. Grass blades have tan, band-like lesions with red margins. Damage is usually most severe where there is a nitrogen deficiency. With fall fertilization, most lawns recover well. Fungicide treatments are available if needed.
Stem rust appears as an orangish-yellow powder (spores) on grass blades in late summer and the lawn may develop a yellow or brown appearance. Rust typically develops on lawns with slow growth. Fall lawn care, including fertilization and correct irrigation, along with cooler fall weather promotes turfgrass growth and rust usually disappears. Fungicide controls are rarely suggested for home lawns. Note for Sports Turf: If stem rust occurs on sports fields, the fungal spores can cause problems for allergy/asthma sufferers. Control of stem rust is recommended on sports turfs using a combination of turf management and timely fungicide applications.
Do:
Continue to mow regularly, never removing more than 1/3 of the grass in one mow.
Continue to mow at a higher setting to shade the grass blades.
Mow with a sharp blade to prevent the grass trips from fraying. Frayed tips increases yours lawn’s susceptibility to pests and disease.
Water your lawn deeply (usually about 45 minutes each station). Doing this 3-5 times a week encourages deep root growth.
Begin planning for any fall renovation work that might need to be done. This season has been tough on lawns, and now is the time to begin planning how to get your lawn back into shape for next season.
Do NOT:
Allow unnecessary traffic through your lawn. Walking or playing in the lawn during extreme heat will lead to yellowing of the trampled areas.
Water your lawn in the afternoon or at night. Watering during these periods increases your lawn’s susceptibility to pests and fungus. Water in the morning instead.
Try to plant seed in problem areas at this time. You will have a much better germination rate seeding in the Fall, normally between August 15th and September 15th.
Treat a pest problem you do not have. If you think you may have a fungus or pest problem, contact a professional and have them provide a free analysis of the problem. Adding unnecessary chemicals to a lawn can throw the nutrient balance off.
Over-fertilize your lawn with too much Nitrogen. Adding excess Nitrogen encourages more growth than the grass can support, and will begin to turn yellow as a result.
Below you will find some timely gardening tips taken from the University of Nebraska’s weekly Horticulture update.
Blossom end rot (Tomato) is a common problem of tomatoes, but also occurs on peppers, eggplant, squash and watermelon. It appears as a flat, dry, sunken, brown rot on the blossom end of the fruit, opposite the stem end. The size of the rotted area varies, but can cover up to 50% of the fruit. This problem is a physiological disorder associated with a calcium deficiency in the developing fruit. Rarely is the problem a lack of calcium in the soil. Drought stress, low daytime humidity, high temperatures and rapid, vegetative plant growth caused by excess nitrogen applications favor blossom end rot development. To reduce it, prevent drought stress, mulch with organic mulch and avoid excess nitrogen fertilization.
Poor fruit set (Peppers, Zucchini, Tomatoes, etc.) - is being reported on some fruit bearing vegetables, especially tomatoes. This could be weather related. For insect pollinated vegetables, our frequent and heavy rains may be reducing insect activity and/or adequate pollination.
Other factors that can affect vegetable pollination include daytime temperatures above 90 degrees, and/or nightime temperatures above 70 degrees. Ideal conditions for pollination are moderate temperatures, 59-68 degrees.
Plants receiving excessive fertilization and abundant moisture often produce excessive foliage growth that inhibits flower formation. However, very low fertility levels, substantial damage from insects or diseases, and inadequate moisture can also inhibit flower development.
Provide plants with good basic growing requirements, without over or under fertilizing, so that flower clusters are produced. In small gardens, hand pollination can be done to encourgage fruit formation. If the lack of fruit set is due to temperature conditions, plants often begin to set fruits again when temperatures have cooled.
Rain water use in vegetable gardens - Water collected from rooftop runoff is not recommended for use in the vegetable garden, due to pathogens in bird droppings that can be washed from the roof and into the rain barrel. If gardeners are determined to use rain water in the vegetable garden, it is best to apply the water to the base of plants at the soil surface. Avoid overhead irrigation with rain water and avoid application to leafy greens. Wash all produce harvested from the garden thoroughly before use.
Summer patch fungus in lawn
It looks like this year is going to be a repeat of last year. We’ve received over 150% of normal precipitation over the last 30 days. The massive amount of precipitation has discouraged root growth. Now that the heat is setting in, photsynthetic activity is severly limited. Since the grass cannot undergo photosynthesis properly it must resort to using nutrients stored in the roots. The rain, however, has severly limited the amount of nutrients able to be stored. These conditions are, unfortunately, perfect for the formation of fungus and to heat stress. Please read the link below in order to fully understand how the weather will affect your lawn in the coming months.
http://turf.unl.edu/pdfctarticles/Julytoowetagain.pdf
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln does a great job of researching proper turf management. In fact, we try to model our lawncare program around their reccomendations. Following their recommendation, we have started our third application– grub control. The fertilizer is low in Nitrogen to prevent any burning from the hot summer. It will also help prevent larvae from feeding on your root structure.
Due to the heat we will only be spot spraying weeds that are in lawns. Spraying anything more than the label suggests runs the risk of damaging the grass. Please click the link below to read an article about the proper maintenance practice with this application.
Second Application
It seems like it has taken awhile to warm up, but spring in finally here! The spring seeding window (the time of spring with moderate temperatures that allows seed to germinate) is coming to an end and it is time to put down the second application of fertilizer. This application will be a Pre-emergent fertilizer for all properties. This allows us to maintain season-long grassy weed control by preventing grassy weeds from germinating.
This is also a great time to spray for broadleaf and grassy weeds. The ideal time is in the fall when weeds are beginning to store nutrients as they go dormant for winter. The second best time is right now—it’s warm enough to encourage growth so the weeds will take-in the spray, but it’s not too hot to do any damage to the grass.
Remember the lessons learned from last year. Late last spring and early summer brought record amounts of rainfall. This discouraged deep root growth as the plants didn’t need to drive their roots down to store nutrients. Ideally, you want your lawn to establish a deep root structure as it allows your lawn to store more nutrients and stay alive during adverse weather. A deep root structure also helps prevent against pests and disease. Last season’s weather simply didn’t cooperate as we had heavy precipitation followed by a few weeks of extreme heat. The grass did not have an established root structure to withstand the heat and, as a result, many lawns in the Metro area were incredibly stressed last year.
What can we learn from this? If possible, try to limit your irrigation during weeks where we get rain. Ideally, with no rain, you should water about 3-4 times a week for 45 minutes each station—less frequent, longer watering encourages deep root growth. Deeper root growth will allow the lawn to better handle whatever weather this summer brings.
Lastly, it’s important to understand the affect mowing has on your lawn. It is best to mow your lawn weekly, with sharp blades, following the 1/3 rule—never remove more than 1/3 of the grass during one mowing. Mowing with dull blades causes the tips of the grass to fray, making your lawn more susceptible to pests and disease. We recommend mowing weekly as it’s a good way to make sure you are following the 1/3 rule. Mowing every 2 weeks can shock the grass as it grows a little taller and: 1) is harder to mow following the 1/3 rule, and 2) makes your mowing blade go dull sooner. If you do mow every 2 weeks, raise the height on your mower to ensure that you are not removing too much grass.