It is sweltering hot and humid out there!  Many homeowners like you want to know how you can help your lawn and garden make it through this heat.
Forecasts highs of 34 deg C (93 F) today and 37 deg C (98 F) for tomorrow will likely break and achieve all time heat records.  Then when you add in the humidity, we are well into the 40′s C (100-115 F)!
This kind of heat is the equivalent of planting your lawn into a sauna and expecting it to survive.
Here are some quick tips and reminders on how to help your lawn and valuable trees, shrubs and flowers make it through these difficult times.

WATERING TIPS
- Recognize that all plants have different watering needs, turf needs on average 1.5″-2″ of water per week over one to two waterings.  Annual flowers may need daily watering, especially if newly planted or in elevated beds or pots that dry out more quickly.  Trees need at least one good soaking every 3-4 weeks using our slow drip method (below).
- Water deeply and regularly using our guidelines:  high temperatures and wind can dessicate the ground very quickly so the soil will need replenishing. Shallow and frequent watering causes more harm than you think.  Sprinkler systems that go on every day for 10-15 minutes don’t create healthy plants and only create a false state of security.
- Water in the morning or early evening:  to prevent water loss from evaporation.  If watering at night, you may encourage some leaf diseases and fungal issues.  These normally won’t kill plants and are more aesthetic.  Better to water at night then to never water at all.
- Water the soil, not the leaves:  This helps reduce disease and leaf injury from sun scorch.
- Get a hose end timer!:  One of the main reasons people don’t get around to watering is that they don’t have the time to hang around and turn the hose off.  Well, these relatively inexpensive devices will turn off the water for you after a predetermined interval.  Budget about $25-$100 depending on manual vs. digital.
- Dont forget your trees!: They need deep watering too.  Use our slow drip method; turn the hose on just enough to achieve  a slow drip or trickle, place the hose at the base of the tree and go away for a while…  Have a cold drink and only move the hose after you see the water puddling up on the surface.  Depending on the size of the tree, you may have to move it around a few times, this method ensures the roots get a deep soaking.  Spruces are particularly vulnerable to drought stress and damage from this year often shows up in later years.  A single medium to large tree can take 3-5 hours to do this right.
- Thunderstorms are useless!:  Seriously, just because we get 3″ of rain in 10 minutes, doesn’t mean the soil absorbed any of it!  Check for yourself, grab a shovel and check a small spot after a storm, you’ll be lucky if the water soaked the top inch of soil.  The ground becomes so hard in the summer with the heat , that soil can become hydrophobic, and actually repel water, especially clay soils.  If this is the case, water in intervals until it starts to absorb (water for 15 minutes, wait 30 minutes, repeat). I recommend to disregard thunderstorms as a source of beneficial water entirely.

MOWING TIPS
The first rule is that if you follow the rules, mowing will be easier!
- Throw out your calendar: Grass cant tell if its the weekend or not, it needs to be mowed when it needs to be mowed.  This depends on the season and the weather, no matter how important or busy you think you are, the lawn doesnt care…humbling, I know!
- 1/3rd rule:  Mow as often as necessary so that you are never removing more than one third of the blade at each mowing.  The good news is, this prevents having to rake and bag clippings.  The lawn can easily absorb and decompose clippings of this size without causing excess thatch.  It will even add some nutrients back into the soil.
- Mow high: No not literally, we are talking about turf-grass! Keep the lawn at 2 3/4- 3″ high, not because I said so, but because whoever you believe created grass, made it that way.  It needs to be at the height to achieve a healthy root system and give you the nice lush look you want.  Any thing lower, reduces the abilty to produce a proper root system, and also cuts off the main leaves that give you the thick lush look, plus the leaves are the food storage- If you want the look of a golf green, then buy a $4000.00 greens mower, be prepared to water daily, install a $50,000 drainage system under your lawn, fertilize weekly, have plenty of fungicide on hand and plant bentgrass or annual bluegrass that were made to grow and be mowed that short!
- Bag clippings when weeds are in seed: The only time you really need to bag clippings is when the weeds are in flower (seeds come right after the flower), this helps to prevent the spread of weeds and is an important tenet of organic lawn care.
- Sharpen your blade: One of the most common problems we see with lawns is the “torn-look” of mowing with a dull blade.  Not only does this make the grass tips look brown, fuzzy and ragged, it invites disease by increasing the surface area for pathogen entry.
- Change up your pattern: Mow in different directions to prevent rutting, compaction and pr0duces a more vibrant stand of grass.
- DONT MOW when the lawn is stressed: especially with heavy machinery and big tires that only further rip already weak and stressed blades. Take a break, the lawn probably hasn’t even grown that much (see throw out your calendar, 1/3 rule, etc.)

July 12th 2011: (Observations from the field in the Greater Toronto Area)

This Spring brought lots of rain through April and May, in fact, record rainfalls that made it very difficult to get out and work in your lawn and garden.  Lawns were spoiled and became complacent and lazy by not sending deep roots down in the soil to look for water.  June and July have brought very dry conditions with what is proving to be a hot and sunny summer with no rain except for the odd scattered thunderstorm (thunderstorms provide a lot of water in a short span and rarely soak the soil sufficiently).  Shallow rooted grass species such as Bentgrass, Annual Bluegrass and Rough Bluegrass expanded and thrived in lawns.  Lawns with shallow root systems are more susceptible to drought as the soil temperature is much higher near the surface.

This means lawns everywhere are going dormant, but not dead.  Dormant lawns are characterized by the yellow, brown appearance.  Most lawns can withstand not being watered for up t0 4-6 weeks, however damage can occur if they do not receive water for any longer period of time.

Most lawns will bounce back with cooler temperature and mother nature’s long rain showers, but how do you make sure?
Here are my 5 best lawn tips for summer lawn care:

1. Water deeply at least once a week for about 1.5 -2 hours in each area. Lawns need 1-1.5 inches of water each week to look their best.  Apply the water deeply no more than twice a week to deliver the prescribed amount.
2.  Mow high, at least 3 inches.  Longer blades up top, support deeper roots below!
3.  Only mow during the morning or evening, and only when the lawn reaches about 4 inches in height.  Mowing in high heat causes mechanical damage from the weight of the machine, and even more stress with walking on it during the intense heat and sun. (leaving the lawn to get too long and then hacking it down causes even more stress- expect yellowing within days!)
4.  Limit activity on the lawn.  The dormant blades and crowns are easily injured at this time.
5.  Check for Chinch bugs!  Chinch bugs love the heat and sun and can actively be sucking the remaining juices from your grass blades and inserting their turf killing toxic poison while you sit idly by.  Chinch damaged turf will not grow back and you will need to seed and top-dress these areas in September.
5 1/2. Fertilize only with a proper summer-balanced slow release fertilizer.  Using the wrong fertilizer can cause surge growth using up the plants vital energy for no benefit.  Better yet, you can burn your lawn by using quick release fertilizers or using too much at the wrong time of the year.

Important Notes: The typical Ontario lawn is primarily Kentucky Bluegrass.  It is important to note that you need to accept that most plants (including turf) just can’t grow in intense heat with no rain.  Even Weed Control is not as effective during high heat as the plant under stress can not absorb it adequately.  It is not reasonable to expect a Thick, Green lawn during times of drought, but with proper care, your lawn will bounce back beautifully in September while your neighbours are left scratching their heads.

Unsure of what to do on your lawn with all this heat? Leave us a comment, we’d love to help!

Yellow-headed sawfly are attacking spruce trees right now.

If something is eating the needles on your Spruce, you have Sawfly.

These voracious eaters strip needles from spruce, and those needles will NEVER grow back. In three years, they can kill a tree. If your spruce is under attack DO NOT PRUNE the stripped branches. The bud at the tip is still alive, and will produce new needles next Spring which will disguise the damage.

The adult sawfly - a tiny, non-stinging wasp

The adult stage of sawfly, Pikonema alaskensis, is a small, non-stinging wasp. It’s young, the larvae, are what is eating your spruce.

Sawfly larva starting to devour a new needle

They’re hard to detect at first, because they take on the colour of the needles they eat as camouflage. Look for them carefully though, as waiting until you see damage can result in this:

A healthy tree can end up like this very quickly

If your spruce is infested, WE CAN KILL THEM, starting as low as $79.95 + tax. Give us a call right away!

Your best defence is to be proactive. Watch for damage or larvae throughout June. If you find only a few larva, and you only have a few trees, you may be able to take care of them yourself.

You can just pull this pest off with your fingers

Look for the larvae at the tips of the needles. They can be picked off with your fingers if there are only a couple.

If you have many trees, a pressure-sprayer loaded with a mix of 5 ml (1 teaspoon) of plain liquid dish soap in 4 l (1 gallon) of water can be used to blast them off temporarily.  Call LawnSavers if you need our help managing this destructive pest!

The sawfly only has one breeding cycle a year, so get them quickly and have peace of mind!

Leatherjackets will wash out of a lawn after a heavy rain

We have been seeing a lot of Leatherjacket insects in lawns in the GTA in the last week. The rain has been a help, as it washes them out where they can be seen easily and encourages the grass to grow through the damage they cause.

If you are finding these larvae on your driveway or sidewalk, please call and let us know. We have an effective treatment that will help reduce the Leatherjacket population on your lawn and stop them from killing your grass. This treatment starts at just $79.00 + HST!

If they are appearing in your area, please comment below or on our Facebook page and help us track where these insects are attacking.

One of our clients sent us this photo of a Leatherjacket that was washed onto his driveway. Thanks, Paul!

(Written July 2010) It has been a brutally dry year overall for grass. Two years of record wet summers followed by a record dry Spring in decades has been followed by unseasonably high temperatures and humidity. The few long rains we’ve had were welcome, but they didn’t make a big dent in our water debt, and the fast rain from thunderstorms just runs off. People are having a lot of trouble watering their lawns enough to keep them healthy. So lawns are getting sick right now, both from dehydration and a summer fungus called blight or summer patch. You can fix both problems yourself.

Drought injured grass

Blight damaged turf exacerbated by activity on lawn

Think about how rough you feel after working in this heat. After cutting your grass you are dying for a drink of water, and the humidity makes you feel sick. Your grass is out in that same heat and it can’t come inside to cool off.   The drought is bad enough, but the thick humidity and well-meaning attempts to fight the drought are also causing blight. Blight thrives between 24°C and 32°C, sending out spores to infect more grass when the temperature is above 21°C. Infected grass first turns light green, then reddish-brown, then tan, and finally straw-coloured. Many homeowners mistake blight for drought and frantically water the lawn in the heat of the day. But that just makes blight worse.

The key to telling blight from drought is location and context. Blight is most noticeable where it is normally moist and where there has been recent mechanical activity on a lawn which exacerbates the condition. You are more likely to find it in partly shaded and low-lying areas and the north side of lawns. Drought damage appears most on south-facing hills with little or no shade, and prone to dessication.

Both problems can be fixed by the same good cultural practices. First, make sure your lawnmower blade is good and sharp. The tearing caused by a dull mower blade make it easy for blight and other disease to infect grass, and makes grass lose more water from evaporation. Second, mow and water early in the morning. The lawn will be able to heal the cut tips before the sun gets too high in the sky, and any water the grass can’t absorb will evaporate gently, preventing both the dampness that fungus loves and the scalding that hits a wet lawn under full sun. Lawns need about two inches of water a week when it is this hot. Water deeply to train roots to grow deeper- consistently! It also helps to rake out any dead grass or clippings from mowing which may harbour blight spores, and let your grass grow a bit taller to three inches to shade the ground better.

Your lawn care professional can help too. An application of the proper nutrients and kelp can help your grass grow through the injury. LawnSavers also offers our kelp bio-stimulant. This all-natural product is loaded with micronutrients and natural phytochemicals that can really help grass recover from stress injury and disease. Contact us for a quote!

Mature Giant Hogweed Photo Courtesy of: Jean-Pol Grandmont

Giant hogweed, (Heracleum mantegazzianum), is an invasive new weed that is colonizing in some parts of Ontario, eastern Provinces and Western Canada. Locally, it has been found in Ottawa, Halton region, Waterloo, Markham and the Don River valley in Toronto according to a report in The Globe and Mail. Giant hogweed is very dangerous. Its sap contains furanocoumarins and is toxic on contact, causing inflammation. Worse, the sap is phototoxic, which means it gets stronger when exposed to sunlight. When this happens the sap can cause severe and disfiguring blistering.  If it gets in your eyes, it can cause temporary and even  permanent blindness. It is important to note that giant hogweed is currently only being found in wild and overgrown areas like ravines, roadsides, riverbanks, vacant lots and would likely only pose a problem for homeowners with an unmowed lawn.

Giant hogweed lives up to its name, a mature plant growing to over fifteen feet in height. You can identify it by the large, serrated elephant-ear shaped leaves and a hairy, purplish-red stem.  It is difficult to identify in it’s infancy and can be confused with several other weeds- do your homework. It also produces clusters of white flowers in an umbrella-like formation in June and July.  It reproduces by seed each year.

If you find a giant hogweed, leave it alone, and contact a licenced professional weed exterminator like LawnSavers to remove it. Teach children what it looks like by keeping them informed, to keep away from the plant if they see it, and to tell you or another adult.  If you get the sap on your body, immediately wash the area with soap and water and seek medical attention. Keep the exposed area out of the sun for several days.

If you have to remove the plant yourself, make sure you are completely covered in protective clothing, and wear impermeable gloves and eye wear. Put any seed heads in a separate and tied plastic bag and dispose of it in the garbage, not the green bin, so the seeds do not spread. Roots can be deep and should be cut 12 inches deep. If you are just finding juvenile shoots, mowing regularly will kill the shoots and eventually exhaust the supply of seeds in the soil. Just be extra careful and follow the noted safety procedures when disposing of the clippings.  Since it is considered a noxious weed in most municipalities, a licensed weed exterminator like LawnSavers can use a chemical pesticide to kill the plant properly when it is young, down to it’s roots. You can also contact your local or regional conservation authority for additional information.

Please be prudent & careful.  This plant is beginning to spread far too qucikly for our liking.  It’s time for the government to step up and take responsibility and create an action plan to eradicate this imported and invasive species rather than pandering to anti-pesticide sentiment among some well meaning but misinformed activists.

For more information and pictures see: Ontario Weeds

Call LawnSavers Plant Heath Care at 1-888-503-LAWN(5296) or email us through our contact page
For general questions call TeleHealth Ontario at 1-866-797-0000 or TTY 1-866-797-0007

L: Chinch Adult R: Chinch Nymph (baby)

Our technicians are finding adult chinch bugs emerging from thatch as well as their young,  commonly called ’nymphs’.  We started finding them earlier in June which is earlier than we normally see them appearing. The hot, dry weather is to blame.  Adult chinch bugs emerge, mate and lay eggs when the ‘bird’s foot trefoil’ weed is in flower.  The nymphs which cause the most damage hatch over several weeks.

Chinch bugs are arguably one of the most common insect pests on home lawns.  What the early appearance of adults means for this year’s chinch populations isn’t clear yet. It is the immature, reddish in colour,  chinch bug nymph that damages lawns, and an early start on adult activity may mean more young are born. On the other hand, if temperatures and rain return to seasonable levels, the red nymphs may suffer some degree of natural abatement.

Are you seeing fist-sized brown spots? Is most of the damage on the south-facing part of your lawn? Are the damaged spots growing together?

Chinch prefer hot, dry, south-facing slopes

Since we can’t predict how heavy chinch activity is going to be we count on you to be vigilant – watch your lawn for the signs and let us know when they appear, so that remedial steps can be taken.

Here is a photograph from last year of an infested lawn. This hill faces south, and you can see the characteristic damage of small patches that will eventually meld together. Chinch bugs suck the juices out of the grass blade and inject a venom toxic to the leaf blade, resulting in the death of the grass blade.  Roots are normally unharmed, but will quickly die if the lawn is not well watered.  Water heavily to help areas recover quickly!

they are very tiny and tend to scurry away fast

You can also look for the bugs themselves, but chinch bugs are tiny. Kyle’s thumb dwarfs them in this photo. The blue circle shows an adult, and the red circle shows a grass-damaging nymph, or immature chinch bug. They live right down at the base of the grass, and the only way to find them, really, is to get your nose right down into the grass. They scurry for cover quickly, so watch for movement.

Adults, adolescents and nymphs can all occur at the same time

The hot weather and frequent rain are creating ideal conditions for fungus to thrive. 

Rings and crescents of dead grass are a telltale sign

 The most serious issue we see in the heat of summer is necrotic ring spot. Caused by the fungus Leptosphaeria korrae, in its advanced stage the damage takes the form of rings or crescents of dead grass.  It’s main host is unfortunately the most common grass on home lawns, Kentucky bluegrass. 

 At early stages, the damage appears as scattered patches that coalesce and pull out easily. The roots and crowns have been killed, so nothing holds the grass in the soil anymore. The fungus spreads outwards in an arc form by spores and mycelia. New grass can grow back in the region the fungus has abandoned, resulting in the characteristic ring shape. Cool wet weather promotes its growth in spring and fall, but the dry hot summer reveals its symptomatic arcs and rings more blatantly. Unchecked over years, the rings of dead grass can grow to over a couple feet in diameter. 

 There is no cure for necrotic ring spot. There is no product registered for use in Ontario or North America for that matter which will kill the fungus or stop it from infecting grass. You CAN make your lawn resistant with good cultural practices.

 If you already have it: 

•  Clean your lawn mower:  Mycelia tend to attach themselves to the underside of dirty lawn mowers and are carried from lawn to lawn.  We most often see necrotic ring spot on lawns that have a mowing service.
• Sharpen your mower blade: Torn grass blades are more easily infected because they have larger surface areas to become infected by most lawn diseases
• Fertilize with Nitrogen: LawnSavers professional fertilizer contains a high amount of slow release nitrogen which helps the lawn grow through this disease quicker. 
• Syringing: (only recommended to help reduce an identified Necrotic ring spot problem)  Water very lightly during the high heat of the day, essentially to activate the fungus and expose it to the sun, therefore decreasing its life expectancy.
• Aerate: Aerating the lawn reduces compaction thereby reducing the amount of infection.
• Over-seed with resistant varieties of Kentucky bluegrass and resistant perennial rye-grass. (LawnSavers special overseed blend is very resistant)
• Let it run it’s course!: any efforts to seed or dig it out will only be met with disappointment as disturbing it helps the fungus spread and new seedlings become infected quickly.

PREVENTION
Strong roots and resistant strains of grass will both help shield your lawn from this attack. 

• Water deeply, once or twice a week. Grass will grow roots to where the water is. Creating a deep reservoir and allowing the surface to stay drier will encourage the roots to grow long.
• Mow frequently and high, to prevent thatch build up which can snarl root growth.
• Core aerate every year to break up excess thatch and reduce soil compaction, so the roots have a better base to grow into.
• Over seed, not only to replace any grass damaged by fungus, but to introduce new, stronger varietals which resist necrotic ring spot better.

We can over seed starting at $59.95 + tax and core aerate starting at $60.00 + tax, and both services can be bundled together for bigger savings.

The unseasonable heat and terribly dry spring we have been having  are causing bentgrass and other annual weedy grasses in lawns to brown out much earlier than we normally see it. If you are seeing areas on your lawn yellowing or browning right now, there is a good chance it is Bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera),  or one of its close cousins, Poa Annua (annual bluegrass) or Poa Trivialis (Rough Bluegrass).

Bentgrass, or annual bluegrasses,  can invade a lawn through use of a low-quality seed mix, or from a nearby golf course.  It is encouraged by too frequent shallow watering.  Golf courses use bentgrass because it doesn’t mind being mowed very short. It can spread quickly through a lawn during cool, wet weather, taking over areas where the rest of your grass isn’t doing well. But it is helpless against heat and drought. Once that hits, an invaded lawn will start to brown out in large, uneven patches.

Here are some tips on identification, and what to do about bentgrass in your lawn.

The damage in this lawn is easily identified. The dividing line between healthy and dead grass is sharp. You can also see that the blades of the brown grass are much thinner than those of the healthy grass. Bentgrass also roots shallowly, which just makes droughts worse as its root structure quickly dries out in the top level of the soil, while the more deeply rooted desirable grasses remain protected deeper in the soil profile. This patch pulled right out when Kyle tugged on it.

The only way to deal with bentgrass is to replace it with more desirable grass cultivars. If you have a dead patch now, there is nothing to do but rake it all out, loosen the soil, and reseed with a proper seed varietal. In the future though, you can avoid ugly brown patches like this by dealing with patches of bentgrass before they die. In the early Spring, when everything is going well, you can find bentgrass when it is healthy and green. Look for patches of lighter-coloured grass with the characteristic skinny blades. The shallow roots make it easy to pull out at this time, too.

Closeup

Finding a patch early in the year gives you time to spot-seed the area while giving the desirable  grass time to establish itself. Then by the time the heat strikes, you will have stronger grasses among the weak bentgrass. This method also avoids making the kind of large area of open earth that weeds consider an open invitation to take root.